Wednesday, September 26, 2007

FIRST NIGHT RUN OF THE FALL
9 Mile Run in the Pine Bush
Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Today was beastly hot and humid, so I scratched my plans to go for a run right after work and waited until it was almost dark to hit the Pine Bush trails at the Madison Avenue Pinelands. That was definitely a good choice... once the sun went down the air temperature was actually something approaching bearable...

I got to watch the full moon rise as I ran, which was fairly cool. The woods were extremely noisy for September - lots of insects and peepers making quite the racket! I also spotted a couple of deer (or at least, their eyes!) and saw lots of wolf spiders out hunting along the paths (their eyes glow like little turquoise jewels.)

At one point I saw a pair of glowing eyes in the bushes and wondered if it was a racoon or bobcat as I crept up on it... in the end it turned out to be a housecat! He ended up being quite a friendly little guy, and even ran along with me for a bit when I started up again, but gave up after an eighth of a mile or so and presumably went back to his moonlight prowl.

So, not the quickest run, and not quite as far as I'd hoped to run tonight, but still a nice visit to the Pine Bush and probably a preview of many night runs to come over the next 5 months or so...

JMH

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