Rosedawn Ramblings

What are you afraid of? The last time I ran with my headtorch was at Thunder Run in July. Truth be told, although the weekend itself was great fun, I hated everything about the running experience. My first lap, in miserable muddy conditions, reduced me to tears. My second lap in the middle of the night wasn't much better and I was a quivering wreck by the end of it. I didn’t write much about the weekend; I was just glad when it was all over. But ever since my first attempts. I've always loved trail runs at nigh t; after my experience at Thunder Run, I wasn’t so sure.  But I wasn't ready to give up the idea of night running.  My experience at the Rodbaston 10k gave me back some of my lost confidence for coping with mud, water and woodland obstacles. But how did I feel about in the dark? Was I brave enough to get back out there? What if I couldn't do it?  A few weeks ago, I signed up for the Delamere Forest Night Runner 10k... I'd run it befor...

The Dusk Til Dawn Half Marathon... a half marathon in the dark, on a course up hill and down dale around the Derbyshire villages of Hope and Castleton. I said 'yes' to taking part without knowing much more than that! The race started in Hope at about 5.45pm, the official time for sunset on Saturday night. We were layered up, wearing our headtorches. We were novices, totally out of comfort zone and really not sure what we were letting ourselves in for. Every change of direction seemed to bring different underfoot conditions... after a mile along the road from Hope, we followed a gravel track, then what seemed like a rocky river bed before turning up across the fields to Back Tor. We climbed up a rocky incline to the top of Back Tor, actually much less scary in darkness than in daylight for me, then crossed a ridge line to Losehill Summit in the fog, where visibility was just a few metres even with our headtorches. Boggy fields, muddy trails and then more road and on to my ...