This was the weekend I needed to do some night time trail running. It's one of those crappier runs that you really do need to do for a number of reasons. It's a must because I will be running through the night on trails as part of my challenge at the end of next week.
Whether it is woods, dirt track, fields, scree, etc it's a good idea to get a little training on similar surfaces you will be likely to tackle at night. This is because the thing with night trails is that is far from being the same as daytime. Everything is different. Your body
Start a 3 hour run at 10pm and your body doesn't want to. It's bed time. Your Circadian Rhythm that regulates your energy, etc is hugely disrupted if you are a daytime person like me. This means you you really don't want to. And when you are out there, even of relatively fresh legs, you feel tired, heavy and cumbersome. I need to know what that feels like as it will be inevitable as the adrenaline of the event wears off and tiredness kicks in. I'm in Taper now and I can safely say I feel pretty overtrained. I feel it in my legs and in my mood. This made it a good time to force myself out into the Dark.
Your Mind
Running across the countryside in the dark plays tricks with your mind. Every sense is elevated. Hearing and sight especially. When you have a head-torch as the only light in an otherwise pitch black night you will see a lot of eyes. It can take you by surprise. Especially when you watch a lot of horror movies. Your torch at distance lights up the retinas of everything from Deer, foxes and rabbits, to spiders (hateful little flashing red eyes by the thousands!). And they are all looking at you! It's creepy. It also puts you on high alert for every rustle, sound and movement... and there is a lot of movement when you run through the woods at night. This can take animals, and by default you, by surprise.
Last challenge on my night hike I was rushed by an angry badger that I had to fend off with a walking pole. This time a deer jumped out only a few meters ahead of me. Let the record show that it was HUGE and had razor sharp teeth, was crazed by the smell of its next human prey, was snarling and I could have died! It was by no means a young doe eyed furry animal that starred in Bambi. When you are on high alert, this sudden rush of a disturbed animal can make you jump out of your skin. (it did to me!).
That said, it's quiet and lonely, and it doesn't hurt to train more of that feeling into you as i know I'll likely be 7-8 hours of being alone in the dark.
Pick a route you know
It's very easy to lose the trail at night if it's not well travelled. I did, a couple of times and I know the route I took the other night like the back of my hand! Everything looks different when it is just you, the dark and a head-torch. Even a good one. Make sure you know your bearings as it's a nightmare when you lose them and find you have crossed a field on a tangent to the trail route and have to cut back. You also risk an ankle twist when you come off a trail path as inevitably the ground is more uneven (especially if cows have been in the field you're running across).
When you take on an event then you are unlikely to know your route and it can be very easy to miss a route marker, so you have to keep your wits about you. This in itself is tiring, so a little practice is always helpful.
Get a good head-torch
Invest in a good one. One that stays on your head, has 400 lumens or brighter, and a good battery life, that opens your range of vision in the dark. I recommend a Petzel. Well worth it. The brighter the head torch, the better your depth perception (though not guaranteed). This is one of the things I found most challenging with the dark, that on uneven trail, it's harder to gauge the depth of dips in the ground and uneven parts. This will slow you down noticeably. It also dramatically increases injury chances! Go Steady as injury risk is higher
I cannot express this enough, be careful of your ankles when running trail at night! I stretched both ankles the other night and I was wearing running boots with an ankle supporting cuff (mids) and had taped up my ankles as I usually do on anything over 10km trail. As mentioned, depth perception is much harder at night as the head torch casts shadows and changes the shape of what you see. This makes it very easy to take a misstep. A single poorly placed foot can end your challenge and end it before it even begins, so be very wary of this. It's a sobering moment when you roll your ankle and recover just in time before you damage it. I know, because it happened twice the other night(each ankle) . I'm just glad I'd put in the ankle strengthening work, taped up and wore the right shoes. I also used poles which have saved my ankles a number of times on the trails around me. It's worth the aggro to use them as they can be a life saver when you lose your step!
. Give yourself time to recover
I've cut it a little tighter to do my night run training this time around. Only two weeks before. Luckily I now have plenty of rest booked in to heal up, but if I'd fully sprained an ankle I will have struggled to get fit in time. You have to make a judgment call. Personally I'd suggest about 4 weeks out just in case you get a nasty tweak and need a week or so off your feet. I can't stress how easy it is to do something like this. That extra time can save everything you trained for from unravelling at the final hurdle. I'm on the heat and ice treatment daily now until a couple of days before the event. I have a niggle because of the tweaking of my bad ankle the other night. But I'll be fine. I have the time and it was only a mild one.
All said and done, I'm very glad I did my night training. I feel comfortable knowing I have this in my legs, and that I have the familiar feeling of just me and the creepy crawlies alone in the night under my belt.
Comentarios