SPORT WALK

This is a great time to start acclimatising yourself to walking at night because of the short days. It doesn’t have to be on trails but that’s the big fear for many, so it’s good to start looking at dealing with that.

There are so many positives about walking at night, especially on trails but for a great many people it’s one step too far. One of the really strong aspects of Sport Walking is that it makes you stronger and more resilient, helping you to overcome your fears, so acknowledging how you feel about this and resolving to work on building your confidence is a good investment.

There will inevitably come a point where avoiding walking trails in the dark is going to prevent you from taking on a potentially life enhancing challenge, so the sooner you deal with it the better.

So, what to do? Well, the key here is not to think in binary terms of either walking or not walking on trails at night. There’s no need to set some arbitrary rule based on how you feel now. If you’re really nervous of being on the trail after dark, try to identify what exactly it is that you’re scared of. Is it a tangible fear of being attacked? Is it a fear of the dark itself? Is it a fear of becoming lost or perhaps some sort of sense that there’s something supernatural out there?

Whatever causes resistance and, it’s important to say, that no-one goes walking trails at night without fear, it’s really valuable to confront the reason for your fear and to bring it out into the open because then you have a chance of rationalising it and forming coping mechanisms.

Now it is very true that there are some places that it’s best to avoid at night because of crime, gangs or previous incidents of assault but unless the places you might walk at night have that reputation or history, it’s really helpful to look at actual crime figures and types in that area to check whether the threat is as real as you think.

That’s not to say that you should ignore your fear and throw caution to the wind but that you should follow up on your instinct and find out whether your fears have foundation. That’s the only way you can take considered action about that specific concern. It may well be that you still don’t feel comfortable about a particular trail and you therefore shouldn’t go walking there if you continue to have real concerns but at least you’ll have more knowledge about the place than you had before.

For other fears, they can be really strong and debilitating and they’re not something you can maybe shake off just by adopting a positive attitude but you can take steps to face and then manage more general fears by setting out to build experiences little and often in a controlled environment.

If you have a blanket fear of the dark, it’s no good saying to yourself “I can overcome this” and then heading off into a dark woodland on your own. That’s not going to end well! But, if you want to enter a challenge for instance and know that this would mean walking for a period of time at night in the dark, then it’s worth embarking on a controlled program of acclimatisation walks, so that you can gradually develop coping mechanisms.

The best way to start is to go out on roads around your neighbourhood that have street lights at dusk, then to gradually go later and later. If your neighbourhood or village doesn’t have street lighting, stick to the roads initially and use a torch. Roads generally feel safer to most people, so it’s always best to start with these, so that you can build up that sense of being OK in the dark in a pace you feel safe.

From there, you’d want to gradually go more and more into darker places but always do this initially with a friend or family member. You don’t need to do this as a training walk but do it just purely for the acclimatisation. Start maybe by walking a little down a dark side road or track next to a well lit road and then just gradually go further into the dark but always try to go with someone, so that you have that enhanced feeling of safety.

Next, go to a more remote location together and just walk to get used to being in that environment. Start in places you know well in daylight, so that you can recognise landmarks and, again, don’t think of this as physical training, this is all psychological training, so there’s no need to walk fast.  Then, once you’re feeling more in control, go for a decent training walk on a trail you know well, after dark.

You have to take this at a pace that you feel comfortable with but if you give yourself plenty of time, perhaps dedicating one evening a week to progressing your night walking skills, by the time your challenge comes, you’ll have got through the worst of it.

There are additional things you can do to manage night fears, such as listening to uplifting music or podcasts, to silence noises on the trail, which are often the real cause of fears because you can’t see what’s making them. You can also pick more open locations such as hill tops where you’ll have a better chance of moonlight to enhance your night vision. Of course, using a head torch is really important, for safety as much as for visibility because it’s so easy to trip in the dark, so always use one wherever you go and this will also help you to feel more confident.

Modern head torches are powerful beasts and they can fully illuminate the trail ahead of you which is both a good and bad thing. It’s good because it gives you a sense of having power over the dark. But going out there guns blazing with dazzling lights isn’t actually the best approach. It might feel good because everything’s illuminated but it’s actually better to dial down your brightness because then you give your eyes a chance to equalise with the dark.

If you set your head torch to the lowest setting you can, after a short while, your eyes will adjust and it’ll seem just as bright and clear as when you were playing at ‘Close Encounters’ on full beam. The benefit of this is that there’s far less contrast and so you actually end up seeing more. On full beam, the focused part of the light makes everything crazy bright but then the dark parts are really, really dark. With a lower beam there’s much more of an even balance between light and dark and this gives you clearer vision overall.

You may never grow to like walking at night but always remember that everyone is nervous on the trail in the dark, it’s the most natural thing, so you’re not alone. In challenge events, there will usually be glow sticks marking junctions, so it’s hard to get lost and it’s good to always think about how you’re experiencing something unique that others are missing out on, after all you can’t get that experience any other way. The more time you spend in the dark, the easier it gets. It might not be the most enjoyable thing you ever do but work on getting used to it and it won’t be the worst either and it’ll open up a whole new world to you!