It's been a while since I trained for a long stretch in the cold and dark; with temps around 40 or 45 degrees last night it was a chilly 3 and half hours. Don came out for the trail run and kept me company retrieving a long lost flag from the optional orienteering leg from the TASC. I know, that race was over a month ago but my schedule has been too busy to get up that way and fetch that tricky control flag. All my energies were on the Eastern Shore and heading East instead of West to Williamsburg. Anyway, it was great to have Don along since my headlamp died shortly after I turned it on . . . I hadn't replaced the batteries from the STORM. It reminded me of the New Hampshire 24-hour race where my lamp died around 3 in the morning and I had to stumble through the final hours of the race relying on Pam and Mike's lights. Suffice it to say, I will start carrying extra extra AAA batteries in my pack from this day forth . . .
Don's NiteRider light was burned out so I was able to return the favour when he followed my HID beam for some road biking through the area. He also had to borrow a pair of my gloves. You can see by the forgotten batteries and gear that we're just starting to get comfortable with all this night and cold training! In a few weeks we'll have it down pat!
Morgan came out for the singletrack biking so I didn't have to ride by myself . . . that's good because the agreement with the park is that you never ride the trail solo at night (for safety). It felt great to get onto the trail and all the leaves on the ground made it slick in parts. For the record, NiteRider lights kick butt! It's like a car headlight strapped to my helmet. We didn't ride at a blistering pace or anything, but it was a good workout and solid multi-hour training to start things off for the winter.
The other Team HRAdventure regulars were still taking it easy after the race this past weekend and I expect they'll be itching to come out next time.