the Way of the Turtle

BRRR... WHAT HAPPENED TO OCTOBER?
6 Mile Run in the Albany Pine Bush
Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Bloody cold tonight... lately it seems like we've skipped October and jumped straight into late November. I've been pulling out cold weather gear which I usually wouldn't need until a month or more from now. On the plus side... at no point during tonight's run did I feel like I was overheating!

I ended up doing the entire run in the dark, between delays in getting to the trailhead and the ever-earlier sunset this time of year. Tonight I tested a new piece of gear - a headlamp on a belt clip. A while back I read an inteview with Tim Twietmeyer, an extraordinary ultrarunner who is probably best known for his association with the Western States 100 trail race, and he mentioned using a waist-level headlamp because having a light source on your head produces some bothersome contrast issues at ground level (maybe that's why I trip over really obvious roots and rocks sometimes.) So recently when EMS had several decent Petzl headlamps on sale for under half retail price, I picked up two along with a kit to adapt them for a belt clip. Tonight was the first chance I had to try out the more powerful one, and I have to say the results were somewhat mixed. On the one hand I could see a bit more than with just my trusty Black Diamond headlamp, but on the other the belt-mounted light bounced around quite a bit which at times was a little distracting. But maybe that just takes getting used to.

I ended up running what are sometimes called the Columbia Circle trails (officially known as Blueberry Hills East & West, as well as the Kaikout Kill Barrens.) They've undergone a lot of changes over the past few years due to extensive "habitat restoration." Huge stretches of woods have been stripped to get rid of non-native black locust, and two sections of hilly trail were eliminated... I have to admit, they were fun to run and I definitely miss them. Since I was running in the dark there wasn't much to see, beyond the small circle of light in front of me... I did spot a group of deer off in the woods at both the start and finish of the run, with their eyes glowing with reflected light from my lamps. It's always a bit eerie to look into the trees and see glowing eyes, even when I know it's only deer! A couple were right near the trail - I suspect they were chowing down on the acorns that are coming off the oaks.

Tonight's run was much tougher than it should have been, which just reinforces how far I've fallen out of shape, partially from being injured and mostly from laziness. I suspect that after this weekend's duathlon on Saturday and 15 mile race on Sunday I'll conclude that there isn't much point in making the trip to Ohio for the 1st Bobcat Trail Marathon, since I doubt I have a prayer of finishing it in 7 hours. It's very frustrating, given that in early June I was probably in the best distance shape I've been in for a long time. But so it goes... I'll just have to try to do better next year.

JMH