Running at Night
Hello there!
How was your weekend? I had a fabulous weekend filled with a couple meet ups with friends, a family run and attending a local play.
I met up with my long time blog friend, Angela of Eat-Spin-Run-Repeat and met Christina of The Athletarian and Danielle from Workit.Wearit.Eatit. We had a lot of fun swapping running stories, planning races and of course, enjoying the delicious menu at Thrive Juice Bar and David’s Tea.
It was a delicious weekend!
I finished off the night with dinner out with my family and attending a play.
Love these people!
My family has decided to all run a 5 KM race together when we are in Florida in February and we have settled on the Run or Dye race in Tampa. I am training them and we began our little series this weekend.
I will be including a special feature this winter on their training series and doing a behind-the-scenes look at a couch-to-5KM race from different perspectives. It has been fun to include my entire family on something that I enjoy!
As the winter wears on in Canada, it gets increasingly darker at night and an afternoon run can turn into a run in the dark! A few tips to help you if you are running outside after the best daylight hours:
1. Wear reflective gear and light colours. The last thing you need is to be invisible to a passing motorist!
2. Tell someone where you are going and let them know an approximate time of return.
3. Train on a well-lit route.
4. Leave your headphones at home!
5. Bring some ID!
If you are running trails at night, take a head lamp. Some runners like to combine a head lamp and flashlight for extra visibility.
It may seem like common sense to stay indoors as the lighting fades, but a few reasons to run at night are when you cannot include your training in daylight hours and if you are racing a trail, running it in the dark will help you to know the trail more by sense then sight which may help with muscle memory the day of the race.
I wanted to conclude this by saying that I don’t recommend running at night for a number of reasons. You are increasing your adrenaline and cortisol levels right before bedtime, which may prevent you from sleeping soundly. You are increasing your danger because of decreased lighting, fellow runners and visibility.
Do you run at night? Why or why not?
Great tips! I don’t usually run at night since I work from home (I’m a grad student) so I really have no reason to. But when I was working 9-5 pm I rarely did it!
That is so nice your family is training for a run!
I am not a huge fan of running at night (in case you couldn’t tell from the post..), but I had been out there with a head lamp a couple times this year. Not my fav.
And yes! I love training with my family!
Ahhh loved meeting you!! Hopefully I get to see you next month for a Fresh date!
I do not run at night simply because I am terrified. I don’t have anyone to run with and going alone is just not an option for me. I live in a safe neighbourhood but I still get freaked out!! Maybe you should be my neighbour so we can be running buddies? 😀
It was so much fun! And I love Fresh. Let’s set something up and get it going!
I am not a big fan of running at night either, but if we were neighbours, we would DEFINITELY be running buddies!
This was one of my most favourite weekends this year! 🙂 And I’m so happy to have been with you for your first Thrive lunch experience. Had I known you still hadn’t enjoyed their food I would have taken you there months ago! I love that your whole fam has signed up for a race. Family bonding at its finest! Running at night… not this girl. But running in the dark in the morning is something I’d do if I wasn’t on my own. (Obviously not in the winter though – I’m sure you would have assumed that about me!) Can’t wait until Thursday!!
I know. What a blast. Thank you so much for getting us to go to Thrive. I see many more visits in our future.
I am not a fan of running at night or in winter actually. Sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures… I cannot wait until next Thursday. I think I am trying a latte. 🙂
I find running at night so free. Some of my best sprints and energy comes in the evening sand I find myself feeling like I can do anything ! I have SO much more energy, and that’s what I like about evening runs. Although I try to sleep early, so sometimes that turns into a usually run in the afternoons now.
If I didn’t run in the dark, I couldn’t run much from November through March. It doesn’t get light until 7:30 and it’s dark by 4:30-5 where I live, so there isn’t much choice for weekday runs in the fall and winter. The result is that I such it up, run with lights and reflective clothing and enjoy having a new perspective of familiar routes.
So true! I live in Canada, so we have a very similar situation. Way to make a potentially difficult time of year AWESOME! 🙂