A few years ago, I switched from going out for my run early in the morning to doing it in the evening. That timing worked a lot better for me for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that I feel a lot better about running at 8 PM than I do at 5 AM. It also tends to be not so dreadfully cold in the evening as it is early in the morning during the winter.
Lately, though, I have been finding that I tend to sleep pretty badly on the nights after I run. I wake up multiple times throughout the night—often at least once an hour—and then find myself awake for good much earlier than normal despite being quite tired.
I hatched this theory a few months or so ago but then went through a few breaks from running and kind of forgot about the whole thing because it was not an issue. Now that I’m back at the regular running and I once again find myself dealing with the after-effects of several nights in a row of bad sleep, it has returned to the forefront of my mind.
I am really hoping the answer is not that I need to switch back to early morning runs.