The sound of water

Shook the legs out today. Seems like the effects of the hike for the most part have dissipated, and I'm looking forward to this weekend.

I went down to Cemetery Rd as the light lifted from the sage, and everything went smoothly in the cool air. (I also made a point of glancing at my watch less.) I tried to concentrate on relaxing my arms, and turning over my legs (rather than over-striding, which I think I sometimes tend to do).

Before the workout, after warming up, I stopped on the road to stretch more and do some strides (unlike my first interval session this training cycle ... which went less well). And suddenly, with no breeze around, I was hearing what sounded like water. I paced back and forth, and looked off into the sage, and then realized it was flowing underneath me. I imagined it was natural tunnel, pumping water to a gushing spring near the lake's shore. Through a lava tube! Maybe I was the first to discover this astounding, unseen waterway, coursing through the desert like vein!

More likely, it was the pipe I've heard diverts water from Wilson Creek to Dechambeau Ranch, which wouldn't be one, otherwise.

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4 mi, 28 min WU; 5 x 2 min hard, w/ 90 sec rest; 5 mi, 35 min CD; Mono City-Cemetery Rd (12 mi in all)

Tuesday, 9/28: AM: 9 mi, 63 min; Poole Power Plant Rd

PM: 5 mi, 35 min; Mono City sagebrush ramble

A dip in the Poole

I drove forth from Mono City this morning intending to run Aqueduct Road, the Williams Butte traverse. But rounding the lake, I could feel the heat at 10am (oh, if only I was a real morning runner...)through the dusty, bug-spattered windshield, and the air conditioning wasn't cutting it, yet. So I drove up to Poole Power Plant Road instead, which is an oasis of sorts, for me. A break from the sage, a homecoming to shade--a plunge into the mountains! Quaking aspen are always reassuring, and not being able to see around a bend is a novel, welcome distraction, when you're not used to it. Plus there's coming upon pint-sized tumbling waterfalls--seldom bad. I parked at Moraine Campground, ran the approx. 3.5 rolling, upward miles to the humming power plant (it's kind of exciting to reach it), and doubled back several miles in the shady section to make it more-or-less 10 (i.e. precisely 70 minutes).

Much later, at 7:30 pm, I doubled back once more for 5 on Test Station Road from South Tufa. As I strode, the lake fell into that vibrant, ice blue rife with wind-borne stripes (like cracks in a glacier) that arrives, from certain angles, just after the mountains have become dark, abyssal shapes. Nice evening for plodding, as ever.

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AM: 10 mi, 70 min; Poole Power Plant Rd

PM: 5 mi, 35 min; Test Station Rd from South Tufa

At last, not one, but two

At the modest hour of 9:30 this morning, I drove up 120 to Poole Power Plant Road, parked at Aspen Campground, and jogged through Lee Vining Canyon to the dead end at the Southern Edison generation station. Oh shade, I always forget how I had miss thee amid the base, groveling sage! (That's not fair, I know.) I felt downright stealthy slipping along in the mottled lee of aspen and a jolt of delight climbing the cool, prostrate, drawnout shadow of a humongous ponderosa up the pavement. It's a stellar stretch that follows Lee Vining Creek--full of Pooles, indeed. (The anglers knew.) Hard to believe I've never fished around up there, really, til now.

It was only two miles to the power plant and back, so I kept going the other direction past Aspen Campground on PPP Road before turning around to make it nine miles ultimately.

And then ... ten hours later, I went for my first "double" since college. Now, that's saying something. That's ambition, for me. I toured/tooled around the sage roads and gravel pits beside Mono City, which is first rate second run/add-on ground. Suitable dirt biking territory makes for an engaging run--it's only the pace that's different. Tonight, I encouraged the sand to encourage an easy pace, and the nighthawks meep-ing and sweeping low in the faint light made good company, if not decipherable conversation.

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9 mi, 63 min, AM: Poole Power Plant Road, in Lee Vining Canyon

4 mi, 28 min, PM: the sagebrush ramble beside Mono City

Also: A blog post, In Defense of a Rock, for HCN.