Night Running
Here, in no particular order, are some of the reasons I love night running…
Moon shadows!
These delightful wonders aren’t that rare if you’re watching for them, but they’re especially magical on the coldest of cold winter nights, when a thick and reflective ultra-white crust buries the details of the forest floor, and a low-and-bright Wolf Moon sends out those long, deep and distinct shadows. They’re a highlight of the season (and there’s no headlamp needed on a night like that).
By myself…
Solitude is good whenever and wherever I can find it, but it’s deeper and easier at night. The later it is, the less likely I’ll be disturbed by any kind of encounter with another person (and sometimes, that’s the point).
That’s particularly true during hunting season. There are good hunters (I respect them and don’t want to disturb their hunt), and bad (I fear them and don’t want to be anywhere near them). In either case, it’s their woods, too. But I still own the night, and I retreat into darkness to give them their time in the sun.
…but not alone
All the best animals come out at night…
Owls and woodcocks and whippoorwills, porcupines and possums, amphibians(!), even some reptiles…
Just be quiet, and pay attention.
Magnification
Darkness magnifies adversity, both real and imagined. It heightens and intensifies the drama of an adventure… and the stories that flow from it. The rain is colder and wetter, the wind is icier, the rocks are slicker, the water is deeper, the fatigue has more power… and continued movement in the face of it all feels more heroic (we all deserve some epic moments in our lives).
The illusion of speed
When I feel the need for speed, I can at least feel like I’m fast by running trails at night. Any given pace feels significantly faster in the dark, and especially on-trail, I can reach the limits of my technical abilities without reaching my aerobic limit. The speed may be an illusion, but it’s a deeply satisfying one.
It makes me a better runner
Darkness is a skill-builder. The terrain is the same, but it’s harder to see it. It forces concentration, it develops proprioception, and eventually it can take you to a next level of reliable body-sense. The only way to become good at running on rocks is to run on rocks. To become really good at it, practice at night.
Because I’m still afraid of the dark
Sometimes, just a little bit, only when I think about it, but yes… I can turn my imagination up and let my guard down, and there it is, native and dark, slipping past my knowledge and logic, reaching an older and deeper place, revealing the possibilities of all those unknown unknowns.
It’s both a thrill and a weakness to fix.
(And this is where I need to acknowledge that for some of you, this is not a fun feature of the night, and that there can be real reasons for genuine fear. If this is your situation, I hope you can find practical solutions that allow you to safely and confidently venture out into the night.)
It changes my physical perspective
On a dark night, a headlamp both collapses and expands your view — it takes out the middle ground, leaving only the small cone of light in your immediate vicinity, and the far distances of the moon and stars (and sometimes a town in the valley below).
Or, turn off the light on a starry starry night and dissolve all distance. Move among the stars instead of under them, like John Grady and Rawlins heading south across the high prairie towards Mexico, early in All the Pretty Horses:
They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode not under but among them and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing.
Cormac McCarthy
It changes my emotional and spiritual perspective
Running can be a mind cleanse at any time, but at night that comes more easily, and it can be more profound. The smoothness and simplicity of it is more intense. It requires more focus, but that focus is easier to find. The mindfulness that I have to fight for during the day is almost effortless, especially late at night.
My daylight runs always include a bit of leaning forward towards what’s next — supper, a meeting, a place to go or a thing to do. But there’s a threshold in the night beyond which those things no longer matter. Supper is long past. Anyone I might have socialized with has gone to bed. My chance at a long sleep tonight has passed.
Before crossing that threshold, there was a dilemma, a pending choice, an open loop, the tempting pull of comfort and familiarity against the cold and darkness.
On this side of that threshold, that’s all gone. Those possibilities have slipped away, leaving this other path, this particular place and time, this holy now.
And so I slip past midnight with clarity, knowing there is absolutely nothing but this run, and that this run is effectively open-ended. There’s no need to think about an ending, no need to think about anything other than this moment, in this tiny sphere of light, and the rhythm of my body as I move through it. It’s the most mindful thing I can do, the most mindful place I can be.
A long race is a sanctioned version of this. Here, this simulated “answering of the call” is expected and enforced. You cross the threshold when you cross the starting line. The passage through the night is not something you’re stealing, not a forbidden aberration, but an accepted part of the event.
It might be that the most valuable thing you purchase when you enter a long race is a guilt-free all-night run.
So that’s nine reasons. It’s certainly not all of them, but it’s where I’ll stop for now. If you’re a fellow night-runner, I’d love to hear some of your reasons in the comment section below.
More…
As I worked on this, I was curious about my night-running history, so I tracked things back and discovered that my first one was on 5 January 2012, and I found the journal entry I made about it the next day. You can read it on my website, here: My First Nighttime Trail Run (Rough #6)
I have never liked night running—it's something I tolerate during extra-long ultras—but I really appreciated and felt a bit inspired by your perspective. I just don't like having my vision limited. I invested in Kogala lights which light up the trail a lot better than a single headlamp, so that helps. Nice post!