West Virginia Mountain Trail Runners

I wasn’t trying to go for a night run. But it had been a super busy day at work, and Joel was gone to an evening meeting, and I wasn’t really all that hungry. So when I finished my second job (baking bagels) by 7:00pm and still had the urge to throw on the running shoes and head for the door, I did not hold back.

Out the door by 7:30, in this week just past the solstice and already well into Daylight Savings Time, there was still light in the sky. I’d just go for a few miles, just to stretch out the legs.

Now this might be incomprehensible to a non-runner, but the above scenario happens to be a perfect possible recipe for a long run. Kinda like making babies, you just have to have the right ingredients in the right place at the right time and it might or it might not happen. In this case, it happened (not babies, but a long run). 2 miles in, I was feeling really smooth, strong and good. So instead of turning for home, I kept going, “oh, maybe I’ll do the slightly longer loop,” I thought. I still had options for a 6 or an 8 mile loop.

Well, those two turnoffs came and went. Its starting to get fairly dark now, though the mild spring weather was quite pleasant, in daylight and at night, it was a shorts-and-a-tshirt kinda run. It was Wednesday evening, and by that time of night it seems that most of the other inhabitants of my area are pretty well holed up for the night. The roads were almost completely empty of cars.

You could probably guess that I didn’t turn back at the 4 mile or the 5 mile points either. Nope, I took the last turnoff available that would really get me back at all — the long way. Up around across the mountain and looping over the hills in a particularly indirect direction, I finally ended up back on a road that led back to town. No street lights out there, no cars, an occasional house or abandoned strip mine. Complete peace — within and without. I haven’t been feeling much like running lately, but everything clicked tonight and the miles passed without effort or notice. Winding through the hills on these narrow gravel roads, I could only hear my footsteps and breathing and my night-vision was working nicely.

4 miles turned into 14. I wasn’t wearing a watch, so I have no idea how long it took. But I was back home, and eating a hastily prepared (bagel cheese sandwich) dinner before 10 o’clock.

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