Night Light

Another aspect of the upcoming ultra-marathon will be the prospect of running mountain trails at night…and some pretty rugged trails at that!  So the past few mornings I strapped yet another device onto myself before setting out.  This time it was my trusty Black Diamond head lamp.

Sometimes I try to imagine how I ever survived camping expeditions without a head lamp.  A hands free light source is such a boon, especially when you are trying to set up camp in the dark.  And afterwards there is nothing cozier than reading all nestled in your sleeping bag with the head lamp serving as a convenient night light.

While I’ve never attempted to run with my head lamp on, it really wasn’t too bad.  Tuesday morning the band was a little loose, but after cinching it down a tad there was no bouncing about or discomfort for Wednesday and Thursday sessions.  Well, no physical discomfort.  Mentally it was a bit unnerving, only because I could finally see all the crap I was trampling over in the dark.

This only ‘came to light’ this morning when I did the twelve mile loop down River Road and back up Carolina Beach Road.  The Tuesday and Wednesday runs, seven and six miles, respectively, were confined to the neighborhood as I suited up with the full twenty-six pounds of extra weight strapped on and didn’t want to stray from home because Kim was still in Italy and school had started for my daughter, so I had to get back home by 6:15AM.

In the neighborhood I pretty much run on asphalt with no traffic and ample street lighting.  River Road is another story, featuring zero alternative light sources and early morning commuters regularly exceeding a 55 MPH speed limit, usually forcing me off the bike path and into the weeds.  It’s the turnouts into the weeds where the light pointed out a host of potential ankle busters (hefty rocks and discarded trash), and I breathed a sigh of relief for adding the head lamp to my expanding inventory of strapped on crap.  In addition, the light makes me a lot more visible to the zipping commuters.

The runs have all been good, but trying to keep a strong pace with the extra weight is wearing me down.  Cracked the pound-miles mark again on Tuesday, with seven miles and twenty-six pounds yielding a single run record of 182.  I am such a sweaty mess when I get back from these endeavors, though.  It takes a full ten minutes to stop having the sweat just roll off of me.  For today’s twelve miles I only added six pounds of hand weights, but I am looking forward to a good night’s sleep this since Friday is a rest day...and Kim is back, so I've been emjoying her wonderful tales and pictures of a splendid expedition!!!