Horses for courses...

Tonight, according to the schedule, I had to run 8 miles. This distance from my house to the Curragh and back is 6 miles, critically it had street lights all the way, useful when you're running in the dark! By the time I got to the Curragh it was still bright, but only just. I had to find an extra 2 miles to make up 8. It looked like the street lights carried on up to the race course so I followed the light.

As I passed through the gate to the race course I wandered onto the course itself hoping to find some grass to run on. As luck would have it I happened upon two fenced sand covered tracks that ran parallel to each other, they must be used as a training run for the horses before races. The surface was raked and bouncy, just perfect for running.

It was going really well until about half way in the sun disappeared, I didn't notice it slipping behind the horizon, it just dropped! At that moment I realised I couldn't see a thing other than the white fences guiding me along. It was a little scary, there could be anything out here, I could be mugged by a gang of delinquent foals around the next corner.

I had to decide if should keep going into the unknown or do the sensible thing and turn back along the path I knew? Of course I kept going, running into the darkness I was convinced that these two tracks were in fact one long track and that met in the middle... they didn't.

At the end of the first track it took a little blind cross country to get to the other track. I found the white railings of the second track and continued the run back towards the light.

That extra round trip was a little over 3 miles and combined with the run home I notched up 9 miles, a little more than planned but then a lot of tonight was unexpected...