It may be dark, it may be raining, and it probably is quite cold, but a look around Canberra shows there are plenty of people not using that as an excuse to hibernate this winter.
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Rewatching your West Wing box set late into the night may seem preferable to pulling on the football boots or getting up early for a run.
But the message from those who brave the outdoors is simple: once you get started, it's actually not that bad.
"Think of it as a swimming pool … you dip your toe in, you go 'oh, it's cold' - you're a bit shy to try it,'' said Battle Camp Fitness trainer Xavier Stravens.
''But once you get that first push, you'll keep going. The cold really isn't an excuse … if everyone else can do it, why not you?" he said.
Participants say the trick to coping with the cold and enjoying it is to layer up and keep moving. While Battle Camp's boot camp numbers are generally a bit lower in winter, the cold is not the biggest barrier, with 6am sessions attracting triple the numbers of the after-work groups.
"It's harder to convince people to come out at the end of the day after they've spent a long day at work," Mr Stravens said.
The steaming bodies running around the parks and ovals each evening show hundreds manage to do it.
But, if that sounds too cold, spare a thought for the dragon boat racers hitting the lake, training for next month's world championships in Hungary.
"When you're sitting in the boat … you get very wet,'' said president of the Ice Dragons club and a member of the national squad Tammy Ven Dange.
''Most of the other water sports you don't actually put your hand in the water but we do. I think if I were to have started the sport in the winter time, it probably would not have appealed to me at all," she joked.
The big thing is to find an outfit that works for both warmth and movement.
"We often look like snow bunnies going out," she said.
Fishing waders, gloves and a few top layers are her personal outfit of choice, and apparently the effort is worth it.
"We get some of the best nights. Last night the water was perfectly flat, you've got the moonlight shining. It's really beautiful."
If thick layers are all that will get you outside in the winter, ice skating starts this weekend.
