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

Four weeks to go

On Friday, I jogged down to Cemetery Rd for another bout of intervals, trying to simulate ~1000m repeats with 3 minute efforts. The temperature was just right, and aside for a car with a male driver that passed me going way too fast (even after I tried waving to get the jerk to slow), throwing up a cloud of dust, it was pretty smooth. The roads by no means flat, so going out I felt faster than coming back. Yet the luxury of running on time, not laps or miles, is that its effort that counts. My track:


Today, I put in a good 20-mile long run--not super long, but at a relatively brisk pace. I'd intended to go another mile, actually, but was feeling rather dizzy/drained by the time I got back to the house--perhaps I started out too fast--so I called it a day. Also, early in the run (from about 1 mile in to mile 5), I was feeling an occasional twisting/pain on the side and back of my knee (sciatica?), especially on the downhills, which is worrisome. I thought about aborting the run, and perhaps should have, but decided I could always hitch back along Hwy 167 if it stayed with me through 10 miles. It disappeared, for now--I'll have to monitor it closely. Possibly it stems from my hips being slightly out of alignment after the hard half-marathon effort/Friday's workout. We'll see ...

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20 mi, 135 min; Cottonwood Canyon loop

Week total: 97 miles -- this will prove to be my highest weekly total for the year

Saturday, 10/9: 10 mi, 70 min; reverse Conway Ranch loop

Friday, 10/8: 4 mi, 28 min WU; 5 x 3 min hard, w/ 2 min rest (~ 4 mi); 4 mi, 30 min CD; Cemetery Rd (12 mi total)

Woe is he who eats too many wasabi peas

Enough said. I'd planned to go a few miles longer, but cut it short, exhausted. They say one's diet is crucial to training. I believe that, but seldom abide by it. Example A: today.

Also saw my biggest rattler yet on Conway Ranch Rd, in the vicinity of Rattle Snake Gulch (which, after this summer, I truly believe is rightly named). Girthy feller, maybe 3 feet long. Let me tell you, rattlers get a little nervous when you come up on the jog. Thank goodness for low light and shiny scales that gleam (unlike a twisted piece of sagebrush) from 100 yards away.

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16 mi, 112 min; Conway Ranch Rd-Hwy 167-Cemetery Rd-Black Point Rd-Mono City

My longest run ever

... time wise. Seriously, now--how do people run for 4+ hours? (People are amazing.) I can't imagine it. To spend so long out in the elements? All that time on your feet? And mentally? That's forever to focus. Good on ya, marathoners. You've made the term mean more, and I mean that in the best of senses.

This morning, I cracked the 2.5 hour barrier for the first time, and that felt like just about enough. I think my previous longest run was about 2:28-ish, back in 2008 in preparation for my first marathon in Austin. I got back to the house, after my usual long loop to Cottonwood Canyon Rd, in 2:11 (drank some water I'd set out on the driveway), then added on 23 minutes in Mono City. By 7-min "badger miles"--to which, you may have noticed, I've come to ascribe (because I just don't care to guess at/drive my distances)--it was 22 miles. But, for once, I'll fess up and gloat that this was at least a 23-, quite possibly a 24-mile run. (The few marked, but otherwise unremarkable miles I did on Hwy 167 were at 6-6:30 pace ....)

And, what do you know, the decision to postpone my long run a day (which felt like such anathema since we, runners, tend to live by the calendar week) was glorious vindicated by the stupendous, refreshing, fall weather, with just a whisper of breeze. On Goat Ranch Cutoff Rd, I crossed over tracks in the sand and stopped, very briefly (a paws?), to verify that they were mountain lion--out for a stroll/on patrol on the road under moonlight, I imagined. They headed up into the Bodie Hills. An auspicious start to the week.

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23 + mi, 154 min; the usual grand loop to Cottonwood Canyon Rd

Why do I bother?

Got up this morning in time to see an unexpected entrant, Ryan Hall, demolish the Tioga Pass Run, which starts in front of the Mono Lake Committee and finishes at the entrance to Yosemite Park--a 3200 ft climb. Apparently, he does similar runs somewhat regularly--gez--especially on Rock Creek Rd. He ran over a full minute faster per mile, on average, than the second place finisher, which could have been me, except I took the easy way out and didn't run. But I was able to give Sara, his wife, and an elite runner as well, a lift to the top. We stopped at various turnouts to cheer him on; he hardly needed it. Nice to chat with her, though, and hear about life in Mammoth. At the top, Ryan declared, "I can't believe other people are doing this." Well said. People are amazing. I dropped them off in Lee Vining so that they could head up to the Whoa Nellie Deli for some grub.

I didn't run, until later in the day, that is. Fresh with inspiration, and guilt (I mean, if Ryan could take down Tioga Pass only a month from his goal race, the Chicago Marathon--and only a week from a half-marathon in Philly--then why couldn't I have, two months away from my race?), I took to Aqueduct Road. But goddamn if it wasn't very long until I was feeling lousy. On flat-to-rolling terrain, I was probably going slower than Ryan earlier in the day. Why do I bother? I thought. The legs were tired and tight--from yesterday, I suppose--and my stomach was churning. Only went 16, which was the plan. A good riddance run.

The most awkward (and funny) moments of the day, however, were atop Tioga Pass, where after the race numerous people began mistaking me for Ryan. They'd come over to shake hands, though I was wearing corduroys, a fleece, and flip flops, leaning idly against the stone wall beyond which was Yosemite. "I'm not Ryan," I had to say, several times. "He's cooling down." Sara joked that I should take the prize basket (if there was any) and make my get away.

When I got home, a friend of my housemates, who was visiting, said, "Didn't I just see you running up Tioga Pass?"

