I’m working at the office today. Under these circumstances I normally join a couple of co-workers for a couple of laps around the parking lot. We take this little jaunt twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. It does wonders for stretching, getting out of the cubicle for a moment and regaining our vision after staring at the computer for an hour or two at a time.
Since it was barely above 0ºF this morning at 10:00 a.m. (it was -19ºF when I left for work this morning), the weather wasn’t really prime for walking around the parking lot at a brisk pace. Not even at a very brisk pace. On the off chance that I would be crazy enough to do such a thing I did wear two coats, a hat and gloves to work but that wasn’t going to be enough.
I briefly considered doing what others were doing and just skipping the walk altogether, but I couldn’t bring myself to not get some exercise this morning. When I work from home and it’s unbearably cold, I ride the exercise bike for 15 minutes. I forgot to pack it in the Jeep (not that I really could have done that) and so I opted to walk laps around the office building. This isn’t an uncommon activity and the building is designed to readily accommodate this sort of thing. I walked ’round and ’round for 15 minutes. It was somewhat boring but it was energizing. I was definitely more productive after my walk vs beforehand.
This got me thinking about what I can do to energize the first half of my morning as well. I’ve gotten in the habit of waking up to my alarm and grabbing my iDevice to catch up on emails and the like while snuggled under the covers in bed. This is not an optimal way to wake up, but I suspect that it is becoming more and more common in this modern world. So tomorrow morning, even though it will be a Friday morning, I am going to modify my wake-up routine and force myself to get up and get moving a little bit. Just because it’s winter doesn’t mean that I can’t get up and do something, despite the winter morning darkness and cold. Who knows, if all goes well it might turn into a habit.
