Early Saturday morning I went for a "long run" once again. I got up early, made some expresso, and prepared my gear. I strapped on a headlight, dug out a little hand held flashlight, and got dressed. I chose not to bring any food or drink as I was only going for two hours. I also chose to stay close to home for the same reason. I didn't see the need to go to the Wiss jsut for a two hour run. Also, I wanted to get in more distance before I start  hitting the hills on my long runs as I have to walk them, thus cutting my distance, if I want to keep my long runs low intensity. I was also eager to keep exploring this trail as I haven't run the whole thing yet. The other day I ran North on the trail, having to cross a creek, but quickly had to turn around due to running out of time. So I ran on the Green Ribbon trail close to my home. I can get on the trail in about a quarter mile from my house. If I wanted, I could link up to the AT and theoretically go all the way to Maine or Georgia. But I digress.
    Tonight had a full moon, but it was a little cloudy, limiting the ight a bit. It was still light out though, with a beautiful silvery light bathing the woods and path. It was fairly cool, low 70's I think, and humid.  I'm not going to give a blow by blow of the run. It was great to be back in the woods again at night. All of the old associations of getting ready and running by my light just resonated within me and made the whole experience just wonderful. There is something very peaceful about running in the woods at night. I tried to focus in on the sound of the crickets throughout the woods around me as I ran, which is a sound I always associate with summer Younglife camp in Frontier Ranch in Colorado. I bought a tape there by a local artist that was so peaceful. One of the songs had an intro on it that was just crickets which then soft guitar music slowly began to play over. I remember the name of the song: Hill Counrty Crickets. I regrettably taped Pink Floyd's The Wall over it and then threw it away about 15 years ago.
   I ran along in silence, enjoying the night. I crossed the creek again, the only creek crossing on the trail not supplied with stepping stones for crossing, and ran on into the part of the trail that was new to me. At one point, I got off the trail and got turned around. I was only off trail for maybe two to three minutes but I started to get scared as everything looked the same to me. It's a bit irrational to be scared, but I still get bothered by thoughts of ghouls and ghosts and such in the dark in the woods at night, making my hairs stand up. Shows like Ghost Adventures don't help, which I often watch on the weekends the night before as I'm falling asleep. I found the trail in  a few minutes and started running again. However, I had gotten so turned around that I was running in the wrong direction, back the way I had just come! I realized my error pretty quickly and turned around. I saw where I had gotten off track and kept on going in the right direction. In a few minutes I reached the point at which I would be turning around. Here was RT. 202, the furtherest I had run from the opposite direction, linking up the every section of the trail now that I had run. At some point I will run the whole trail in a Fat Ass event, probably in the late winter for a 50K. I turned around and headed home. I saw a lot of wildlife on this run; two raccoons, a deer, couple of huge slugs, and a bat that flew past my ear making fluttering noises. I typically see bats, but never so close. They tend to swoop down into my cone of light and scare me, but never has one flown so closely to my head. I don't often see raccoons either, which was kind of neat.
    I am disappointed with how much speed I have lost in such a short period of time. I guess cigars and gaining 10 pounds and going off the vegan diet coupled with weight lifting will all add up to hurting endurance and aeorbic function. Oh well. I'll keep trying to look forward and and not back and keep training while dropping my weight back down and building my endurance.
    Overall this was a real nice reintroduction of my early morning long runs in the woods.