Last long run

Yesterday there was a pretty wild rainstorm here in the Mono Basin (snow higher up). Nestled against the Sierra, we caught whatever spilled over, which was still impressive, with gusts up to 60 mph and rain darting sideways most of the day. I had to place a cooler below the windowsill beside my desk, because so much water was sneaking through the pane. Towels were futile.

I'd hope to fit in my long run, but of course missed/ignored my only window of opportunity in the morning. So around 6 pm, as the light was fading, I finally worked up the nerve to don my Marmot rain jacket, dive outside, and it was like swimming. Running seven miles around Mono City (back and forth unfortunately has been the theme of the month), occasionally a gust would slow me to crawl, spreading my jacket across my chest like a sail. But starting late seemed to pay off in that the wind appeared to die down while I was out (though later, as I went to bed, it was howling again). Or maybe it's just that taking the plunge is always the most difficult step.

In the darkness, an anonymous SUV passed me in the driving rain. It slowed and suddenly I heard a voice say, "Bless you heart!" "Bless yours!" I replied, surprised and indeed, heartened, as the rain sluice through his taillights. "You take care now," the voice said. "You, too!" I shouted under my hood. We went our separate ways.

Today gives no indication of yesterday, except for a chill. Bright and clear, I drove to mile 10 and did yet more back and forth--17 miles worth. 3.5 out and back (to the east), 2.5 out and back (to the west), then 2 o+b (east), then .5 (west). It adds up, I hope. I was ready to be done, for all of that was run in a straight line (minus four u-turns). But the outing went well. After starting off at 7 minute pace, I ratcheted down the pace and did the last 10 miles at a steady 6 minutes per mile (at least, according to the markers--who knows how accurate those are). My right hip/knee started to complain a mile in, as usual, but I stopped before any shooting pain, gave it a firm stretch, and that was that.

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17 mi, 106 minutes (45:25 for 7, then 1:00:35 for 10); Hwy 167 from mile 10

Sunday, 10/24: 7 mi, 52 min; rainstorm (Mono City)

Week total: 64 miles

Saturday, 10/23: 6 mi, 45 min; Hwy 167 close to home

Back and forth

Three days without discomfort = reason to be optimistic. I credit ibuprofen, a second, more rigorous and productive massage in Mammoth (I took it as a really good sign that my therapist was working on Meb later in the day--"your competitor," she said--we laughed), and ice bathing in the local creeks. Sitting in the waters (I've tried Mill Creek now, too), I start to imagine myself a boulder or root wad. Creek bubbles bounce around my legs, and catch in my quivering hairs. Yellow cottonwood leaves wrap around and stick to my thighs. If only I could stay in longer than 15 minutes (without fear of hypothermia), I could be all gold in a few weeks.

I have to admit I was pretty surprised/overjoyed Friday when I was able to jog 60 minutes without any symptoms. I started with a mile or so of walking in Mono City, then, to attempt a run, I drove a short ways to the relatively flat stretch of Hwy 167 between 395 and Wilson Creek. Most unfortunately, this stretch is less than a mile long, so I felt a bit like a rotisserie chicken turning under the cold fall sun, as I jogged back and forth. I was also holding my breath, as it were: trying to stay focused on my form, keep from speeding up, and stay alert for any sign of ITB unrest. The ice age tufa that stand in a row across the road, like hulking linebackers, proved worthy distraction--they have for months now. They're such interesting shapes--a natural Japanese rock garden. (Zen football players?) I called it a day after 60 minutes, about 4.5 revolutions, and headed down to Mammoth for a session of "bodywork."

Yesterday, I did the same, but 5.5 revolutions worth. Today, for adventure, I drove to mile ten on Hwy 167, where there's a relatively flat 5-mile stretch. It rained off and on much of the day, so by heading east I also may have avoided a few more droplets. After parking, walking, and starting up, I ran at just under 7 min pace to the "MONO 167 12.5" mile sign, u-turned to the 8.5 mark, etc, etc. Though I haven't been running fast, perhaps psychologically this straight and narrow pavement running has helped prepare me for the long blocks of NYC. And it was stormily gorgeous out there, however chilly. The Sierra was draped with raincloud, but the sun seared through, briefly, in scattered rays and, as I drove away, rainbows.


I think I'll always remember Hwy 167 as my injury runway. When I had a pain near my achilles in late June-early July, I ran out and back on it ad nauseam. Then, I was after the pavement--to avoid sand. I suppose I still am, but I'm more concerned with flat terrain--no rocks, and little grade--and there's not much around the Basin beyond 167, other than 395. Tomorrow, however, I might try a hill or two, and maybe stray off asphalt. I hope to try a workout of some sort mid-week.

