Making fitness a priority

Believe it or not, I have yet to start my daily exercising routine. It is just so hard to make exercise a priority when there are so many other things that NEED to be done. I co-taught a workshop on caring for fruit trees today and so I woke up early to prepare the handouts and work on my presentation. I had no time at all to go for a run or head to the gym. Many of my days are like that; I am parenting , working, volunteering, giving workshops, or - sometimes - seeing friends.  I am always busy and I think i always will be. However, I need to make fitness a priority as well. It is such a magic bullet for me in terms of reducing stress, helping me to concentrate and relax, helping to to think clearly, improving my sleep and general health. making exercise a priority means I can do all the things I need and want to with my life.

Tomorrow I have the morning free. The kids are at their dads. I have no meetings, no appointments, no workshops, no work. Well, I should actually do some work on a course I teach BUT I can make time in the morning to exercise. The plan is to head to the Y by 8am, run on the treadmill (I am too depressed by the cold and snow - I know I ran in colder weather but that was in winter! I refuse to run in freezing cold weather in the spring) for 45 minutes, head to a yoga class, then go back to the fitness area and do some strength training. I plan to spend almost three hours there doing it all cardio, strength training, relaxation. Just really make time for myself. yes, there are a million other things I could be doing, grading my students, revising my course, reading, preparing workshops, cleaning my house, doing laundry, talking on the phone, etc, etc. But I have decided to carve out one morning where I spend a few hours doing what is necessary for me to be able to do all those other things. 

And hopefully that will be inspiring and fun enough that I will get back in the habit of exercising and start heading every day (for much less time, of course) to the gym or the yoga studio or outside to exercise.