The last A-Z blog was on running in the morning, so anyone want to guess what ‘N’ is for?! That’s right ‘night’! I wanted to write a little bit about night time running because I know many people prefer the evenings to run with their dog, as a way of unwinding after a day at work. Canicrossing at night, especially in the winter months, has a similar feel to the mornings. You need a decent head torch and to be aware of the additional hazards of running in the dark, such as tree roots you can’t see and wildlife popping out from nowhere. We have recently been trialling a fantastic new product to get you and your dog seen in the dark, take a look here:
The pros for running at night are that you can usually go straight out, as your dog hasn’t been fed since breakfast and then you can both look forward to dinner after your run. You also tend to miss all the regular dog walkers who will have already been and gone, leaving you miles of empty trails to enjoy. I prefer to train on the bike at night for this reason and find it does make a difference to the number of walkers we encounter. The main con that I can see is that you have to be a bit more selective about where you run to make sure you are safe. A number of the local running spots we park up in locally are not the best places to park at night and so meeting up in group is preferable. Other than that we do enjoy our night time runs, particularly when we’ve had a busy day and we can meet up with others for a bit of social time too. So in conclusion, canicrossing at night is great fun and if you haven’t tried it yet, you should and so for that reason ‘night’ is out ‘N’ in the K9 Trail Time A-Z of canicross.