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10 mi, 70 min; Hwy 167 from the 10 mile marker

Week Total: 37 mi/4 days

Saturday, 10/16: 10 mi, 75 min; Hwy 167, close to home

Friday, 10/15: 8 mi, 60 min; Hwy 167, close to home

Catching up

The season seems to have surged away from us the last two days, suddenly (a high of 58, a low of 30). But it should fall back in a few days (high of 81 to come). Bring out the guns (Jokin might say)! But I'm already anticipating the day it will pull away strongly, if not for good. We're always catching up.

Another long run, on the chilliest day of the summer or one of the first days of fall. The wind was out of the northeast, unexpectedly streaming over the Bodie Hills and slowing me on the first half of a 21-miler. But when I turned toward the lake at Cottonwood Canyon Rd at about 10 miles, I started to feel better (maybe it was leaving the sand) and though it rained on me the last 5 or so miles (light, but frigid; the sand dimpling, puckering, and firming up; the upwelling smell of wet sage; a long sleeve shirt, stuck to my chest), I finished pretty strong. I did an extra loop of lower Mono City--at least a 5 minute circuit--but was surprised to find myself back at the house exactly at 2:13, which meant I'd run the loop faster than last week, despite the weather. I added on a bit more.

It's not wrong to say that, here, I find myself racing the weather, and the light, as much as myself, or a watch. Some days its to squeeze in a run before the sweat-raining heat, or to beat the wind which is constant as afternoon. Other days, I chase the sun to avoid a chill, hoping to stay in front of a line of light as it pushes east along the ground before dusk. On occasion, running on Highway 167, I've run toward and into the line of shade, noticing the green-gray area, where I'm half in, half out of light. It's like the shallows of a pool. The edge is not sharp, but diffuse (a hundred feet?), when the shadow falling forward is that of a mountain range.

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21 mi, 141 min; the Big Loop, with a couple miles added on in Mono City

Week total: 91 miles--another good week

Saturday, 8/28: 9 mi, 63 min, small loop around Dechambeau from Mono City (Windy as all get out! Gusts to 30!)

Solidarity in rain

Thunderclouds, lightning, downpours today, and forecasted for the next few. Some runners--at least me--become down right doggish when weather comes. Most of the afternoon, I felt nervous, pent-up. When the booms shook the house, a part of me wanted to scamper downstairs to the bathtub and cower. Or, to switch metaphorical tacks, when the day's mood is off, I find myself walking to the window and looking out, my hand on my chin, like someone in a harborside house who compulsively looks out for the return of the beloved under distant masts. A person introspective, in all appearances, but more actually numb. I dramatize (though, we do have a view of the lake). But when the winds are suspect, I become anxious searching for the right window to venture out, and it's then, more than any other time, that I sometimes miss company on my runs. Solidarity in rain.

Of course, once I'm outside, it's often not so bad. Quite nice, in fact. And in the Eastern Sierra, if you drive a canyon or two over, sometimes you can discover that window. Rather unfortunate that it doesn't work that way everywhere.

Tonight, after a short store shift, I drove just south of Lee Vining and parked at the base of the road to Horse Meadows. From there, I ran on a jeep trail to Oil Plant Road, which merges with Aqueduct Road (which rolls over Walker and Parker Creeks). I crossed the north side of the June Lake Loop, went over the wooden bridge that spans the Grant Lake Reservoir spillway, and then turned around at 49 minutes. My legs felt heavy for the first quarter of the run, then I warmed up (I even left my shirt behind, three miles in, and was a bit chilled by the end). The vistas from Aqueduct Road, especially of the Mono Craters and Reverse Peak above June Lake are altissimo; horns should accompany! (Or at least photos, soon!) The lake, meanwhile, was shrouded in mist and rain, but the sky ever so politely spit just a little in the South Basin.

Also: near the turn around, I spent a few minutes watching an osprey hover and swoop over Rush Creek. Tourists are often miffed as to why an osprey, an exclusively fish-eating raptor, would nest over Mono Lake. How does it survive? I pose the question ... No, not on shrimp... Well, there above was the answer silhouetted below cloud and light rain. The bird had flown down from Grant Lake Reservoir to test Rush Creek for trout, but quickly went back. We passed each other twice, silently.

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14 mi, 98 min; O+B on Oil Plant Road and Aqueduct Road from the base of the Horse Meadows Road

Week Total: 76 mi

Fire in the hills

Around 10am, I went out for a tour around Conway Ranch. Some entity with bulldozers--the County, I assume--has widened what was a perfect jeep trail. Now, the road is roughly graded, and the sage has been torn up and crushed along the edges and pushed into isolated pyres that will probably go unburned for years. Seems like a quintessential case of work for the sake of work--there's absolutely no reason, to my mind, why this road needed to be "improved." It might see a car, or two, on a good day. In any case, as you can probably tell, my aesthetic and environmental self (and economic, such as it is) found the change irritating. Pretty strange to see orange Slow, Work Ahead signs in the middle of nowhere. I did not slow, but I wasn't going fast, either.

