Caving in

Yesterday, on an easy 9-miler, my legs were definitely feeling Monday's long effort. I went counter-clockwise around Conway Ranch, running on Goat Ranch Cutoff toward and then along Wilson Creek, which I'd never done in that direction.

No run today, though, I've decided, because instead I'm off a hike around Mono Lake--45 miles, three days, two nights. I've resisted the endless opportunities for backpacking/big hikes in the Eastern Sierra for a long time now, mainly for the sake of running, and I just can't do it anymore.

Back Friday!

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Begin circum-Mono

Tuesday, 9/21: 9 mi, 65 min; Conway Ranch loop in reverse

Carrying a torch

It's encouraging to have a practical purpose to inspire a run. Like you need to drop a letter in the post office box a few miles away, for instance. Or ... well, that's pretty much all I can think of.

But this morning I ran back to the house with another purpose. With a message. Last night, my housemate, a videographer, mentioned that he'd always wanted a classic shot of a rattlesnake striking the camera (affixed to a broomstick, of course). Conway Ranch Rd is the place, I said. Then, around 10 am, about three miles in, there a snake was, reclining lazily in the sun on the soft sand at the edge of the road. Heck, I thought, I'll just run back to the house to rattle off an alarm.

So, I drew a line with my shoe across the road's sand--opposite the rattler--to mark the spot. Then I giddy-upped the 3.5 miles yonder to Mono City, finishing my run earlier than I'd planned (only 49 minutes). But I felt like a scout relaying an crucial message (kind of like the fabled Pheidippides, who ran from the Battle of Marathon back to Athens to deliver an announcement of victory ... and then keeled over dead with exhaustion). There was umph to my step. Never mind that the news was slightly ludicrous, deranged. It felt good, too, to run in a new direction on 395, back toward Mono City.

J, I said, rattler! Lickity split, he duct-taped a pink, plastic coat hanger to the end of a spare crutch--the perfect implement for wrangling. We piled into his truck and drove over, noting that there were probably a thousand snakes nearby, and here we were chasing just one.

Of course, it was gone. It'd been about a half hour since I'd seen it. The snake had seen enough sun, I guess, and the chase was half-baked idea, in the first place. But at least I made the effort.

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AM: 7 mi, 49 min; up 395 to the back side of Conway Ranch (rattler!), and back

PM: 5 mi, 35 min; Lee Vining Creek Trail and around town

Wednesday, 9/1: 15 mi, 105 minutes; down old 395 to Cemetery Road, around Dechambeau Ranch, then through it, and on til Mono City

The oncoming moon

Aqueduct Road and Lower Horse Meadow tonight. As I finished up down through the meadow, the full moon rose in a saddle of the ridge that leads to the top of Williams Butte, a sway that looks just like a horse's back.

I'm sorry to continue going on, like a kook, about snakes, but c'est la vie: Starting out on Aqueduct Road this evening, I passed a white truck--a couple of hunters with, in no particular order, their compound bow and a black dog in their laps. Didn't think a thing of it, until, returning, I leaped, in my usual awkward and compulsive way, over a garter snake in the road, yellow stripes down its dark back.

The sun was gone--no snake in its right mind would be lying exposed. Sure enough, and sadly, it seemed gone. I was sure it was the truck that had run over it. It was still warm, though cold-blooded, like a rock cooling off after dusk.

I squatted by the little snake, perhaps a foot-and-a-half long, resting my elbows on my knees. Then, with a finger, I felt it, pushing one of its curves, gently. There was no stiffness in it, just residual life, the twitch of nerves. So as if drawing pictures or patterns in the sand, I puppeteered for a moment--I don't know why--pushing the snake forward in curves, allowing it to crawl one last time. It was playful and solemn, like the best of ceremonies I think, and it made me happy to imagine I could help it go where ever it was going.

At last, I made to lift it off the road--and, it yawned. It opened is tiny jaws, each like a fingernail, as wide as they would go, nearly 180 degrees. I wondered if it, still alive within, somewhere, though not on our plane, was remembering the last cricket or blind, newborn vole it took from the grass. Weirdly, I almost wanted to give it my finger--let it clamp down harmlessly, soothingly at the last. But I did not. It was not a gasp, just a yawn before a long, early hibernation. Or a waking? I moved it off the road--and it yawned, again. The final stretch, I thought. I watched it, for another moment, but it didn't move again.

When I finally uncoiled from my squat and went on with run, I would find that I was stiffer, colder, too. But beforehand, high in the blue above us, a raven called out. Perhaps the bird--a mere black dot, overhead--would find this garter in the morning, and to help, I coiled it in a corkscrew, turning it into an artful eye that would find the raven and the sun lifting over Mono Lake. Or the oncoming moon.

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10 mi, 69 min; O+B on Aqueduct Road across Williams Butte, as well as Lower Horse Meadow

Monday, 8/23: 10 mi, 70 min; loop around Dechambeau Ranch from Mono City

DP in the desert, yo!

So, I was reading in Daniel's Running Formula last night about tempo runs--yes, I have such books, but for some reason, I rarely browse through them. Anyway, he, this legendary coach, made a point of stressing that tempos should be on more or less flat, evenly surface, and windless terrain. I thought to myself, Dang.

