The best weekday mornings are those in which you have to clean your Jetboil at work because you had an early morning of coffee, friends and bicycles. This morning began yesterday, really, when I got a text from my friend Lucas about getting a group together for coffee. The destination: top of the hill in Gold Medal Park. A handful of others were on the text. We met at 7am.

Mornings aren’t usually my thing. When I’m at a work event until late at night, mornings definitely are not my thing. But I told myself a few months ago that if I had an opportunity to enjoy the outdoors, try something new or meet new people early in the mornings, I’d rather do that than lay in bed. So I’m beginning to find myself to be a morning person.

After 30 minutes of scrambling to find my wallet from the night before, I was on my bike pedaling northward. Before long, I was pedaling up a grassy manmade hill on a spiral trail. Sprinklers were soaking the lush lawn, occasionally straying into my path. A third of me was dripping wet by the time I reached the top to find eight friends and their bikes in an area spared by irrigation. A handful of others would join us over the next few minutes. We ended up having 16 or so people enjoying the morning, complete with camp mugs, Jetboils and coffee filters.

It was 45 minutes of bliss atop the hill. Then the remaining sprinklers fired up. Some of us took a direct hit. Others were lucky to only receive a few drops. We saved a camera, mobile phones and bike packs before retreating to dry territory. It was awesome. One of those moments that you can’t help but laugh at.

All in all, the lot of us chose to spend time outdoors, riding our bikes and hanging with fun people instead of staying in bed. It was a morning well spent.