Waterside

Though I often feel like I'm running along the ocean here in the Mono Basin, I've wanted to try out Ten Mile Beach--an actual beach--on the north shore of the lake, for awhile now. Tonight I finally decided to test its waters, with a second run (no, I didn't swim--you'd be mired in mud, I think, just few steps in). I hiked out with my binoculars, because it's a not-to-be-believed-until-you've-seen-it world of birds out there, a never-never land of the sprightly and winged: Grebes on the lake to the horizon's edge. Phalaropes flickering in handful-flocks over the water. Ruddy ducks beating loudly across the lake, in display I guess. Ungainly avocets, stilted on the shoreline. And, of course, gulls lumbering about on all mediums.



After sitting for awhile, watching the sun burning into the mountains,I set aside my binoculars, swapped shorts, and lumbered myself, to the east along the beach. The sand was fairly firm, for the most part, at the top of the ridge waves had made maybe twenty feet from the shoreline. But I did have to slog through a few sections--how at the mercy of the ground we are! In the distance, I thought I saw lagoon cutting into the perfect crescent of the beach, and chased it for awhile, until it disappeared.

Along the way, I also scarred up a wee-phalarope--they weigh about 5 ounces, I think--with a broken wing. Must have collided with another bird. It skittered wildly down from the ridge into the water, where it bobbed alone, and I was sad to know it would never leave the lake, or this season.

If only the sand were a little firmer, I'd venture back out to Ten Mile for a regular easy run. But I think I'll leave it for the rare, gorgeous double.

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AM: 9 mi, 63 min; Test Station Rd, on the south side of the lake

PM: 4 mi, 30 min; Ten Mile Beach

Wednesday, 9/15: 15 mi, 105 min; Hwy 167-Cemetery Rd-Dechambeau Ranch-Black Point Rd-et cetera

Stealing glances

The view from Krakatoa

I came off the islands around 11:30 this morning, having picked up more dead birds in the last 48 hours than I ever have before (I mean, than I ever have over the course of one day). After spending a few hours lazying about, I geared up for a makeshift fartlek session around 3:30 pm. It was surprisingly cool--I guess it really is fall--and my legs felt pretty good considering I'd spent much of Thursday and Friday on my feet, helping to mend the gulls' chicken wire corrals, or walking slowly around the islets, doing my best to spot mortality. E.g., a rare white pelican:


Anyway, I jogged down to Cemetery Rd, then out and back toward Black Point. Then I went straight into an interval on Cemetery's long, straight stretch. The goal was to do 6 x 1:50 hard (i.e., approx. 600m, at 4:40-ish pace), with 90 seconds rest (i.e. jog) in between.

I didn't take a break to stretch and run some strides before the intervals, like I would have for a workout at track. Perhaps a poor idea, because picking it up, hard, after 4 miles easy, was startling, and maybe hard on the legs. No idea how fast I was running to start, but I suspect I started too aggressively--such an interminable stretch of road eggs you on. After 2, I was feeling it. After 4, I had to take an extra minute, I'm afraid* (Cemetery Rd kind of has my number). The last 2 intervals I tried to just keep steady and strong, though they undoubtedly were slower. After about 3 miles of fartlek, I'd felt like I'd just worked out in the OMAC back in college (and let me tell you, the air is drier out here than it was on that indoor track). The usual top-heavy, light headed sensation--you know? But I went straight from my last interval into a cool down to make it a continuous run (minus that minute-long break ... ug).

I could be disappointed in this session, but nah. The idea was simply to throw down finally, get the wheels turning for more to come. Hopefully they will eventually be on the mark (I think I'll measure one out next week). But I'll admit, I made it more painful by glancing at my watch at least once mid-session, instead of waiting to hear the beep. That's a gesture that implies feebleness, that cries out half-ashamed, When will this ever end? Sometimes I'd resist that glance until about 30 seconds left, but once I was shocked to still see 1:10. By the the pagan gods of Mono, could it really be? Argggh! It's not often that time seems as long as the road before me.

Anywhooo, I cooled down 28 minutes more to Mono City. The legs were super tight, leaden, by the end, but they'll wring out just fine.

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4 mi, 28 min WU; 6 x 1:50 hard, w/ 90 sec easy jog between (~3 mi); 4 mi, 28 min CD; to Cemetery Rd, for the workout, and back (11 mi, 78 min total)

Friday, 9/10: -- (stranded on a desert island)

* (to use the sage)

The north shore

Yesterday, S's last day in the Eastern Sierra, I ran down from Mono City to Ten Mile Beach, on the lake's north shore. It's so named because the turn to the water is immediately after the 10 mile marker on Hwy 167. It was awesome to run away from the sun, with a slight breeze at my back. That's the furthest on 167 I've run to date.

S met down there, and we enjoyed some crackers and cheese, and couple Blue Moons, by the water on a one-plank, ground level bench someone had left. The place was just magical, an immaculate evening--the water glass still, luminous, and reflecting thousands of red-necked phalaropes twisting and peeping low over the lake in sinuous flocks. Many American avocets around, too, flying back and forth along the shore in groups of 10 or 20--long, wading legs trailing awkwardly--and further out, untold grebes to the horizon of the lake like ant on an endless tabletop. The north side of the lake is officially my favorite, I think. I'm going to do an easy run along Ten Mile Beach soon--the sand seems firm enough.

