I was in Missoula, Montana over the summer and loved almost everything about it. But there was one thing that gnawed at me daily. It was the town’s location relative to the time zone boundary. The sun rose so late in the morning that I never felt like I had time to get a good workout in before I needed to be at the office.

Here it is, right at the western edge of the Mountain Time Zone. Everywhere in the zone, at the moment of this screenshot, it’s 7:38am. But the height of the sun in the sky at this moment is quite different from east to west. The sun popped up over the plains in Sydney, eastern MT, at 7:07a and has a full 37 minutes of climb before it will crest the horizon in Missoula at 7:44a.

Missoula is at 114.0*W, while Coeur d’Alene, ID (116.7*W) is 150 miles west and sunrise is at 6:58a, thanks to Northern Idaho being well east in the Pacific Time Zone.

It works out at the other end of the day, I suppose. It didn’t get dark in Missoula until well past nine, so there was often ample time to get an after-work run in. It’s fine, but I didn’t love that the workout was hanging over me throughout the day. A true first-world problem.

I’m not even a morning person! But I nonetheless enjoy the quiet stillness in the early morning before everything stirs. And as much as I dislike running, I prefer to get it out of the way and not loom over. It’s nice to realize midway through the day that I don’t have to get my run in; it’s already done and dusted.

<hattip to randymajors.org for the map screenshots>