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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

02/15/11: It's melting, it's melting!!

The amount of ice on the trail around Lake Zorinsky was much less today. Well...at least on the section I ran this morning.

Don't get me wrong, it was still there...everywhere. But the sections I could run were a little longer and more abundant. :-)

My car was the only one in the parking lot....and I was the only one on the trail. It was dark, windy, and spooky as h*ll.


I got a new headlamp this weekend...and it's awesome. I could actually see quite a ways in front of me AND the trail immediately in front of me without moving my head up and down. Score!

On my way back from the turnaround point, I could hear a squeaking. It was off in the distance, but it was there none the less. I stopped running and slowed to a walk.....and the noise went away.

I started running again.

A few minutes later.....there it was again.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

Injured rabbit?? Maybe one of my shoes is squeaky? Monsters in the dark coming to get me?

I turned around...the noise was definitely behind me.

All I could see was the path winding into the distance through the wooded area I'd just come out of.

Yep...definitely monsters coming to get me!

Act cool.

RUN!!!!!

I didn't hear the noise for quite a while.....but when it came again, it was right behind me.

I turned around (still running) and there it was. A dude...on a bike...without a light...and a wheel that needed some WD40.

"On your left!"

OK, so I wasn't completely alone on the trail after all. I'm not sure how that guy could see where he was going, but there were places where the downhill was on a curve, covered in ice. Recipe for bike disaster, if you ask me. :-)


Lake Zorinsky, 3.02 miles, 12:11 overall average pace (after you factor in the ice, the dark, and stopping to look for the monsters that were after me)

(giggle)

:-)




6 comments:

Fran said...

I would have peed in my pants after hearing that noise and not see it at first. I'm such a chicken!

I'm impressed with your running in such darkness. I do run early in the morning but stay in my village where there are street lights.

Nej said...

@ Fran - I've been running in the dark since I started running. Even in our neighborhood there aren't many street lamps at all.....but this was the first time I'd run around this lake, by myself, in the am. Spooky!!! :-)

C2Iowa said...

Well, what can be said about this monster thing......I actually run with my side-arm when I run in relatively new places; esp in the dark.

Does your headlamp have a red light option?

Nej said...

@ Krystal - Rabbits are the worst. Little s*ckers lie in wait along the trail until you get nearly on top of them, THEN they run. Scares the bejeezus out of me every time. :-)

@ C2Iowa - I was just talking to hubby the other day about getting myself a lighter weight carry gun. My current one is fine with normal clothes, but not so much to run with.

Yep, it has a solid red and a flashing red function. It works really well, but not so much when trying to locate black ice. :-)

Faith Ann said...

Oh my gosh, I am such a scaredy cat of *everything*... I would have passed out from fear!! It looks pretty scary even without the squeaking noises!!

My friend and I had a couple of bats swoop at us last summer when we were running on a trail at dusk. Scared us half-to-death!! (However, it did cause us to pick up our pace and get out of there... apparently we're motivated by fear lol.)

Nej said...

@ Faith Ann - running outside in the dark in the morning is getting easier and easier. The more I do it, the less the rabbits, cats and all other spooky sounding things affect me. Thank goodness! :-)