As for today, I went back in that direction and jogged around Cottonwood Canyon, still craving the view up there. In my second to last mile, I suddenly heard a rattle from the sage just off the road I was on. There was a snake. It was on full alert, and kept up its racket (with its head and neck reared back in a V, ready to strike) for at least three or four minutes as I watched. I was amazed its tail didn't tire out! Finally, I caved, went on--no sound on the way back.

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10 mi, 70 min; sandy run in the vicinity of Goat Ranch, at the top of Cottonwood Canyon Rd

Friday, 9/3: 13 mi, 88 min; from Mono City to Ten Mile Beach, via Cemetery Rd (with an additional mile O+B east on turnoff to the water)

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

In no rush at Rush Creek

Considering the jolt I put my legs through yesterday, they were in decent shape today. Went for a leisurely, ten mile shakeout on Test Station Road around 6pm, then walked about a mile down to the Rush Creek Delta. I've never been disappointed there. Downy, golf ball-size spotted sandpiper chicks were peeping in the salt grass, bobbing their featherless rumps just like the adults. I oh-so-cruelly cornered one, and it calmly hid under a small log where I took its photo.


I also saw a gadwall with sixteen ducklings on a reedy back pond and, later, accidentally surprised the mother. She started doing a broken-wing song and dance routine, awkwardly sculling through the water in a plashy fit to distract me, the menace, from her brood.

Finished my stroll just at dusk--to the elation of the birds, I'm sure. But I then managed to spook three poor poorwills off the road on the way back to town. Almost a complete moon over the Basin. Driving home after ice cream (dinner) at the Mono Market, the mountains and craters were faint-gray aglow. Tomorrow, I'm planning on several late, easy miles beneath the full effect.


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10 mi, 70 min; Test Station Road (a kind of modified Tufa-to-Tufa)

The mind, like the foot

Why am I so often writing of birds? Perhaps because there are more flitting about in the desert that there are snakes slithering or chipmunks scurrying (though I do owe mammals of some sort a post soon).

A kestrel, on a wire (a kestrel rarely feels complete without one). As I approach, it gave its call. To imagine it was kee-ing at me is anthro-hubris, but, as I was running (and oxygen deprived) I thought of it nonetheless.

Kee-kee-kee-kee. Perhaps it meant run-run-run-run? If it had been my old coach, John, it would have certainly translated to, Relax and go, relax and go (but it would have been much more reserved, and respectable).

Or maybe I misheard, and it was he-he-he-he-he. Or the classic Run, Forrest, run?

No--it was, Nice short shorts, I'm sure. Then, like one of any number of grade schoolers (or even teenagers), it skipped the other way.

The mind, like the foot, extends towards the ground that presents itself, but it cares far less about how it lands.

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10 mi, 70 min; Mono City to Old 395 (I think), to Cemetery Road, to 167

Fine desert sand

Squeezed in 12 miles before the World Cup final along the Test Station Road. Running around midday, when the light is sandy (and often as rough as pumice), tends to be unremarkable, mind-numbing. But Rush Creek was pushing 500 CFS, or so, under the road on its way to the delta--a lot of water, a roaring, if not raucous outpouring through the culvert. After I finished, I desperately wanted to drive back and jump in to the wave train (which I hear people have surfed of late). But there was no time; I regret to say (truly) that futbol won out, today.


Adding on the final two miles down Picnic Ground Road, I passed a poorwill nestled into the sand that some tire didn't avoid. How they sit on the road and glare at oncoming death with a bright, reflective eye. Running, I encounter as many passed animals as live, and examining them I've learned something, briefly, about anatomy, or at least its fragility. This poorwill, a night bird, an insect feaster, reminded me of the Western screech owl that I carried like a football tucked in my arms back to my house in high school, only to keep it frozen for one and a half years (beside a DO NOT THROW AWAY index card that my sister finally had the good sense to ignore).


I'd like to think I'm growing out of my interest in roadkill, which is void of what matters. At the very least, now, when I stop to examine roadkill, I make sure to carry it off to the shoulder of the road. But I did pluck a few primaries to hold up to the light: an alteration of brown and black like the shadows in the imprint of a tire on fine desert sand.


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12 mi, 84 min; Test Station/Picnic Ground Road (aka, Tufa-to-Tufa)

Week Total: 70 mi

Time to make strides

I decided to take it pretty easy today, because though the landscape never gets old for me--it always look different, new, though it's wave, after scraggly wave, of sage--the length and cadence of my run does. Monotony is the bane of creativity, and perhaps fitness. I'm looking forward to throwing my first, short tempo run into the mix, in two weeks. I'm also going to institute a genuine long run.

