A dark park and lazy (?) guards

18.75 km, 1 h 44 min 31 sec, 5:35 min/km, an early morning run on heavy legs.

Legs still felt heavy after the intervals a few days earlier. Tried to keep the pace up to end up at 5:30 min/km, but the legs were protesting and all the ups and downs in the park slowed the pace. Pretty good in the end though, but maybe a resting day on Thursday would be good.

03:15 am- pip pip pip, alarm clock goes off. If someone would have told me two years ago, that I would go up 3:15 in the morning for a morning run, I would have thought that this person was crazy! Well, some would probably argue that it actually is crazy, but I do not listen on that ear.. Now it is just a normal part of my training.

The park opens at 4 am, and I was actually a bit early, came there 3:50 and realized that I was not the first one. Two other cars were waiting for the park to open.

Out of the car, turn on the headlamp. Headlamp is necessary, not only for me to get used to, I will need it on my ocean to ocean run, but also since the lights in the park are really poor. The first lap, I calculated how many broken (or at least dark) lamps there were.
Out of approximately 240 lights, around 100 was working.. In one place, there is a 200 meter stretch that is completely dark.

Luckily, there are guards in the park. Only problem is, that when it is dark, the guards are hiding in their small guard houses. When the sun comes up, the guards start to walk or bicycle around. They are probably needed more when it is dark! The protector of the park is the first lady here. Maybe I should through her an email..?

But maybe there is some strange logic here I do not understund.
Maybe the bad guys are afraid of the dark?
Or the guards have some super-duper remote dark vision watch system, enabling them to monitor the whole park from their guard houses.
Or the guards are just...lazy..?

I am not the one to judge, but I feel sorry for everyone that do not dare to go to the park when it is dark. When the sun is up, it is too hot for running and even walking very long. Several of my friends dont go to the park after dark, not alone.

But if Balbina wins the election in a few weeks, will it be the "first dude" that is the protector? Now it looks like Martinelli will be the winner, I better check up who then will be the first lady.