Had thought about going for a moonlit double, but it didn't pan out after my South Tufa tour and store shift, which ended at 9:30pm. Too late. But the basin just started "pop'n" with rainbows and brilliant light before dusk after scattered thunderstorms much of the afternoon. People were pulling over on the side of the highway to snap pictures of the 'bows, and the Mono Craters were going on and off like Chinese lanterns strung toward Mammoth. Also, a lightning strike kindled a sizable fire in the Bodie Hills, which mushroomed a spectacular, billowing cloud high into the air (allowing me to imagine what a volcanic eruption might look like beside the lake). Added further drama to an already unbelievable landscape. We'll see how long it continues to burn ...

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9 mi, 63 minutes; Conway Ranch Loop, without the Goat Ranch Cutoff ext.

The pineapple

Put off the run until evening, because, for the first time this summer, the basin threatened to storm all day. Gray, curling clouds came with the light, and lightning came from them before long.

But at last, before dusk, a window cracked, the lightening acquiesced, and I strided over firm pattered sand to Dechambeau Ponds from Mono City, straight toward the arc of a rainbow not quite bridged at its height, for the clouds truncated its color. First the bow was more (most!) vibrant to the right of Black Point (to the west), then the column dissipated and what was left, to my left (to the east), glowed stronger, as if it had absorbed all that energy. It appeared as if the rainbow was shifting, softening, but it was me, maneuvering it. Erelong, I hope to research the science of rainbows (beyond the basic middle school experiments), so I can really chase them.

I will say, though, that there's something about an arch ahead--a tunnel, an entrance to forest--that quickens the step. I can't explain it, except to theorize that a frame does for a runner what it does for a painting: contains, focuses, draws forward. This, I reason, is why races often end below an arch of balloons or a metal scaffolding (the clock atop helps, too). When I was in college, my team used to race in practice toward "the pineapple" (actually a pine cone, I think; we debated this point often) hanging from a patinated arch on Federal Hill in Providence whenever we took that route. I don't think it was the fruit, but its stem, that was the catalyst. (Thoughts guys?)

Anyhow, it was a tad more arduous on the return tonight. Could be because the rainbow had disappeared. Could be because it was uphill. Added-on a smidge at the end.

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12 mi, 84 min; around Dechambeau Ponds from Mono City (a good keyhole loop)

Spinning like a top

Seems to be a week of afternoon thundershowers, but none on the north side of the lake have truly let loose so far. The views here are such that you can see whole systems of clouds hanging, and moving, over Mono, with trails or frills of rain sizzling to vapor far before they have a chance to hit the ground.

I was thinking, today, about how the phrase "in the distance" is so confused in the Basin. Black Point, with its fissured cap, is in the distance, but within reach of a run from home. The south shore is a 20 minute drive. The high Sierra over Mammoth Lakes is clear, crisp, most days, though its 40 miles distant. Unlike, say, in the forested suburbs of New England, here distance running is, visually, immensely satisfying (even the same loop looks dramatically different depending on how the light's playing on, landing on, various (mountain) ranges of distance), but it makes me feel like a top spinning on a vast, arid table. Multiple thunderheads vying, in their windy way, for position over the lake has the same, personally diminishing effect. It's easier to feel fast, and large, when you don't look up!

A short, loosely related story: yesterday, climbing back up to Mono City on the jeep trail that heads to Black Point (sorry, I really need to come up with nicknames for them all), I just happened to turn around, and there was a soft rainbow against the dark, vaguely mauve Nevada distance. It had materialized out of the low, lit blue sky that slipped between the crescent of rock and cloud at the head of Lundy Canyon (up from Mono City) just after 8 pm. I had been running away from it, and I may have never seen it, if not for a chance crane of the neck.

Anyways, coming into home, there was a neighbor standing in the sagebrush on the side of E. Mono Lake Drive with a camera looking in the direction from which I'd come. I glanced back to see the bend of colors, but they were gone.

"Did you get the rainbow?" I asked. "Barely," he said. I nodded, and thought to myself, "Me too."

Something else, to finish: I passed a FedEx tractor trailer on the mile of 395 I ran today (rather, it passed me, emphatically). I speculate it was the very same truck, and driver, at the same hour, as yesterday, on its daily route--something you could set your timepiece to, should the sun be obscured. Presumably he wasn't hauling the same goods, though--at least, not the very same.

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9 mi, 63 min; Conway Ranch-Hwy 167 loop, slightly abbreviated, for lack of energy (and sleep last night)

Also: An HCN blog post on wolves in Oregon: Jumping (to) the gun