And, oh, it was refreshing do some strides today on E Mono Lake Dr. The first of many. In between my easy dashes, I watched a silhouetted kestrel, perched on a telephone wire over the sage. It dipped its long tail for steadiness, swiveled its neck-less head. Then, it sprung backwards, beating fast and low across the brush, gliding in to another lookout on a bush (and flushing a pair of watchful Say's phoebes, which flew to where it had been on the wire).

There's release in a burst of speed. A sense of intent, maybe hunger.

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8+ mi, 60 min, + 4 easy strides; Rambling on roads around Mono City

It's a zoo out there

Some notable animal sightings on my jaunt to Dechambeau Ranch and back.

First, I shooed a wee, gray garter snake off E. Mono Lake Drive, for fear of its life (I've seen several squashed around the neighborhood). I actually said "Shoo," and whisked my hand like a brush, to make it slither, which it did.

Then, on the jeep trail at the end of the Drive, I came across a modest-sized gopher snake. Not sure there are any gophers out here, but what do I know--maybe there are gophers that dig sand and pumice, and feast on succulent sagebrush root.

Some call them bull snakes. Take your pick.

Anyway, I crouched down with this 2.5 foot gopher/bull for a few minutes to observe. Not great for training, but hey, it was an easy day, and I was in no hurry. One should always have time to commune with the wildlife. I usually do.

The serpent let me nudge it a few times--I mean literally push a curve into its smooth, scaled side--but it didn't budge. Seemed a bit stiff. It was only when I stood up and loomed again that it wended into the brush, and disappeared like a barber pole turning out of sight. Gopher snakes have a beautiful checkerboard back that kind of plays tricks on the mind if you watch for a long time. I took a few steps to run on, but then decided, nah, I better go after it in the brush. But it was gone, must have slunk down a hole (dug by a gopher?). It felt slightly radical to be looking around for snakes in the sage in my short shorts.

Snakes love pavement, and shadeless roads in general, and so do runners (not the shadeless part), so I've had more than a few encounters with them. All practice for when I finally run across a rattler. I'm betting on this summer. In any case, this won't be my last post about my running relationship with snakes.

Now, a follow up on pinyon jays: Down where the the jeep trail from Mono City dumps onto Cemetery Road at Wilson Creek, I flushed another flock. This time, they rose in a united squawk--and sheesh, there were so many. I tried to count them as they passed a certain point in the sky, but my eyes (and legs) couldn't keep up, and I lost count in the 30s. Actually, I think I counted the 30s twice, accidentally, before I called the exercise off. They were hard to count because they weaved all over, trading places with each other, unlike another more regimented, tight-flying type.

But there were about 50, I estimated. As I learned the other night, their flocks can get as big as 500 birds, and many individuals spend their whole life in the flock they were born into. They nest in a colony, too. I'll have to read more about their society.

And finally, running through Dechambeau Ranch, suddenly there was a great, gray motion by my left shoulder! An owl that I'd roused from a low crux in cottonwood! It took flight without a sound, but I locked one eye with one of its--we were both a bit scared.

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75 min, 10+ mi; Around Dechambeau Ranch from Mono City, evening

Independence Day

A good day, I hope, to declare a new blog?

S and I went to see the fireworks over the Bridgeport Reservoir tonight, parking behind the airport among the throngs of other cars (robust pickups, playing country music). The booms of the display echoed off the rampart-ish Bodie Hills, and the showers of flares and embers, like fireflies from various distances, were spectacular in the darkness over the still-glowing, many-angled horizon of the High Sierra.

Oddly enough, the show reminded me of an eruption I’d seen—caused, actually—earlier in the day, on my run. Adding a few miles on to a nice loop around Conway Ranch, I hit the jeep trail that diverges from E. Mono Lake Drive into the sagebrush along Mono City. It was around 11 am, not spectacularly hot, but with a flat, harsh light.

Suddenly, birds began exploding from the bushes on either side of the sandy road: a couple towhees, a sparrow, a meadowlark, and many pinyon jays—a whole flock. The jays didn’t lift off all at once, but one at a time, as I flushed them from the umbrellas under which they’d perched, one individual to a bush. Each lifted off in flurry of blue and gray feathers with a characteristic nasal call.

I stirred up about twenty jays over two-hundred meters of road, and they burst in every direction, with something like the whistling-thump of a launched firework. Then they all headed north, toward Highway 167, gathering in a flock like blue embers pulled by the wind toward the pinyon pine hillsides.

As their name suggests, they’re pine seed specialists. In fact, they apparently don’t have feathers covering their nostrils, unlike other jays, because they’d get gunked up with pinesap as they reached into a cone. Like other jays, however (notably, the Clark’s nutcracker), they have an incredible spatial memory which gives them the ability to store thousand of seeds and retrieve them, even under the Mono Basin’s occassional drifts of snow.

Pinyon jays are year round residents here, but should the Basin’s crop of pine fail, they would head, in mass, to a more productive, distant region. And that, as the Cornell Lab of O notes, “makes them one of the truly ‘irruptive’”—or patriotic?—“species of North American birds.”

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12 mi, 84 min run; Conway Ranch-Hwy 167 Loop