Yesterday was a tough day with a long run followed by a bike ride. Today, was a little easier, but still a double session. This time, the bike ride came first. I did another 20 miles on the bike and the legs felt pretty dead early on, but came around later. I finished up around dinner time and it was already dark at the end.
I originally wanted to run hard for about 10 miles today and see what kind of pace I could do, but I needed to be more well rested to do that. Plus, I worked later today than usual and want to travel for that run. That meant I had to do a short run instead.
I didn't give my stomach too much time to digest the food. I began the run at 7 PM, about an hour after eating. I headed to Jacobsburg. I thought about running South Mountain at Lehigh, but I didn't want a trail that was too technical. I did need to run on a trail though.
There is a gate at the main lot, so I didn't want to park there after dark, in case they closed it. Instead, I went down the road a bit to a small lot. The trail begins right across from there. I had a very interesting start. As I headed on the trail, I saw three pairs of glowing eyes staring at me. I'd like to think they were deer, but I'm not sure. In all the miles that I've logged in Jacobsburg, I've never seen a single deer. They did take off into the woods right away.
I headed toward the main lot. That meant some early climbing. Normally, when I do a long run, I walk the really steep hill. I wasn't going to do that today, since I was only planning on running 7 miles. Getting up the hill wasn't too bad. It looks like the new building is now open and that the trail goes to there now. I'll have to check it out in the daylight sometime.
I thought about taking the fun ridge route to the main path, but that is kind of steep. If I did happen to fall there and couldn't get up, I wouldn't have been found until the morning at the earliest. Going the other way to the main lot wasn't as bad, but I had to be cautious there too.
I haven't run in Jacobsburg at night very often, so I never noticed how reflective all the trail markers are. I'm not used to that and kept thinking that it was animal eyes. I cruised along and felt better as the run went on. The food had finally started to settle in. It was a little cold, but not too bad.
I know that part of the trail is close to Route 33, but you can't even notice it in the daytime. At night, however, you can see the cars' lights pretty clearly. That broke up some of the peacefulness of the run.
Most of this run was non technical and easy, but one section between miles 2 and 3 is fairly rocky. My headlamp is kind of dim and the rocks blended in with the leaves. I only stumbled once. Going uphill in this section was much easier than the downhill.
Something big ran in front of me. I'm pretty sure it was a deer because it was that size, but I couldn't see it very well. One odd thing is I didn't hear any small animals like rabbits or squirrels along the trail. Often, this time of year they scurry away through the leaves.
It was so hard to see that I ended up running through the mud sections a couple times, rather than around them. The nice thing is that since you can't see up ahead, hills aren't that bad. They often look worse in daylight than they really are. I went up the one short, but steep hill and actually didn't even realize it until later.
I crossed all the roads with no problems. I then headed onto the Sober's Run Loop. I was past the 3 mile point and closing in on mile 4. I was really enjoying the run.
I came to the powerline and that was a slightly tough climb. Again, it was better than in the daytime though (when you can see the top). I pushed pretty hard up this climb, knowing that it would likely be the last hard part. This mile (mile 5), ended up being an 8:54 mile. That motivated me to push on a little.
I cruised downhill. This is a wide open section, so I could fly. I didn't have to worry about rocks. I went past the turn on the one path, but then decided to go back and take that for a bit. I ran out about 3/10 of a mile. I figured I'd need something around this distance to get to mile 7.
I knew mile 6 was fast, but I wanted to really push on this last mile. I was creeping closer and closer to an overall pace of 9 minutes. Eventually, I did go under this. I finished up by running on the road a bit. I hit mile 7 almost right at my car. The final mile was a very nice 7:26. My overall pace broke 9 minutes, without too much effort. Not bad for a trail run.
Tomorrow, I definitely need to get out there and run about 10 miles pretty fast. If I have a decent pace, then I'll sign up for a half marathon next weekend. I'm hoping to test it out on the actual race course tomorrow, but that will require an hour drive to get there. I'd like to squeeze in a bike ride again sometime tomorrow. I'm in pretty good shape to hit my weekly goal of 60 miles of running and 100 miles of biking. It'll still take some work though.
7 miles - 1:02:18 (8:54 pace)
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