Submaximum mileage effort

Physiology aside, the truest benefit of a weekly long run is that it makes a "medium-long run" (read another long run) feel like no big thing. Just a medium thing, I guess, so it's aptly, if not boringly named. (What if a medium-long run were to be called something flashy, like the "submaxium mileage effort"?) A little over a month ago I might of complained about a 14-miler--I surely did. Now I count my lucky Eastern Sierra milky way, and relish in the fact that, back in high school, say, such a run would have laid me flat for the day. Now, I only require the aid of iced coffee to keep purring ... as spacey as my purring may be ...

We found our way past the little green church in the evening for a soak in The Hot Tub. There's a reason that Mammoth hosts an enclave of elite runners, and it's not entirely the altitude. At least I hope not.

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14 mi, 98 min; Hwy 167 to Cemetery Road, around and through Dechambeau Ranch, and on til morning

Bristlecones

Note: Sorry for the long gap between posts. Will do my best to infill.

After essential stops in Bishop--the bookstore, the art supply store, the thrift store, and Galen Rowell's Mountain Light Gallery--S and I forayed further east to the ancient bristlecone pine forest in the White Mountains, at over 10,000 feet. We hiked the 4.5-mile Methuselah Trail, aside of which grow weather-sculpted, dolomite-fed trees more than 3,000, or 4,000 years old. Couldn't figure out which in particular was the Methuselah (the oldest living thing in the world), but mountain bluebirds were numerous, gorgeous, and the bird-of-the-year were in an especially plaintive, begging mode.

Before we left, I rambled up, up, up the dirt road that runs toward Mt. White the Patriarch Grove. On the way, I passed the jeep trail that sluices down Wyman Canyon into the learned Deep Springs Valley (at one point, we could see the strikingly green ranch from the Methuselah Trail). Between the hike, a long-ish run yesterday, the elevation, and the hills, it was a bit of a huffer at times (have I made this term up?). I climbed to the next hurrah-of-a-view of the Sierra, its long spine veiled in haze, and heat--over 100 degrees down in Owens Valley, but only mid-80s up high. Then, I turned myself around and lurched gradually back down.

We were low on gas and water when we departed, but hardly had to used the accelerator as we dropped over 6,000 feet in about 24 miles. Refueled, and bought orange Gatorades, in the little town of Big Pine.

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8+ mi, 60 min; Out and back on Mt. White Road from the Schulman Grove; + 4.5 mi hike

Also: A short article out today in HCN about a prehistoric spearhead find: Case in point

Alta ...

Then all of a sudden, on Hwy 167, I was crawling up on a jogger. A jogger? Out here, on the loneliest span of pavement this side of Mono Lake, around 11 on a warm Monday? From a distance, I thought he must be a biker with a flat tire. Or a mirage. (I've never seen a biker out here, either).

He turned around just before I caught him, just before the dip down to Wilson Creek (it was the type of turn-around-before-a-hill move I know pretty well). No doubt he was as curious to see me, a sneak in ruby-red shorts, as I him.

"Alta ... altitude's a killer, buddy," he stammered, as we traded enthusiastic runnerly nods behind our shades, nods of recognition and oddball communion. And I said, "Yeah, man--I thought I was the only one who ever came out here!"

He was doing a kind of shuffle, wore headphones and black hat. Where he came from and where he was going, I don't know. But I salute you, stranger. Never thought I'd have to share that road with anything but SUVs, caravans of humvees, and roaring tractor-trailers.

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10 mi, 70 min; Hwy 167-Cemetery Road loop