The alarm sounds. Stretching out I reach for my phone and turn it off. My eyes are closed and yet I wrestle with the same decision every single morning.  It's a struggle yet I rise quietly. I rummage around for my running clothes.  Silently I slip from the room and lace up my shoes. It's early. Forcing myself to walk downstairs instead of turning around and crawling into bed for another hour. The campus isn't quite awake, I meet a couple of workers hurrying to their early morning shift and a few guests are out but most are still in their rooms. As I cross the street into town, I look down the deserted sidewalks. The shops are dark, the parking spots along the street remain empty. The town is still asleep. I make my way to Whale Park, stretching a little before getting to the sand, I try to stay quiet as the geese make their way overhead. My route takes me across the soft sand to the hard pack along the creek that leads out to the ocean. The seagulls take this quiet time to bath in the creek, and the geese land walking from sandbar to sandbar. The Western Sandpipers moved in groups from shallow area to shallow area feeding on something as I run by.  Haystack rock is usually my destination on these quiet mornings. It allows me to process my day, to think, to pray. Each morning I struggle to pull myself out of bed but as I run I can't imagine why it was ever that hard. Some days the lure of more sleep over takes me but each time I mentally win the struggle I am rewarded by the time, rain or shine.