My tempo last Tuesday (which I haven't written about til now, sorry ... maybe what comes next will suggest why) didn't go so hot. Well, no, it was hot; I ran in the early afternoon, on Cemetery Rd, the same stretch I used for my first tempo. But I intended to go 5 miles, and only managed 4. It might have been because I went out too hard--I don't really know, the miles aren't marked--and the wind was bad. During the first mile, I ran straight through a bona fide dust devil, sand whirling all around me, and held my breath. Then, mile 3-ish was pretty much all up hill, though relatively gradual. The footing everywhere in the Basin is sandy as all get out, at least in (unexpected) sections, and full of rocks that can test an ankle. To cut this sob story a bit shorter, I called it off after 4 miles feeling tapped running back into the wind, uphill. No juice to be squeezed. God-lessly awful. Not fun.

So, today, I wanted my tempo to be extremely funner. I drove to more level terrain (check!), Aqueduct Rd, just before 7 pm--when it was COOL (how reasonable!)--and parked at Walker Creek. I got out of the car, opened the doors, and blasted The Strokes, as I half stretched, half danced in full view of gorgeous mountains and dangerous volcanoes. (I was really shaking it out! It was a dance off, and the challengers were the Mono Craters and my elbowy, distorted reflection in the Jeep!) It made think about how fun the old locker room days in college were--terrible as the music often was--or just those days of rollicking company, period. That's another drawback to training alone.

Anyhow, even before the warm up, it was off to a good start. A success, even. Never mind that my legs felt pretty Cemetery, though I'd tried to leave that behind. I guess that's what 60-ish miles in the last four days can do to you.

My warm up was indeed heavy, stiff, and I'll admit, I had a few doubts. But what-ev. I lay down some short strides and set out at a brisk clip. But not too fast (YES!). And the best part of Aqueduct Road is that it works with you. Dances with you? No, that may be going too far. But it does bend in and out of the wind, as you run roughly parallel--this is key--to the mountains (though one of those bends is at least a mile, and you can see all the way to the other side, which is intimidating, because it looks so freaking far). This way, you don't suffer for too long in the Santa Chilla always rolling down those glacial canyons. And it went fine! Just fine, considering my legs. They continued to warm up and by the time I finished my solid 27 minute tempo I'd almost forgotten about how rough the road was. Almost.

At one point, I chased a mountain quail. It skeddadled straight down the track for about a minute, before taking flight, finally, in a puff of dust. Why? Cause I was gaining on it ... ha! Then on my return, coyotes sang out from the hills. Probably dancing up there, too, old Wiley. To The Strokes?

Here's what I've learned, in the end: I must try to be both Roadrunner (or quail) and Coyote! I'm sure some interpretation argues they're of the same ego, anyway.

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3 mi, 21 min, warm up; ~ 5 miles (or who knows) in 27:11; 3 mi, 21 min, cool down

A step toward impulsion

There’s inertia to overcome, running day in and day out, and sometimes no energy to drive anywhere for variety. This morning, for example, I headed out on the good old Conway Ranch Loop (how quickly it’s aged!). The circuit’s quite nice, especially the middle five miles of dirt road that passes the tumbled boulders of Rattlesnake Gulch (I’ll try to have pictures soon), before climbing up and over a rise for views of the islets and the White Mountains in Nevada.

The run joins Highway 167 eventually, which crosses Wilson Creek on the way back to Mono City. It’s not a natural creek, but a once-upon-a-time ephemeral wash that, for a long time, has served as a return ditch, more or less, for Mill Creek’s water, after it’s siphoned through the Southern Edison power plant (on the other side of 395). The water has steadily cut (or “incised”) into the sandy soil, producing a soft canyon, maybe 50 feet deep in places, that might look natural to the untrained eye, but is far from it. Willows fill the bottom of this long winding trough, and do provide habitat. Running on 167 where it dips across Wilson, I’ve flushed black-crowned night herons and, I’ve seen them spiral down to that spot from afar, as well.

Every time I jog over the creek, I peer longing at the rippling water, about the width of a healthy sidewalk, as it flows under the road. On the downstream side, a culvert jets water into a roiling mound-of-a-pool, and a little dirt cul-de-sac blocked by three large rocks leads right down to its weedy lip. Today, I couldn’t resist. I ran over the creek and away, but u-turned eventually—actually, I turned a few circles, making up my mind—and ran at a clip back to Wilson Creek, where I tore off my socks, shoes, and shirt (stretched my hamstrings and calves, briefly), and waded in.

Quite, the, shock. The current strong, the water sweeping into and around a row of willows. I was worried about my feet getting painfully lodged between stones, so I lowered myself in and scuttled like a crab across the swiftest part to a quieter spot on the other side. Paintbrush stood at the edge of the pool, a dash of red matching my shorts. I was hidden from the highway (which was high indeed, for once) and couldn’t hear a thing, except for the motoring water.

Why was I indecisive in the first place? Well, it’s a long walk back. Took me about a half hour to trek home along 167, and then through the sage, to Mono City. Along the way a tiny convertible brimming with four smiling Japanese tourists pulled up, not to offer me a ride, but to ask, “Mono Hot Springs?” Ain’t any, I said. They were searching for the Dechambeau Ponds, which does have a fount of hot water (let loose by a search for oil), but it may be scalding, and it runs into a reedy, yellow-headed-blackbird-infested pond.

I told them to go to Travertine. Twenty-two miles North. Take a right after the Ranger Station. One of the women wearing a broad-brimmed, floppy hat lifted her hand and waved from the backseat as they blew past me going the other way.

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12 mi, 85 min; Conway Ranch Loop, doubling back, finally, to Wilson Creek