Last night, just as the sun started to set, I pushed out on my longest run since December.  Running trails at night is always a challenge.  Among other things, it can take an hour or so to adjust to the strange, depthless perspective afforded by your headlamp.  Even so, you spend a lot of time watching where you’re going.  So true and more so last night.

With temps in the upper 30s, I didn’t have much company after the first couple of miles, as town centers gave way to industrial parks, and the trail wound in and out of strands of trees and leafless bushes.  The effect was one of almost complete isolation.  The sounds that usually become much more noticeable at night, simply in the dead of winter, aren’t there.  Not, really, that it mattered all that much on the way out – I was preoccuped with getting my stride right, discovering that my Nathan was leaking, and listening on and off to Bad Brains on the ipod.

By mile 6 however, earphones were off, and it was just the sound of my feet on the crushed gravel and dirt.  Many runners spend an inordinate amount of time on every run inventorying their bodies, running through a checklist, finishing it, and then starting over.  I don’t remember this quite so much when I was running short distances, but now… Now I have profound conversations with myself as I constantly run self-diagnoses on all the things that hurt.  And, with me, there’s a lot.  Last night was no different.

Yet, in the end, it’s just pain, and it goes away.  For me, it also serves as a reminder just how pleasure-loving we are, and how much we try and avoid that which is uncomfortable.

I finished the 15 miles in 2:57 which is absurdly fast.  My great challenge now, in addition to putting on many more miles before late May, is learning how to slow it down before the point where my body does it for me.