What's your favourite time of day to run? The last few weeks I've been doing my long Sunday run very early in the morning - leaving around 6.30am. It's been light for hours but you have the roads - even in hectic London - entirely to yourself, aside from the odd reveller who has yet to go to bed. On the plus side, by 10am I had done 13 miles and a junior parkrun (and been offered a mid-run refreshment of Special Brew). On the flip side, by lunchtime I was quite ready for bed again.
I am definitely a morning runner by nature. The longer the day goes on, the more I have to fight the inertia of a working day, the mid-afternoon slump, the early evening hunger and lure of a nice cold glass of white wine. Running first thing does of course mean getting used to running on an empty stomach - but then I recoil in mingled awe/dread at those people who can eat a banana and a cereal bar on the start line of a race - I'd have a stitch and feel sick within about 100 yards.
So mornings are definitely my running time - but on the rare occasions when I venture out onto Wimbledon Common at sunset on a summer's evening, I wonder why I don't do it more often - rabbits nibble at the side of the paths and the light is glorious. The kind of run where you end up accidentally ankle deep in a puddle because, for once, you were looking constantly up and around, rather than pavement-crack dodging, lost not in your surroundings but in your own head.
