Running in the dark

Recently I’ve been meeting up with a running club in the area where I was fortunate enough to meet a wonderful running gal. Although Nina runs a touch faster than me, she is making a perfect pace rabbit and a great motivator. So far she has managed to convince me to wake up far too early on a Saturday, run hills, and push myself to certain limits I’d typically avoid.

And tonight what did she rope me into? A late night, in the dark, run! Of course it didn’t start that way… I drove up to a lake while the sun was still in the sky as I waited for the rest of our cohorts to show up. Since Nina had organized the run, I had expected that she checked the park’s hours. What did we find out? That it closed at 9pm and we had to move our cars or we’d get fined!

So we moved our cars and proceeded to make our glow bracelets and necklaces so we could find each other in the dark (a shockingly great idea). Once we all arrived we got on our way on a trail into a park where we’d never been. Perhaps it wasn’t the greatest idea to try a new trail when it was getting very dark out, but who doesn’t love an adventure, right?

We began our trip around a lake and realized we’d misinterpreted the size of the lake. In an effort to keep the distance down, we turned around and made it a solid four mile run. Fortunately a new running friend, Daria, came to set the pace properly (since Nina likes to vary too much). Thank goodness for that, I felt amazing after the run and truly believe I could have kept going. I think I’m going to keep Daria around so she can help me improve my pacing for my upcoming marathons.

What did I learn tonight? Glow sticks are more fun when you get older and running in the dark is great because you can’t constantly check your Garmin! I’m having a blast with these ladies, hopefully we’ll get to run throughout the summer even though I’m moving into the big city (more news on that to come).

Do you prefer to run in the dark or during the day?