hazy shade of.

The night was amiss right from the start.

A heavy fog crept from the fields, crawled through the hollows, stole into the woods. and encircled every tree. Muted by the misty veil, the usually welcome luster of a full moon instead unnerved like the eerie glow of a flashlight from beneath a blanket or the indistinct flicker of a candle crouched behind a curtain.

An autumnal carpet of downed wet, moldering leaves stifled headway, the pliable surface giving way underfoot and luring shoes down toward the slippery rocks and uneven terrain hidden underneath.  Faint wisps of wind lacked the muscle to further hinder progress but prodded denuded tree limbs into scritchy-scratchy whispering in a barely-there primeval dialect that, though indecipherable, conveyed an uninviting sentiment.  Birds, normally talkative, had departed the trees or held their tongues, perched invisible, expectantly silent.

Shadows abounded but evaded identification.

The trail, a favorite, that regularly unfurls itself in the wash of a headlamp beam, pointing the way and urging exploration, seemed simply to cease its existence a few feet further on, engulfed by the flood of fog and swept away.

Fitting on this night that my headlamp click-clicked one final strobed goodbye and conked out to leave me stumbling about in a suddenly unrecognizable landscape.  I was no more alone than on any other solo outing, but the awareness of solitude was significantly more acute.

Bearings were lost. The absence of vision rallied the other senses and the smell of damp, decaying leaves and the otherworldly sounds of nocturnal nature cavorting in the darkness overwhelmed and added to my reeling.  Running was no longer an option as any pace exceeding a timid stagger was futile.

Escaping from my usual place of escape became my sole task and the snail's pace of accomplishing that task amplified anxiety.  Retracing steps and following the trail proved difficult, but abandoning that semi-beaten path for a direct descent of the ridge seemed madcap, irrational, too unsettling to realistically consider.

My nerves frazzled and my confidence shaken, I eventually reached the leveling of the grade that signaled the nearing road that would lead me back to the lot where my car was parked.  Relief washed over me as my feet struck pavement, a surreal and unusual emotion for me to wed with a return to man-made surfaces.

That peculiarity was magnified by the rumbling approach of an 18-wheeler and the deep, inhuman baying of its compression brakes.  Perhaps frightened by the thunderous announcement, the fog dispersed into the ether, as if on cue, and revealed with its departure the familiar beauty of a natural setting that siren-sings to me each waking day.

Conscious of my cowardice, my foolishness, I stood in the moonlight and understood, as I've understood all along, that there is nothing so terrifying in the forest as what lurks in our everyday haunted houses of artifice, poor decisioning, greedy us-versus-them posturing, societal stressors, corrupted (or ill-defined) morals, and political divisiveness that clouds a basic, shared want to live better lives in a place and within a culture that we can embrace and by which we can be embraced.

I find no literal fog so disorienting as the unrelenting march of human "progress", its nothing (NO thing) shall stand in the way agenda, and the all-is-well, wait, all-is-lost seesawing of a mass media hellbent on reporting every last gruesome, obscene, illogical, base, nonsensical, unimportant detail so long as it entertains or distracts long enough to justify the ad spend that funded its broadcasting in the first place.

The howl of the braking tractor trailer drifted into the distance.

My hands reached under the wheel well to retrieve my key and restraint was summoned to save that key from being hurtled into Hammer Creek, every ounce of resolve called upon to keep my feet from fleeing back into the forest, into the darkness, into the light.

a light in the midst of the tunnel.

I really am beginning to believe that I do my best running in the dark.

By settling into the narrow tunnel of light and letting my brain pull what little info it can from the beam and quickly convincing my feet to trust that little bit of info and get on with things.  Maybe there's too much available data in the light of day and it's my brain that can't stay on task, leaving my feet wondering what it is they're supposed to be doing.

The Stone Mill 50, my first attempt at running 50 miles at one shot, is two weeks away and I'm considering wearing blinkers like a skittish racehorse.  Maybe I can start a new running fad.

Anyway, that decision can wait.  For now I'm concentrating on cranking out a few last moderate length runs to stay fit and keep the legs moving.  The family schedule has been wacky so night runs have become the norm.  Tonight, after a couple hours of fun hiking with Lil, Piper, Dan and Adeline and then getting the kids to bed, I zipped over to Pumping Station to spend some time on the Horseshoe Trail and the surrounding area.

Yes, it's dark out there.  But that is why I bring a headlamp.  And here's what things look like (be forewarned, this is barely watchable):

While I didn't grow up IN the forest, I did grow up just outside of the forest and spent many nights venturing into them.  I feel strangely at ease in the dark or at least I'm told that it's strange from folks (my wife, for one) who shudder at every snap of a twig and hoot of an owl.  I expect to hear those sounds and they don't bother me one bit.

That's what I was telling myself as I began to hear what sounded like the steady squeak of a slightly rusted tricycle apparently pedalling along in the woods just outside of my field of vision.  It held steady through a quarter mile climb and the subsequent descent.  I knew I was imagining it or, more correctly, misidentifying what I was truly hearing and morphing it into something creepy.

Time to think about something else.

I began thinking about Kelly Agnew's invitation, made a few weeks earlier, to have me pace him at the Javelina Jundred (pronounced Havelina Hundred for anyone unfamiliar with the hard-as-nails Javelina's soft-as-butter J) out in Arizona in mid-November.  He needed someone to accompany him on the final 39 miles and kindly (I think) thought of me.

I was flattered and intrigued even though I knew right away that I wouldn't be able to pull it off.  I had neither the money or the time to get myself there, not to mention the fact that I've never done 39 miles in a single go, haven't served as a pacer for anybody at any distance and I was signed up for Stone Mill the weekend that followed the Javelina Jundred.

Honestly, I was more than intrigued.  I wanted to do it.  For Kelly and for me, I wanted to find some way to be there.

But, it wasn't to be, despite Kelly's persistent texts that were equal parts urging and mocking.  It was an effective tact and resulted in a nagging conscience despite my sticking to my guns (facing reality).

So, anyway, here I am running in the Pennsylvania darkness and thinking of Kelly and I running in the Arizona darkness.  I was no longer concerned about ghost tricyclists but I did begin questioning if I had the stuff to be of any use to anyone as a pacer.

I never did get my answer, but I did decide that I want to find out.  I fully intend to keep running my own races and testing my own boundaries but, man, there's something about the idea of being there for a friend at a time that he or she most needs support while together tackling the very kind of challenge that has likely brought us together in the first place.

Sitting high up on Eagle Rock, I looked out over the sleeping valley below and looked forward to adventures to come.

So, if you're looking to go long and think you could use some company somewhere along the course, pick up the phone, send me an e-mail, let me know where I need to be.  I may not be the world's best and certainly won't be the fastest pacer out there, but I will do my damnedest to have an encouraging word when you need it, shut my mouth when you need it shut and suffer right along with you to the finish line.

My finish line on Saturday night was the Pumping Station parking lot where my car waited to escort me back to my slumbering household.  It was a satisfying finish.

As satisfying as making a finish can be, I can only imagine it's that much more satisfying to help someone else get there too.

Whether it's in broad daylight or by the glow of a headlamp.