Running in the darkness of night can seriously mess with your head. You can start to see things, start to think thoughts, start to wonder who might possibly be lurking around corners, behind trees, under benches.
I’ve been here before. Mostly when running solo in the early morning hours before dawn. But tonight, for hill repeats, that imaginative mind of mine went full boar ahead, even with my new group of running chicks all around me.
It all started on the downhill, when out of the corner of my eye I saw an older fellow walking down a driveway towards us. I didn’t really think much of it at first, but that mind, oh, her wheels started turning, and fast.
This hill, while decently lit, was still fairly dark, but not so much a black dark, more like a spooky midnight blue dark with traces of foggy lighting interspersed here and there. Long driveways. Giant trees all around. And the one driveway that isn’t long is equipped with a well-used punching bag in the open garage. It’s the kind of setting you’d see in a b-rated horror flick right before the big breasted blonde gets speared by a pitchfork…
Oh freak! Wait a second! He’s carrying a pitchfork! For real. The old dude, who’s more like a monster, he’s walking down towards us, we’re heading right into his line of aim, I’m the closest to the pitchfork, he’s Hitchcock hunched. Holy freak, I’m going to die!
Good thing it was all or nothing hill repeats 😉 Pretty sure I made it up that hill in record time. Too fast for the pitchfork!
And when we turned back around for our next repeat, that old dude, now near the bottom of the hill, was sauntering with a swagger into the blue as though he’d achieved what he had set out to do.
Freak the begonias right out of me!
TONIGHT’S HILLS
5:50 p.m. BG before: 9.5
Carbs: none
Basal: -50 per cent (1 hour)
Distance: 8.52 km 30′ easy, 10×20 second hill repeats, 10′ cool down
Time: 1:02:05
7:30 p.m. BG after: 8.9
Basal: +80 per cent (1 hour)