photo by Marc Strozyk
This week I moved my long run up to Saturday Night. One of our coaches was marking the tail for the morning run so I made plans to run while he marked the trail on his mountain bike.
I left the trailhead before him and I was surprised that it took him four miles to catch me. But knowing someone was behind me spurred me on. He caught up to me another two miles on the down hill stretch , but I was able to make it to the bottom of the hill before he caught me again.
In the fading light I was lucky enough to run past a group of 3 does and a buck at 50 yards. Of course being park deer, they were used to people, but being within archery range of a 100 inch, 3×2 blacktail buck is still a thrill regardless of the setting. That is something I would not have experienced with the larger group.
Since I left the Trailhead at 3:38 pm I was racing against darkness as well. All the other trail users I passed were headed down to the trail head as I ran uphill.
I turned on the headlight for the last mile as the sun dropped below the horizon, and the trees blocked out the twilight.
As I was running along, I thought about the number of solo night hikes, and pre dawn approaches I had made into my hunting spots over the years. When it comes down to it, if you are going to be successful in backcountry hunting, you are going to spend time in the wild in the dark.
This is where a GOOD HEADLAMP REALLY PAYS OFF. A beam that can help you discern a rock or washout on the faint trail that leads to your glassing spot or bivouac site will only make your backcountryhunts, or runs that much easier.
I hit the parking lot 10 minutes after full dark, just after Robert had hit the main road below on his bike and zoomed by me. The ranger closed the gate behind us as we pulled out with another good 8.5 mile training run in the books.
That brought the weekly mileage to 18 miles. I’m still having trouble scheduling three base mileage runs during the week. We will see if I can get it done over the next two holiday weeks.
