It had been raining quite heavily for much of the day and I knew it would be wet when one corner of this field was already under water.... I was running a route I know well but I hadn't run parts of it for a few months. I made it to the top of Chanctonbury ring before I finally lost the last little bit of daylight and had to resort to my head torch.
Running in the dark on trails does slow you down a bit; the light from the head torch can distort what you are looking at (in daylight the direction of light is almost never directly from your head !) and you can miss some hazards.... The other thing I found is that when the light is reflected on water you have no idea what you are running in to... The result of this was me running through water that was quite a bit deeper than I thought because the path was completely flooded !
Running along the ridge at the top of the Downs is always magical, and there is something lovely about being the only person up there listening to the owls hooting....
The last section of the run brings me back down through trees and then it opens out with amazing views looking North, sometimes reality seems a long way away...
I've had people ask if I'm scared running over the Downs at night on my own... I don't know why but it has never scared me, I just feel very much at home :)
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