My alarm clock and I have a love hate relationship.

I purchased it before my freshman year of college and my old IPod Nano lives on it and plays whatever song is queued up to wake me up (I prefer more mellow music to wake me from my slumber).

For the last few weeks the clock and I have been having an ongoing battle. When I go to bed in the evening, I have somehow convinced myself that yes I will get up an hour and 15 minutes early and go work out, specifically go for a walk in the military park.

I work later into the evening and by the time I get off, I am usually really hungry for dinner and already only have a couple of hours to relax before bed, so working out then is out of the question.

So, thus begins my attempts to workout in the morning. I think I am up to five times now that I have set my alarm earlier than I would need to go to work. Then when it goes off in the morning, I roll over, look at the time and realize there is no way I am dragging myself out from the warm confines of my bed.

The one time I came closest, I made the poor decision of pulling out my phone, checking the weather and learning it was literally freezing outside. Nope! I was not moving.

Thursday though, I finally did it, but I do have to admit that it wasn’t entirely by my own volition. At the same time my alarm was set to go off, I received a call from work that I needed to go into the office and make a quick change to our EPost.

So I threw on my gym clothes, determined to make use of the fact that I was already out of bed and go work out.

After leaving the office, I headed to the military park, turned on a podcast breaking down Florida State’s recruiting class and began walking.

It was a little cold this morning (I had to scrape ice off my window before going anywhere), but once I began walking, I regained the feeling in my hands and it turned into a pleasant way to start my day.

Now, I have officially deemed today a rest day, but I think I am determined to start trying to work out at least one-day a week. Getting up just a little earlier will be good for my health, as I need the physical exercise and even though I am tired, I think that is more a product of staying up too late than getting up too early.

But, next time I set my clock to get up early I will probably roll over and hit the snooze button that gives me exactly nine more minutes. Maybe I won’t reset it for the entire hour plus and skip the workout though.

Brandon O’Connor is a staff writer for The Vicksburg Post. You may reach him at brandon.oconnor@vicksburgpost.com.