the Way of the Turtle

BACK TO THE GERBIL WHEEL
4 Mile Run on the Mohawk Hudson Bike Path
Friday, January 22, 2010

Ordinarily I wouldn't go for a run the evening before a race... but for whatever reason, I really wanted to run tonight. So I headed over to the bike path for an easy 4 miles in the dark.

Long time readers of my ramblings might remember my referring to a section of the bike path as the Gerbil Wheel after training for the Eastern States 20 Mile Road Race back in 2007... basically there's a 2 mile stretch of the path from the Niskayuna Lions Park to Lock 7 Rd that's plowed in the winter, and I needed to put in a lot of miles on pavement, so I spent many nights running back and forth, back and forth... hence the name.

I ended up wishing I'd brought my camera when I pulled into the parking lot and discovered that there's a lit Christmas tree in the front window of the old Niskayuna train station (the bike path runs along the old railbed.) Very pretty... I'll have to get to back there soon and get a photo at night.

One of the things I enjoy about running at night in the winter is how still it can be... another is how bright it can be with even a little moonlight. Didn't need a headlamp at all, and I could see the path clearly the whole time. The river is mostly frozen over, but I still heard ducks off in the distance when I neared the point to turn around.

It was a nice clear night so I could see plenty of stars and constellations, though Orion and the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) were the only ones I recognized. Mars was shining redly in the east, and what I thought was a planet to the south turned out to be Sirius (actually, Sirius A... Sirius B is a tiny white dwarf star that orbits Sirius A and isn't visible to the naked eye.)

If not for the race tomorrow I probably would have stayed out for another 2 or 3 miles, but instead I forced myself to stop when I got back to the park... last year the Hoot Toot & Whistle snowshoe race was one of the toughest ones of the season, so I definitely want to have some juice in my legs for tomorrow morning...

JMH