Night Run

I wasn't scheduled to run last night, but 20 degrees, 6 inches of snow and some nice west wind are just too hard to pass up. Last August my luck was to win a free pair Inov-8 trail shoes at Dave's local trail 5k. The shoes were ordered then promptly took up residence in my closet, forgotten.

I'm not given to change, and wear my road shoes on both road and trail; however, last night I remembered the Inov-8's and figured snow would be a good condition to try them out in.

Out the door for a short night run. No headlamp. One of the great things about running after a snowfall is that the ambient light gets reflected on even a cloudy night, making even the most covered trail runnable once the eyes adjust. And unfortunately it was cloudy last night. Venus and Jupiter were in conjunction with the crescent moon, which I'm sure was brilliant, but not visible with our cloud cover. Still worth looking for tonight.

Despite not having this view in the sky, was still a great run. Walking out my back door and down across the open field where the wind was leaving 2+ foot drifts, postholed past the organic farm into the timberline.

Even the familiar becomes extraordinary in the dark. Our second round of snow stuck nicely to the branches, especially so on the bending row of pines along one short stretch of trail. Flushed some large bird in the thickets along upper trail...wild turkey? pheasant? Couldn't see. Had a decent pace going on the less covered spots.

Three and a half miles later finished standing by the small grove of osage orange just down from my house, enjoying the wind blowing through their tops. The Inov-8's were pretty comfortable and the extra traction welcome. Change isn't always bad. Night runs in the snow are always good--that never changes.