Night Running

I always think of R.E.M. when I write, hear, see the words "night running"; I wonder how long before I really remember that the song is actually Nightswimming?  Any hoo...

Ian, Mindy, and I met with the Pownal Elementary Impact group to nail down details for the Big Brads.  I knew Mindy wouldn't have had a chance to run and we'd be so near Brad... I suggested going for a run after the meeting.  Of course!  You can't run in the park at night so we opted to park at the Lawrence Rd monument and go from there. 

It was amazingly dark.  Mindy's headlamp didn't do a lot to remedy that.  Hopefully, it's just a matter of new batteries, but I think she thinks it never has been very bright.  My lamp was good.  We decided to try the trails; if she couldn't see well enough, we'd head back to the road.  We did pretty well running back up to the Boundary Trail where we turned around and headed back.  It was very cool.  We know that trail as well as any we run, yet it seemed so unfamiliar.  There was a bit less talk than usual just from the necessary focus, but we made sure to be talking loudly we approaching stream/wet areas so that any of the night life would be alerted and move off.  We really only heard one animal, perhaps some rodent, telling us we didn't belong.

Back down on Lawrence Rd, we headed off on the road portion of the BBU.  The night sky was beautiful with brilliant stars.  One noisy, big pickup truck bounced by.  On the dirt road, I realized we'd be running by Wiccahenge at night!  While there was nothing out of the ordinary, the Big Dipper was unusually large and right above the Henge.  Interestingly, the hill didn't even seem like it was there.  I'm sure there is a good hill on that road in daylight.  We turned back at the power lines.  A couple more cars passed us on Lawrence, but that was all.  We heard one animal in a tree, but that was all.

At the cars, we found we'd gotten in about 4.5 miles.  It was 8:36pm.  Pretty good night running.