Becoming a 5am runner

Today I went for a 7km run at 5am in the morning. Did my View Road loop route. 6.98km / 32:33 / 4:40 min/km and that was a comfortable pace.

I usually watch how I'm breathing on a run and how I feel immediately afterwards although have been thinking about getting a heart rate monitor and being a bit more scientific about it. Any recommendations?

On reflection there are number of clear advantages of early morning running:

- it's not too hot
- hardly any cars so intersections less of an issue, also air quality is a lot better along main roads
- pretty quiet, along the suburban streets in Mt Eden hear you can hear the birds waking up which is nice
- a great start to the day with the reward of a shower and breakfast when you get home.

Now in answer to a couple of questions on my last post:

Yep I'll probably will do round the bays this year just for the experience of being in such a big iconic fun run. I've actually never run it although I have heard it is pretty hard to race it because of so many people.

In terms of running with a water bottle or fuel belt actually no I've haven't done this. Probably my longer runs suffer accordingly. I have started doing a few runs where I know there are water taps available. For instance in Auckland viaduct harbour there is a water fountain directly east of the intersection of Gaunt and Haslett Street. There is another in One Tree Hill near the kids playgound.