I’ve been dreading this run since I booked my return flight back from Portland. I wasn’t able to find a direct flight back to Toronto on Wednesday July 19th later than 8:00am which meant that I would need to do my run at around 3:20am to get there in time. I’ve learned over the years that I need to give myself time to wake-up, drink coffee, and eat in order to have a good early morning workout. I’ve experimented with just waking up, putting on my gym clothes and working out right away, but would feel really lethargic and low energy and in turn, had a terrible workout. The magic number for me is 45 minutes – 1 hour before my runs. I do a bit of reading/work and have my morning coffee to mentally prepare for the long distance. If I’m doing regular workouts, the time before can be shorter, but I prefer that time window to perform the best I can.

So for today’s run, I was awake at 2:30am and out the door by 3:20am. The earliest run I’ve ever done in my life. I slept poorly, dreading the early morning (or late night?) wake-up, but found myself surprisingly awake (probably off adrenalin) as soon as the alarm went off. My pre-workout meal was a Quest Bar, a banana, and a cup of coffee. I’ve noticed that the Quest Bars haven’t been the greatest on my digestive track. I’ll spare you the details, but wouldn’t recommend eating them on a regular basis. The protein content is good, but they are heavily processed and contain some pretty iffy ingredients.

Not only was I worried about waking up early, but also my safety when running that early. It’s really dark until around 5:00am and I’m not familiar with Gresham, Oregon. My girlfriend, the amazing gem she is, ran the first 10.5k with me so I felt much safer. My  aunt lent us her old Lexus so when I dropped Alicia off at the car, she followed me in car for the remainder of the run to make sure I was okay. Knowing I was in a time crunch, I paced quickly for the last half of run and finished in just over 2 hours.

I did a pretty intensive 1 mile uphill hike with my 30 lb backpack to the top of Multnomah Falls yesterday and thought I’d definitely be feeling it today. Weirdly enough, my legs and body felt great and mind alert during this morning’s run.

Only 4 more days left in the #RUN70 Challenge!

Paced fast today at 5’40km/9’07mi after 2 hours 2 minutes and 7 seconds.

*Follow my journey as I run 70 half marathons consecutively on behalf of Oneiric to raise funds for the Canadian Cancer Society. Any donation big or small makes a huge difference. To Donate, visit our #RUN70 Canadian Cancer Donation Page.

All updates will be posted on the #run70 Half Marathon Challenge Facebook page -follow along if you’re interested 🤘🏼