Things Learned Before Dawn

So I've been doing this early morning running thing for a couple of months now and I must admit, my body has reluctantly gotten used to the idea. And while running before the sun comes up is never going to be a natural thing for me, I will say it's gotten a little easier. The first thought that pops into my head every morning is doing a mental calendar check to see how many hours there are until I can sleep again, but I still contend that I'm making progress on the early riser thing.

So after many weeks of my new morning routine, I've started to notice some things. Turns out you can learn some new things when get up this early. Some things I've learned from my early morning runs:

1. It's dark at 5:30 am this time of year. Really dark. I kind of feel like this is God's way of telling me I should still be sleeping, but I digress. I run with knuckle lights but I may have to upgrade soon to something a little brighter. On a run earlier this week, I literally jumped because I thought I saw something cross my path. It was a shadow of a bush.
2.  The local Casey's makes their doughnuts at 5:30. As I run past the convenience store I can smell the doughnuts baking. Depending on how I'm feeling that morning the smell is either repulsive or tempting. Sometimes both. I'm waiting for the day when I just say "Screw it," take a sharp left, run straight into the store and eat a handful of doughnuts in my place of continuing my run. 
3.  There is a freight train that comes through town pretty consistently at 5:40 in the morning. Unfortunately the route I usually need to take in the dark requires me to cross train tracks several times. One morning I managed to cross at the first place about a minute before the train came through but realized I would get stuck at at least one of the other places the train crossed. So I headed in a new direction to see where it took me, which leads me to....
4. The sidewalk ends 2.25 miles from my house. Unfortunately I discovered this on a run where I needed to go 2.5 miles before I turned around. You know, there's only so many places that are well lit enough to run at this hour. I don't need trains and lack of sidewalks taking away the few options I do have. 

There you have it - you learn something new all the time. Now if you'll excuse me, I think there is a doughnut calling my name...