In order to develop a habit, I came up with a challenge for myself: to run early in the morning 30 times by the end of spring, and now to show morning Kyiv through the eyes of a runner. What came out of it - read and see below.

Does a good Sunday morning start with a run? I ran to the old botanic garden to check the magnolias. The white ones have already bloomed (the smell!), The pink ones are still in buds.

It is wonderful in the Holosiiv forest in spring. By the way, the largest forest massif in Europe is within the city limits, and this is also Kyiv. Today I woke up to an alarm clock for the first time. Not yet a habit, but already an addiction.

Despite the external frivolity, the selfie photo and the Chinese photographer, the goals of #30MorningRuns fully correspond to the SMART term of project management:

An exact answer to the question of what exactly you want to get as a result. Everything is simple here: develop the habit of waking up early and running in the morning, make the lark mode comfortable for yourself.

We determine how we will measure the result, quantitatively and qualitatively. In my case, a run starting at 6 - 6.40 was considered a morning run. In total, as part of the challenge, you had to run 30 times. The result was to be a new mode with easy and quick falling asleep around 10 in the evening and the same rise until 6 in the morning without an alarm clock.

The goal should be doable, but not too easy. 30 runs in 2 months in the off-season is not much for me (3-4 times a week), but it is enough not to relax and not to postpone for later.

Simply put: do you need it? Why? About my personal bonuses of morning running - in a separate article. Spring is the best time to switch to a new mode: waking up when it's light outside is much easier. In addition, in Kyiv at this time of the year, the morning is so wonderful that the inner esthete wins over the inner lazy.

If there is no clear deadline, then with a high probability the goal will be achieved almost never. When setting deadlines, I advise you to allow a little more time for various force majeure events. For example, I managed to catch a cold, as a result of which "30 morning runs in April and May" stretched to the beginning of June.

Yesterday, I lost my routine and ran during the day. And all because of sticking to the broadcast of Boston on Monday - things had to be postponed until the evening, I went to bed late. But I wake up in the new schedule easily.

Restorative after a half-marathon — on slopes and parks. The lilac is already beginning to bloom, and the chestnuts are about to be harvested.

All this is effective, but very boring, and only causes a normal person to yawn, especially at 5.45 in the morning. Therefore, the fan component cannot be dispensed with. In my case it is:

For all my preoccupation with progress and numbers, I am first and foremost a runner runner. For me, running is the best way to explore new places and see old places in a new way. In this regard, Kyiv has many opportunities and interesting routes. I just like to run, look, dress up, sometimes take pictures and share moments.

Early morning runs are special. It is beautiful in any weather and every time is different. The feeling when the city is still sleeping and everything around belongs only to you is cool. It's better to just try it, it's worth it.

A lazy run to the park and look at the eggs?

I like to run near the water. However, this route is not suitable for the warm season - there are too many fishermen, garbage and accompanying aromas. From observations: it is easiest to wake up with open curtains, no alarm clock is needed.

Another component that increases the chances of not getting angry is social. When you announce your challenge to an audience of 1.5+ thousand people and report on every run on social media, is it somehow inconvenient to just spit and score? And such a desire will certainly appear.

I suspect that the #30MorningRuns running spam on Facebook got a lot of people, but it definitely disciplined me. I hope there were also those who were inspired to taste it, or at least looked with pleasure at the pictures of Kyiv in the morning.

A stunning botanic garden after the rain and in the midst of lilac blossom. The opportunity to be face to face with this beauty is one of the reasons to become a morning runner.

A perfect morning in the forest. Another world and a complete switch of the head.

20-30 repetitions for this is exactly it. Somewhere from the fifth time, she began to wake up to the alarm clock, but often with a creak. It took more time to get into the habit of falling asleep correctly - I mostly went to bed on time, but it took me a long time to get back up.

10-20 times - it seems that everything is already fixed and working, but every now and then the "maybe not today?" bug creeps up, with which you have to communicate.

After the 20th time, complete comfort. Quickly falling asleep, easy elation, a minimum of thinking about the topic. Almost like brushing your teeth - everything is automatic, without connecting the head.

With my mother in the wet and foggy Holosiiv forest. They stirred the dirt a little, paid a visit to the swamp kikimora, scared the ducks and almost didn't get lost. It's hard to believe that all this is a 15-minute drive from the city center.

I'm not mad, it was a little technical break for a cold, so the morning bego spam continues. Meanwhile, the acacia is blooming in Kyiv - by the way!

When you focus on a goal and work for it for several months, and then achieve it (or not at all), sometimes a strange state of desolation sets in. It is still too early to choose such goals, how about resting? run - why?

Thanks to #30MorningRuns, I quickly switched from "every training is with a goal, I work for the result" mode to "I just like to run and watch".

Running exercises at the stadium. Did you catch another runner on the road, did you also make the SBU do it?

Gloomy and fartlek.

Views of the Dnipro, the left bank and bridges in the morning fog, bright green parks with flowering chestnut trees, alternating with the scents of acacia and linden, alone with a blooming magnolia and a luxurious lilac in the botanic garden, a complete switch and another world in the forest, freshness, air sunbeams through the trees, empty streets of Podol and Upper Town - all this is nearby and available here and now, you just need to wake up and go out there.

With reindeer-runs from Smart Running, it is not at all like a photo, would you survive there? In the breaks, we managed to see a beautiful pond and ducks.

Today, repetitions are "fun work" (c). The work is unusual for me and with a whole range of new sensations - from the legs that bend at the end to the dizziness in the head? But then it's good!

In the process of the challenge, I was interested in not just clicking my feet in sneakers, which was included in the report, but showing my favorite running places and routes (I didn't manage to do all of them). I will make a separate post with a selection "Kyiv through the eyes of a morning runner."

At the same time, the art of running selfies was pumped in collaboration with my personal Chinese photographer named Jiayu.

A side effect: towards the end, all this mobilization got a little boring, especially with the increase in the number of work trainings, for which it is inconvenient to take the phone. Instead, now the photo archive will be enough for a year ahead?

She breathed in the forest, hugged a friendly fighting dog, watched a movie shoot in Pyrogovo.

Today, fartlek is interesting because of the terrain and different surfaces. Of those non-boring workouts that fly by unnoticed.

The only summer minus of running early in the morning is insufficient adaptation to the heat, because runs take place in cool hours of the day. I have plans for a half-marathon in a hot climate, so part of the training will have to be moved to the daytime, and not to take it easy in the morning coolness.

And a new challenge was invented to develop another useful habit, which I can't seem to do, so the continuation follows.