In The Middle of the City...But you Feel All Alone

Where is everyone? O right...still in bed.  Score for me!

Don't get me wrong.  I'm a city girl through-and-through.  I love the chaos, distractions and great bars that come with living in a place like NYC.  But every now and then I just feel like I have to escape...but unfortunately for me, my job doesn't let me take off the beach every time I get that itch.  So I've had a to find a way to escape the city...without actually leaving the city.  A conundrum if there ever was one.    But luckily, I've discovered how to solve this seemingly unsolvable problem!  Run in the early morning!

I've always been someone to workout early in the past...but for whatever reason, this last year I've mainly been a afternoon workout warrior.  But for the last few weeks I've been getting up early to get my run/elliptical in and I can say that I am again in love with the dawn workout.  Not only does it give me a burst of energy for the rest of the day and make me feel good about myself in that I've already burned calories, so it doesn't matter that I spend the next 8-10 hours not moving from my seat in front of my computer/excel sheet (right...I mean I'm good right?)...but NYC feels like a completely different world prior to 7:30am. 

The East coast gets up late.  As a Cali girl, the idea that the office isn't really active till around 9:30 am is just weird...but in terms of working out, it's great.  It means that I only have to wake up at 6:30am to get the same level of un-inhabited loveliness that I used to get at 5:30am on the west coast.  There's fewer cars...fewer people...and now that the weather is starting to warm up you can really appreciate the beauty that places like Central Park and the West Side Highway have to offer.  There's tons of islands of green in NYC...but with all the city noise you don't really notice them.  Now that I'm beating the crazy-people-filled-ambiance that dominates NYC most of the time...I'm starting to notice them.  And it really does feel like I'm escaping the city.

So next time you feel extremely stressed and you need to get away from the grind/rat race that is living in a major city...don't blow you hard earned pay check on a quick trip to the lame local beach.  Just roll out of bed at an earlier hour...and you'll see the place you live in a whole new way.