Its too early for a lot of us. Some of us were never meant to be morning people.

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2x Deca-Ironman World Cup (10 Ironmans in 10 days), 2x Quintuple Ironman World Cup (5 Ironmans in 5 days), Ultraman, Ultra Marathoner, and I once did an Ironman.

3:50 AM here.

I usually only get about four to five hours of sleep a night, with some sleeping in on weekends.

On Fridays, I'll wake up at 3:50, go to work, then go to my other workplace, and then do my long brick workout. After that, I come home and stay up until 2 AM watching TV.

Sleep is like water, your need for it is independent and getting too much of it isn't all that good for you either. Think of all you might be missing out on.

The only problem with the craziness of waking up at 4:30 AM is that the rest of the working world is in peak performance mode between 3 and 6 pm when everything for the day is totally revving up to get done before close of business. This is often the most stressful part of the work day and invariably you will notice that many 4 am starters are waning on energy exactly then and becoming non performers and irritable around peers. My personal experience waking up "too early" to cram in major training (heck if you wake up at 4:30 am, you can get an entire 3 hour run in before work) is that you join the non performance club at work in the afternoon. Since most of us are not paid to train, you're basically shooting yourself in the foot in terms of real world work performance.

Sure, early risers are going on full throttle at 9 am when the rest of the working world is barely getting going, but i prefer to be in sync with the working world than peaking for workouts at 5 am and then being useless rest of the day.

I have a lot of experience "shifting" my time zones and when I am in another time zone, I try to set up my work engagements as much as possible to have the high impact ones "when I am on", BUT that's just something you are forced into due to jetlag....no point self inflicting the equivalent of jetlag at home. it's basically stupid to be out of sync with the rest of society since we need to function in the society that we live in.

guess it depends on the line of work you're in. I typically have to be at work around 6:45 so 4:30 is perfect for me. But again, most people wake up at 7. go to work. go get hammered. go home. go to sleep. repeat.

Same 'round here - everyone is revved up at 7-10, with 3-6 being the deadtime. If someone's in past 5, they're doing something critical or have screwed something up and need to make it right.

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Swim. Overbike. Walk.

I couldn't do it. Bed just after 11, and I get up at 7:30. Earliest I can train is at least 40 minutes after I get up, after I've had breakfast and coffee and a mandatory morning poop. Then I'm ready. So I got my day arranged around the sleep schedule and my energy levels. Run to work, bike for lunch, run back. Or bike to work, bike to swim practice for lunch, bike back. Or drive and run at lunch. Sometimes drive and ride or swim for lunch and then run after work in the evening but then the dinner is late.

I get to work by 630 every day. I've moved that forward from 6, since my new group is a relative "late" starting one. This has always created a challenge for me, since I hate waking up early but have a hard time falling asleep if I train in the evening. For years, I'd wake up at 4am to workout, but I found I wasn't getting enough sleep and my overall health began to suffer in a big way.

My solution? Lunch time workouts, with selective morning workouts. Occasionally I'll end up doing an evening workout if I missed my lunch session. That lets me sleep in until 515-530 every day and that extra sleep makes all the difference.

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-Andrew

3-6 is normally when everyone is hitting the is it time to go home yet stage. Definitely less productive where I have worked.

It's all dependent on what you're used to. My average is about 5:30 a.m., but it varies depending on what time I have my first client. On Wednesdays my first session starts at 5:45, so I'm up at 4:45. A couple other days I'm up at 5:00 for 6:00 sessions. Two other days I get to sleep in until 6:30. I definitely feel better on the later days.

The changing times can be a little rough, but it's a compromise that I make because the only alternative would be to get up at 4:45 every day, losing much needed sleep on a weekly basis. (Earlier bed times aren't much of an option.)

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Don Larkin
Reach For More
http://www.reachformore.fit/
USAT Lvl1 Coach, NSCA-CPT, NASM-CPT, BS Exercise Science

Depends on the industry. The oilfield is 24/7 so you get used to being ready at all times. But for the most part my customer's are at their jobs around 630am and know I wake up early.

I guess I am not average.

I get up 7 days a week from 4 to 4:15. On the trainer or in the pool by 5:30.

I try to get into bed at 6, and light off at 7 every night. I never can get too much sleep.

