26k followed by a Light Show

This weekend marked the first longer long run on the marathon training schedule - 26k.  Since I'm crap at mornings I went out at 6 pm on Saturday night.  My race starts at 4:30 pm so it doesn't hurt to get a few long runs in around that time.

At 5k I encountered a small river from the rain on Friday so I took a detour around the pond trails to rejoin the main path. 

It was pretty warm right up until sunset when I became marginally less purple than this.

 

I incorporated a couple of handy bathroom/water stops into the route.  Why does this one have an address?  Forward my mail?!

I was at 18k right here and knew I'd have to do another 8 to get back to the house. Success!  It got dark as I was climbing Big Bastard hill back to the ridge then I challenged myself to run all the remaining hills.  I think pushing through the hard parts is essential (even though it sucks).

My legs hurt like hell for a couple of hours after, good lord.

So I dragged my pained bits to bed only to be woken up at 2 am by Kev who 'thought he saw something' above the houses north of us. It turns out he did (it seemed to be a shifting mass of light), and off we went in the car to the middle of nowhere where we saw the Northern Lights for the very first time. 

Holy shit it was incredible.  At one point it moved over us, all green arcs and pulsing white.  I have zero photos of course so without further ado I give you the talents of rockstar photographer Mr Neil Zeller who was also out freezing in the countryside and capturing the event (properly).