Running at night, in the woods, wearing a head-torch
This evening I thought I’d try running off-road wearing a head-torch. My experience was a little mixed …
I bought my Petzl Tikka a few years ago when I went travelling for a few months a couple of years ago. It was an invaluable bit of kit as you have both hands free when trying to get things done when there’s no lighting available. This evening I was going to give it a more significant challenge:
I had high hopes for running with a torch strapped to my head but found the results to be variable. The torch wasn’t uncomfortable to wear on my head and it certainly didn’t move around as a I ran. It was useful to see a little better when I was in a particularly dark area; but wearing the torch reinforced my view of how much ambient light is already out there. I live on the border between a town and the countryside, so there are lots of street lights making the cloudy sky orange. This helps to illuminate the otherwise dark fields and woods. And when the moon is visible on a clear night, vision is even better. Wearing the head-torch actually reduced the effect of the ambient light – I presume that’s because my eyes had adjusted and reduced my light sensitivity.
The illumination from the head-torch cast shadows just below my eyes, which was a little distracting – not a deal-breaker but another torch with a wider angle mirror / reflector might be an improvement. The torch can be adjusted up and down (pitch) so you can control whether you want to illuminate the ground just in-front of you or further away – this is a useful feature, which I used a few times.
I fully intended to complete the entire run with the torch on, but given the available ambient light, even when quite a distance from buildings and roads, I found I could see better without the torch when in the open. The torch was most useful in denser woodland, when the ambient light couldn’t get through the trees.
Would I run with a head-torch again? I’m not sure – it would be interesting to try some others that might be better – mine is a few years old now.
I’d certainly be interested in comments from others who have run with head torches.
Danny,
I run with a Pezl Tikka Plus from time to time. Here are my observations:
The light intensity is fine for running – with fresh batteries (more on this later). The beam is OK, wide enough to see as much as I need to but it still creates a bit of a “running in a tunnel” effect. I find that moving my head around, looking sideways from time to time, helps.
One problem that I have had with all headlights is that their proximity to the eyes means that there aren’t may shadows resulting in low perceived contrast. My evening route is a mixture of gravel road an woodland trails. On the latter this can be a bit disconcerting, I have stumbled over a few roots. To address this I have been taking a hand geld torch along.(my cycling helmet lamp: Exposure Joystick). I only use this when necessary as holding a torch interferes with natural arm movement a bit. This combination seems to work well for me.
On clear nights with a fullish moon or when there is low cloud sometimes switch off both lights when in the open, as you suggest. I enjoy running without lights.
Now back to the Pezl; I find that it looses power very quickly with alkaline batteries. The low battery indicator is useless as it only come on when the light output is way too low to run with. I have found that I get slightly lower output with rechargeable NiMH batteries at the start but that output is much more consistent. So I now use NiMH and recharge them after about 2 hours of use.
Erwin,
Thanks for your detailed thoughts. I’m glad to see that it’s not just me who prefers running without a light. Thanks for the tip on the batteries – I haven’t changed them yet but will certainly buy rechargeable batteries when I need to.