The design and analysis of routing algorithm is an important issue in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Most traditional geographical routing algorithms cannot achieve good performance in duty-cycled networks. In this paper, we propose a k-connected overlapping clustering approach with energy awareness, namely k-OCHE, for routing in WSNs. The basic idea of this approach is to select a cluster head by energy availability (EA) status. The k-OCHE scheme adopts a sleep scheduling strategy of CKN, where neighbors will remain awake to keep it k-connected, so that it can balance energy distributions well. Compared with traditional routing algorithms, the proposed k-OCHE approach obtains a balanced load distribution and consequently a longer network lifetime.