Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark

Outdoor adventurer Pete Woodward takes advantage of Sussex’s dark skies to take on a night-time challenge

- Pete Woodward

Only a few years ago the onset of dark evenings was the start of months of being restricted to evening pavement pounding in the street-lit bubbles of our towns. Significant improvements in lights technology over the last decade have completely changed this. The days of huge battery packs on the bike or clipped to a running belt are long gone. Now you can get a running specific headtorch for less than a month’s membership at the gym. This provides a bright bubble of light for 12 hours at a time and has opened the door to an entirely new type of adventure.

Ten years ago, I ran the Bob Graham Round in the Lake District; 42 peaks and 65 miles with a target of under 24 hours. I softened up my running friends Andy and Duncan with a couple of pints of bitter and dreams of the beauty of running at dawn then, with a fuzzy head, reminded them of their commitment the next morning. A few days later we were stumbling around in the woods in a weak pool of light trying – not entirely successfully – to avoid running headlong into trees. Those first forays into the dark were nervous affairs. We jumped at rustling in the woods, cracking twigs and even sometimes at our own breathing. I guess we are programmed to be afraid of what we can’t see.