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

Boom Nutrition code 19F4Y3 $5 off 24 pack box | Bionic Runner | PowerCranks | Velotron | Spruzzamist

Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

I hope you are kidding. N1 study, slept 2-3 hours a night as an med device sales rep aged 10 years in 2 years, body broken down by end. Never really improved in triathlon from a 10:50 Ironman. Fast forward, slept up 12-14 hours a day, mostly in the 9-10.5 range, being growing strong and steady, still not very good, but improved to 8:20. Really the only thing, I changed was sleep. You might think you are doing ok on 4-5 but give it 18 months at the equation, 8 hour + 30 mins for each hour of exercise, and I bet you change your tune

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I'm sorry did you just say 8:20 IM is not very good?[/reply]

5am-ish here so I'm not far off. I'm at work by 6 and off by 3:30. I work as an engineer and my workplace is flexible with hours. I will say that in the morning I'm way more productive. Not that I'm tired or anything in the afternoon, it's just all the people walking by stopping to talk and everyone is ready to go home so they are just wasting time.

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8:20 is not very good in terms of 7:45 or whatever the record is. Don't get me wrong, I am blown away to have even achieved that time from when first starting, but I still have a long way to go.

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3:30-3:45 here. In bed by 10:00, 10:30 at the latest.

My daughter rows for her high school and four mornings a week has to be at her boathouse by 4:45, which means we need to be out the door by 4:15-4:20. After I drop her off and park, I run along the river for 45-60 minutes, then eat/drink and hang out in the car until her practice ends at 7:00.

The first few weeks of this were brutal, but now I don't even need an alarm any more - I'm waking up anywhere between 3:30-3:45 without it, although I still set it just in case. After dropping her at school and getting showered and dressed at home, I'm at my desk by 8:45-9:00 and have more energy through the day than when I was waking up at 6:00 or later and working out after work

ETA - I work from home Mondays and Fridays which helps a lot by not having to commute on those days.

^ Why I quit my US-timezone job. Working 5pm-2am is awful... The spouse is at work when you're home, by the time you've woken up it's too hot and humid outside to train properly and you're always out of it. Constant jetlag.

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ZONE3 - We Last Longer

Alarm goes off at 4:15a on weekdays and I'm usually up on my own before 6a on weekends. Three days a week I'm out the door on my bike by 5:40a and I use the extra time the other two days to get the kiddos ready for school (their alarms go off at 6a). I'm in bed between 9 and 10p each night so I get 6-7hrs of sleep. This has been my schedule for the last 2.5yrs and provides a great balance of training time and family time.

Ditto here. Get up at 4:30 all the time. Nothing useful going on after 9:30 pm anyway.

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I think the issue is not what time you wake up but rather how much sleep you get. Stealing sleep time to wake up early and train is a recipe for disaster IMO. Everybody is obviously different in their sleep requirements though. If I do a 2 hour bike ride before work on than 6-7 hours of sleep I feel pretty worthless during the workday. If I get 8-9 hours of sleep I feel fine with the added bonus of feeling relaxed all day from the endorphins.

Also in my case I am East coast doing a lot of work with US west coast, so my day does not really end at 7 pm when I leave the office, it goes on till well into the evening at home, but on the flip side my mornings are less of a rush once I have dealt with the Europe team guys. But seriously being on "constant jetlag" in your own time zone royally sucks. I am not sure why anyone would voluntarily do it.

Pretty sure those hours are the least productive at most places, I think the ideal work hours are around 5 to 6 hours, past that you start to procrastinate. Working on a golf course my busiest hours were 6am to 10am, the afternoon was generally far slower.

Uh, yeah.

It's hard to reset your circadian rhythms. I'm naturally a night owl and it doesn't take much for me to start backsliding into staying up later and later. I go to bed by 9:30/10:00 every night but I don't fall asleep for an hour or more. I don't have any caffeine after noon. I make sure to finish any workouts before 6:30/7:00 at night.

I'd not be functional if I had to wake up at 4:30 every morning. I doubt there's anything I could do to 'adapt' to that time. I think my ideal schedule would be asleep by 1, up at 8:30 or so. Unfortunately for me the world doesn't agree!

I feel your pain.

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Swim. Overbike. Walk.