Now that the Brooklyn Half Marathon is done with I have about a month and half off before my marathon training begins. I’ve got a few races in between but they’re not goal races so I’m looking forward  to just running for fun if you will.

One of the biggest challenges I had while training for the half was getting up at 5:00 am for my weekday runs. This new schedule, because of my mother’s hospitalization, made the training harder than it should have been. 5:00 am won the battle to get up more often than not. But slowly, I am beginning to adjust to this new early morning running thing. Of course it helps that it’s now light out and warmer.

But what the hell is up those damn birds!?! Do they really have to chirping all happily before 5:00 am? Do they not need to sleep? And don’t give me that early bird gets the worm crap. There is no need to be up before 5:00 am and I’m looking at birdies.

Birds aside, I’m very impressed with the amount of other runners I see in my neighborhood at that time. Even though there are two of them I really want to punch in the face because they just flat out annoy me, especially that woman who runs with Flashdance styled cut-off shirt and flails her arms out like she has broken wings (see the connection to the birds there? Like how I did that?) Any way she pisses me off.

Then there is the guy who pisses me off because he runs recklessly in the street even when it was dark out. I also don’t like how he dresses so he gets put into my annoying people bucket.

Neither one of these people can say hello as they pass by, although Ms. Flashdance will look at me as she swings one of her broken wings around. She deserves another punch for that.

Aside from these two people I really do like my fellow early morning insane runners I encounter. My goal is to see them more often which means that 5:00 am and I will have some future battles to endure.