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November 01, 2004
Running in the Dark
As much as I absolutely love "falling back", there is one drawback-track workouts in the dark. I much prefer it to be light in the morning. It is so much easier to wake up when it is going to be light soon, rather than having the first half hour at work in the dark. For the most part, getting dark earlier does not bother me too much since it makes me get into bed. On days that I don't do track workouts it isn't too bad either, I'm usually getting home just as it is starting to get dark. I can even take a short nap or wait for my lunch to digest and still get a good length run in before it gets dark. The only days that are problems are the days I do my track work.
I don't know if anyone is really good at running in the dark. I am particularly bad at running in the dark, especially when it has been a long time since the last time I ran in the dark. My balance is not very good, as I demonstrated by falling twice on grass this summer. My vision is really bad and it takes me a long time to get used to moving in the dark. Sometimes I wonder if my driver's liscense should be restricted at night like they do to old people because I have such a hard time seeing at night. It has been quite a while since the last time I had to run at night, so I was very uncomfortable tonight, especially during the warm down.
Tonight all but two of the people at the track had run races yesterday, so we did not do the scheduled workout. The scheduled workout was 16 x 300 with a quick 100 jog recovery. It's a really tough workout, but I consider it to be one of my bread and butter workouts now. Instead, we did 12 x 100 strides with a 300 jog as a recovery. I felt really good tonight. I probably could have done a workout tonight, but it would not have been using my head.
Thank you to all who gave encouraging comments about my frustration yesterday. I appreciate everything. In some ways I know the answers and put them out there, but it is nice to hear encouragement from others who have been there and can emphasize. The pace ended up being more like a long tempo workout rather than a race. The extra bit of sharpness from having competition around was not in me yesterday. It almost sounds like a cop out, but I do know that the best races are never run alone. In fact, it may be a blessing in disguise that I did the race as more of a tempo effort, since I'd like to race a 10K this coming Sunday. If I had put it all out yesterday, I might not be able to race for real this weekend. Hey, I still came away with money I didn't have when I woke up yesterday!
Tomorrow is election day, everyone please go out and vote. I'm happy with yesterday's NFL results...the Eagles won and are the only undefeated team in the league this year!
Posted by Blondie at November 1, 2004 08:08 PM
Comments
I have a hard time seeing at night, too. I think this is part of the reason I'm such a cautious trail runner. I think that my vision isn't good enough for me to process things like how much a rock is sticking up, or that there's even a rock under the leaves at all...
Posted by: Alison at November 1, 2004 09:40 PM