Weight and Work Schedule Hamper Long Distance Running

I've tried to determine exactly why it is that my running seems to be leveling off at a relatively short daily mileage and I never seem quite ready to undertake a long distance race like a half-marathon.  One reason is that I have gained some weight over the past few months and could stand to lose about twenty to twenty-five pounds.  Another is that, since I changed my working hours to a graveyard shift last March, I have had a degree of difficulty with my time management.  I used to either be at work or sleeping for most of the nighttime, with my "free" remaining discretionary time occurring during daylight hours.  This larger daytime "window" gave me a greater opportunity to regularly go out running.  Now I have a narrow time window after I awake in mid-afternoon before the sun sets...and I do not want to run in the dark.  But since I don't see my work schedule changing anytime in the near future, I will have to adapt to this problem. 

Another advantage I enjoyed when I used to run in the late morning/early afternoon was that, during weekdays, my home neighborhood was almost empty, with most residents out at work or school.  The traffic level was pretty low, so I usually could run without having to pay undue attention to cars either passing me or pulling in or out of driveways. 

I do have the option of going down to my local gym (Gainesville Health and Fitness) in the evening hours to run on one of their treadmills.  But treadmill running, while being useful as a way to run during conditions that would otherwise prevent doing so outdoors, isn't an optimal way to consistently train for road running races. In "normal" running, there is the action of my feet pushing off against the hard surface of the road and the need for my own mind to take authority in my pacing, things that treadmills remove from the running experience.

Sometimes at night I'll just run a few minutes in place inside my home or run a short distance back and forth across the living room/hall area.  Still, this isn't the same thing as getting out on the road...

I suppose that I could still run during late mornings/early afternoons with my current schedule, but that would entail me either splitting my sleeping hours around my running time or going to bed immediately thereafter, neither prospect sounding very pleasant or feasible.  So for now I'm just going to have to be very disciplined with my running and keep my eyes open for the cars late in the afternoon...