"No," I said, with a laugh, "that was someone else."

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16 mi, 111 min; O+B on Aqueduct Rd from the base of Horse Meadows Rd to the backside of Grant Lake

Week total: 80 mi/6 days -- Not bad, considering. Gonna try harder next week.

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!)

No snake this time

Just a knockout view down Cottonwood Canyon Rd. From that vantage point, the islands, the Craters, and the High Sierra past Mammoth all align, like stair steps, or a craggy, geologist's dream/bingo. Might be my favorite view around. And, best of all, the stretch is downhill--I can just roll, and gaze.

For once, the wind died down over the course of the day, rather than picking up, and I timed this loop just right--left just before 6, back just after 8. I also managed it about 4 minutes quicker than a week ago (then added on a few minutes at the end). I'm heartened by the fact that, while training for my first (and only) marathon in Austin, I launched into my first long runs about this week, twelve weeks out from the goal race. So, though I may feel a bit behind per my goal of running faster this time, I've got more long and medium-long runs under my belt already.

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19 mi, 133 min; my Big Conway Ranch lop (same as last week), i.e. Hwy 395-Conway Ranch Rd-Goat Ranch Cutoff-Cottonwood Canyon Rd-Hwy 167-Cemetery Rd-Mono City jeep trail

Week total: 91 mi -- after two weeks of travel, finally a solid week of training, the kind I need to string together

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

It's alive ...

Both the blog, and the rattler I saw today as I crested the hill northeast of Conway Ranch. I had shooed a garter off the road a few miles earlier, and must have been channeling a charmer's energy. The broken sagebrush strewn across the road even had a sinuous quality.

Luckily, I saw it before it was trouble. It was on the left side of the road, and I was jogging down the middle. Thick, girthy, its pale sides glinting in the post-6pm sun that was pouring its final moments over Conway Ranch. I suspected at first glance that the snake was no gopher, and it's six-tiered rattle confirmed that hunch.

I stopped, of course. I often feel guilty when I pause while "training", and feel the pressure to keep on, to keep the heart-rate up--I just can't help it. One part of my soul loves to linger, the other chafes. But I fought my guilt off for longer than usual this time. If anything, rattler's would have such an effect. I circled around it, squatted down. It raised its rattle and gave two shakes and side winded to the dirt lip at the edge of the road, with its head tracking my shins the whole time (don't worry, I wasn't dangerously close). I think I stood, or took a step closer, and then it slithered quickly over the little embankment and coiled, in a perfect pretzel shape, in the tight clearing between several sagebrush. Its rattle was upright before its body, like a shield, its head reared back--a classic display. It would take a fool to mistake this for an ordinary snake.

But I followed it, stepping off the road, and observed the rattler for a few more minutes. Its forked tongue--jet black at its prongs, a pearly coal further in--slid out and down, in a slow, sense-ful flicker, and then, sometimes, curled back over the top of its spade-shaped head. I stepped from side-to-side, trying for the best angle to see the creature, and it's dagger-face followed knowingly. From the road, before I left, I couldn't resist boyishly prodding its side gently with the twiggy tip of a sagebrush branch, and it turned toward the provocation violently, giving two isolated rattles--like the single click of a castanet--that were quite elegant and clear in their message. (When I told this story to a friend, she mentioned that it's usually males 18-30 who get bit by rattlers ... I can't fathom why.)


Then I went on another 14 miles, or so, down Goat Ranch Cutoff to Cottonwood Canyon Rd, to Highway 167 (a stretch I normally don't reach), and back on Cemetery Road to Mono City finally, after dark.

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19 + mi, 135 min; a big Conway Ranch Loop

Week total: 75 mi

Also: A Mono-logue post about a gull, "An elder in our midst"

Oregon ho!

I'm heading 8 hours north to today, and will be back Thursday, so the posts might be infrequent. Just back from a 16 mile, or more, effort out in the sage, on the old Conway Ranch loop plus Goat Ranch Cutoff out-and-back add-on. I tried to push the finish a tad and force the legs to turn over despite a shortened stride, which is inevitable when it comes to long runs. Otherwise, nothing eventful to speak of, really, except perhaps for a large redtail that lumbered off a pole, working hard without a thermal. I got far enough down GRC that I could see Cottonwood Canyon, which is the back road to Bodie--connecting Cottonwood Canyon Rd with 167, with Cemetery Road might make for a good long loop, when I finally need it. I swear, a map soon.

And remember: it's always an excellent idea to go for a big run right before you jump into the car for an all day drive. The legs love it.

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16 mi, 112 minutes; Conway Ranch Loop plus Goat Ranch Cutoff O+B add-on

Week total: 82 mi

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

First long-ish run

Fourteen miles today, my longest run since the late spring of 2009. Waited until the afternoon cooled, then did the usual Conway Ranch Loop, but added on a couple more miles out and back on a relatively level dirt road--I think it's called Goat Ranch Cut-off--that runs north of and roughly parallel to 167. (I'll make a map soon to delineate these various obscure routes.)

Near my turn around, I slipped past a cluster of rusty cars and trailers in an expected, disorganized junk circle (like they'd come to a watering hole altogether to drink). And there was a man, sitting outside, focused on something in his lap. He didn't notice me as I went by with the wind; the road was soft with shallow sand. I wondered if all those metal animals belonged to him, or if he'd simply joined their lot for the night. Or the summer? If longer, I suppose they arrived, gathered around him one at a time, like the sheep and Basque herders that ran not long ago in nearby hills.

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14 mi, 98 min; Conway Ranch Loop, with an extension down Goat Ranch Cut-off

Week in review: 65 mi/6 days + 1 rigorous hike