Thursday 21 November 2013

Running towards the light


So I became that person, I am the person who comes home after work when its pitch black outside and the temperature is barely 1 degree, and goes running.

I never thought I’d be that person who would go running in the freezing cold at night when there are radiators and Netflix, but here we are. It has happened.

Now most things don’t phase me too much when running: I secretly enjoy running in the rain. Bright insanely hot sunshine can be gruelling, but manageable. Freezing cold temperatures can be combatted by long sleeved tops and gloves.

But today I had to conquer my biggest fear: THE DARK. Now I like being female, I very much enjoy it, but sometimes it gets in the way of things. And one of those things is choosing to run at night.

Because pretty much for any female, no matter how unappealing we look in our lycra running gear, can't go running in pitch darkness for fear of scary men lurking in shadows. Its rubbish, and check out Reclaim the Night marches for info on protests around this.

So pretty much all parks are out of the question, and you have to stick to lit roads surrounded by houses. This is a damn annoyance to be perfectly honest. I am happy to wear the reflective gear, and look like a idiot in a bright yellow hat (though I have yet to succumb to wearing the only head torch I own, which is a panda’s face with two glowing eyes that flash), but running on streets doesn't quite have the same exciting - look at all these lovely things, as running round a nice park does.

So I kept putting it off, but with the pressure of 26.2 miles ahead of me, I finally went for it.

And it wasn’t too bad at all – I stuck to lit roads and found a decent 5k. I even encountered another runner, who was clearly much more worried about not being seen than I was and had no less than three separate lights flashing on him.

I’m pretty sure even his trainers lit up. It makes you wonder if people run just for the excuse of legitimately wearing trainers with flashing lights past the age of 8.

Apart from the bright trainers, he was obviously a serious runner, because when he past me, he looked at his watch in a meaningful – AM I PBing??? (personal best) way.

And the best part about running in dark? Less people to randomly mock you on the street. Now, this doesn’t happen all the time, but at least once each run you’ll get some moron who is so uncomfortable with the idea of exercise that they feel the need to openly share it with you.

However, those same idiots wouldn’t step outside if there was even the slightest chance of rain, so you get to share the path with much more accepting individuals.

So all in all – despite the problems of being a girl, I still managed to run in the dark!

Evening runs conquered.

Finally here is Wanda Sykes with the perfect solution to the problem:



0 comments:

Post a Comment