Night Run

Each Wed at 6:30 pm, our team gets together for an informal group run. Unlike most of my teammates, I have the advantage of being able to schedule my training at any time of the day, so I was a little hesitant to wait until dark to run, but decided to check it out anyway. After all, training by yourself gets a little boring and probably not the safest thing to do.

To run at night, I definitely needed some kind of reflective gear. With that in mind, I left my house 1.5 hours ahead of time because I figured that it might take me 45 min to reach Big Peach Running Co. (the start/finish location) which would leave me an additional 45 min to look around the store and pick up my reflective gear. Four traffic accidents later, I arrived just in time to see my teammates leaving the parking lot. Though I was quite frustrated by this point, I parked my car, went into the store, bought the vest, picked up a map, and went on my way.

The course for last night's run was through a subdivision that bordered the Atlanta Country Club. The streets were lighted, but it was really misty and foggy, so the lights weren't helping. Long story short, I find myself - alone - on this very dark street, in an area I don't know, unable to see the road, much less the street signs. After 5 min, I turned back and did a short run along the main road.

I am confident that I did not run the full 2 miles on the training schedule and was very disappointed by that. In my opinion, the whole night was a bust (and a wasted 4 hours)! I called my sister and complained about the entire affair but she tried to console me by reminding me that I hadn't given up. In spite of arriving late, I got myself together and ran. It may not have been the course I was supposed to run or the distance on the schedule, but I did my best in spite of circumstances.

I suppose over the next few months, this will not be the last time something doesn't go exactly according to plan. When the monkey wrench comes my way again, I just have to make sure I do just what I did last night - don't give up and learn to improvise!

Until next time,
Lisa