GlenM

I have to run at night. I don’t like it. Not here. For some reason people are hit by cars here on a frequent basis. I read about it in the paper all the time. I was here 3-months when my friend’s father (who lived down the street) was killed by a kid driving with a suspended license.
But I have to run at night. I have no other time to run. So I added flashing and reflective things. I added a flashing red light. I’m pretty happy with it. This one is The Guardian sold by Adventure Lights. It is tiny, yet bright enough to see from a long way off. They say you can see it a mile away. I’m not sure if that is true, but when I run with it, I can see it reflecting off stop signs about half a mile away (1/2 + 1/2 = 1 mile, hmmmm). My wife said it looked like a police car light from half a mile away. It has LED lights inside and is pretty damn bright. The clip holds it onto my jacket on the zipper or collar. Last night I ran with it on my shirt collar, which felt a little bothersome.

I also have my IluminiNite jacket, which looks like a normal dark jacket in regular lighting, but when you shine a flashlight or car headlights on it, it is extremely reflective. I took these two pics in the hallway. One with a flash and one without. Its pretty amazing how much the jacket reflects. I chose this one because it had a larger coverage area than some of the others. It has zippers in the armpits for extra cooling or ventilation when your deodorant has failed. It has a fleece lining which I find annoying because it doesn’t allow my shirt to move freely underneath it. Also, this one has an extended back (I guess it for bicyclist so their butt doesn’t get wet from mud) which is a bit annoying when I run in just shorts. I guess when its warm enough to run in shorts, you probably won’t be wearing the jacket.

Lastly, I wear these reflective bands on my ankles. I figured that they would catch a driver’s attention because he would see them moving around. I don’t know. My wife said she didn’t notice them as she approached me in her car at night. Maybe she was paying more attention to the red light. I wear them anyway. They are like slap-bracelets. You just have to be sure the tightly curled end is on the outside. I had one on wrong the other night and when I got back from my run, there was a lovely groove dug into my skin.
So here it is, 8:45 at night and I didn’t run today. I know I would be visible, but I plan on going to bed in about 45 minutes, so a 30 minute run would not fit into that schedule very well. The dumb thing is that I worked from home today and could have gone out at noon for my run, but I didn’t. Duh. Sometimes I miss good opportunities like that.