Happy Days Night Run

Ready to attack the night

I had originally planned to run tomorrow morning with my friend Derek and then meet up with Bill Wagner, Kurt O, and others at Lock 29 around 8. However, Dan Kuzma gave me a call during the afternoon and said that he would be up for a night trail run tonight. I had to think about both options for awhile, as they were both tempting, but I decided that I was in need of some nighttime trail running before the Slim Pickings 70 Miler on Nov. 16th. By running tonight it would also allow me to sleep in tomorrow morning, so that helped to finalize my decision.

Once Dan picked me up, we headed over to the Happy Days Visitor Center parking lot around 7. Upon arriving I noticed that it was going to be a little chilly on our run (around 40 degrees). Since we haven't had much cold weather yet it was hard to figure out what to wear, but I was glad that I decided to wear my winter fleece hat. I thought about wearing light gloves too but ended up going without them and was glad that I did once my body started warming up.

Tonight we took the route that I usually like to take... Going underneath Rt. 303, up to the ledges, back down towards Kendall Lake, and then over to the Kendall Hills.

Have no fear... It's only a deer...

Dan and I both enjoyed the run tonight since we haven't done much nighttime running lately and I was very glad to not feel much fatigue from my marathon a couple weeks ago. Speaking of fatigue... tonight I wanted to try out this 5 hour Energy Drink that I had laying around my place to see if it would be something that I might want to have during my 70 miler in a couple weeks. The bottle is basically the size of a tall shot glass and provides you with a heavy dosage of energy ingredients. I only had a few sips though because I didn't want to be wired for the entire night. I was surprised at how tolerable the taste was. This energy drink comes in 2 flavors (lemon lime and berry). The bottle I had was berry and it basically tasted like Kool-Aid on steroids. Shortly after drinking some of it I could feel a little boost and I didn't experience any negative effects so I think that I'll bring some of it along with me for my 70 mile attempt on the 16th.

On our way back to Happy Days we took advantage of the mostly downhill grade and picked it up some. This is a great area to run during the day when you can really let your legs stride out. After a final push up the last hill we wrapped up with a total of 7 miles. I asked Dan if he wanted to do the 3 mile Boston Run Loop once we got back to his car, but he said he had a tiring day at work so we both decided to call it a day.

If anyone is interested, next Wednesday (Nov. 7th) a group of us will be meeting at the Lock 29 parking lot around 6:15 pm for a night trail run. For more details visit - www.teampr.info/forum/viewforum.php?f=2