This week’s running has been much better than last week -24 miles, 4 hours and minus 2961 calories better in fact!
Anyone following me on Twitter will know that I like to run first thing in the morning. And because it doesn’t get light until 7am most of my runs this week have been in the dark.
When I first started going out running in the dark a few years ago, it was a bit scary, I felt on edge and jumped at every shadow. Now I quite enjoy it, my eyes adapt to the lack of light very quickly but actually the roads are usually very well lit. There aren’t too many other people around but the bonus is that I regularly see foxes and one morning I even saw a badger coming out of a back garden! I vary my times and my route a lot to be safe and often run on the road rather than the narrow footpaths. I wouldn’t dream of going off road in the dark.
So where does Sylar (from Heroes) and the hoodies come into all of this? Well, I like to think that I have “situational awareness” at all times when I’m running, whatever the time of day. I was reminded of this on my Saturday “daylight run” when I ran past a guy who was the spitting image of Sylar, now you wouldn’t want to meet him in the dark would you?
But then more realistically, I found myself on a narrow path with a couple of dubious looking hoodies coming towards me. Turn back or go on? I bravely went on..only to realise that they were about 14, very drunk and hardly able to walk. “What is it about everyone doing exercise today?” one slurred as I ran past. I resisted the temptation to provoke, smiled and ran on.
If you’d like to see more details of my training this week go to my page on: 