Runner's High

I woke up this morning after bouldering all day yesterday with lots of sore muscles, particularly those in my upper body. Even though I've been trying to work on my pushups, my triceps and lats were really tight and worn out. Originally I had planned to go on a bike ride today because I've only gotten out on it once since I've been here. But I checked the forecast and the wind has been gusting up to 40 miles/hour out on the east side of 120, the same gust speed as the last time I went on a ride, so that discouraged me a bit. I haven't been out on a run since my disastrous attempt at 4 miles last week, so I figured I would just go out for a jog and see how it went.

I drove out to Grant Lake Reservoir, a beautiful cerulean blue lake nestled up against Mt. Wood on the June Lake Loop. The highway skirts the west side of the lake, but a small dirt fisherman's road runs along the east side for a couple of miles until it runs into a series of cliffs. I parked at the beginning of this road and began my run. I hadn't eaten much in the morning, but my stomach was feeling a little unsettled as I started out. I was nervous that this, not shortness of breath or tired muscles, might cut my run short. But it felt good to have the dirt road passing quickly under my advancing stride and as I began to fall into the routine of a run, fully engrossed both in my surroundings - a wall of 12,000 foot peaks to my right and a glacial moraine to my left - and the latest This American Life podcast, I forgot all about my upset stomach and just began to enjoy my run.

I was really careful this time to pick a route that wasn't too hilly. I know that eventually I'll have to work that into my training, but right now at the beginning, it's a little too discouraging when I feel like I need all the success I can get. This route was really nice - it followed a pretty consistent contour around the east side of the lake with only one or two small hills to put a little burn in my legs. However, what I hadn't taken into account was the wind. Silly, I know because the whole reason I was running instead of biking was wind, but I thought I would be protected tucked up against the moraine. Wrong. The whole way out, a strong head wind was whistling in my ears, making my podcast difficult to ear, and making my eyes water. Again, I was a little apprehensive, but it turned out ok. It actually felt like someone was pumping air down my lungs and it meant that I got to run in the sun without overheating. It was pretty fun! I got a little more than two miles out and turned around to make my return journey. At this point I started feeling a little fatigued, not too out of breath, just a little tightening in my glutes and hamstrings. I was a little nervous, but wanted to keep running just to see if I could do the 4 miles.

My run back was fantastic. I started taking longer strides with the wind at my back and felt like I was flying. At about the halfway point, my feet started to tingle and I got a little light headed. I wasn't really sure what was going on, but I wanted to keep running. Then I got butterflies in my stomach and suddenly I wasn't breathing hard anymore. My body was still moving at the same pace, but it was like I wasn't having to try at all, the wind and the endorphins carried me along. This was the first time I had ever experienced the "runner's high," something my ex-marathoner mom has told me about since the first time I ran three miles during track try-outs my freshman year. I always thought it was kind of a myth that runner's talked about because they're doing things that most other people don't enjoy doing, but now I know that it's a real thing and that unless I run at least 4 miles, I won't get to experience it again. How's that for motivation?

4.16 mi/41 min

Happy Boulders and happy bouldering

This past week just flew by. We had a really great group of kids that toughed out a lot of dicey weather and did a great job maintaining their focus while they were here. It snowed on them 2 out of the 3 days they were in the field, but rather than complain or get discouraged, they instead viewed it as a unique opportunity that they may never get to experience again. (It doesn't snow very frequently in LA County.) By the end, they were calling to Chickadees, pointing out juniper and Jeffrey pines, smelling the wild onion and talking about the age of mountain ranges. I know it's idealistic to think that all these bits of knowledge will change the way they live their day to day lives, but I think it's important that they have a little more perspective on the world they live in. Los Angeles is a big city. It's a huge city, actually. Many of them have never lived anywhere else, some have never even been outside the county lines. But now they have a connection to and a mental image of a place that's so starkly different from where they live, yet also very intimately linked. And they understand the history and reality of that relationship. As I watch these kids begin to connect the dots, the connection grows deeper within me too. I've never had any desire to go to Los Angeles, but I'm now feeling a responsibility to these kids. If I'm teaching them how their daily lives affect ours up here, I should understand what that means, what that looks like. It's unlikely that I'll make it down to LA in the near future, but I'm hoping that at some point during this season I'll be able to make the 338 mile trek down the aqueduct and take a look at the other end of the pipe.

In other news, yesterday was my day off. Originally Morgan and I had talked about going skiing (Mammoth Mountain is 30 mins away, they got 500 inches of snow so far this year and are getting more every day.) But because it's been so snowy and cold here, we decided to look for the sun. Jess, another Committee employee, drove us down to Bishop to the Happy Boulders, where Morgan got to put her new shoes to use for the first time and I got to thoroughly embarrass myself with how long it's been since I climbed. Jess is a really great climbing partner/mentor. She worked at a climbing gym in Boulder, CO for a while, so not only is she super knowledgeable about body positions, hand grips, etc, she is also really encouraging and supportive. To me, this has always been one of the biggest barriers to truly enjoying climbing - the feeling of innate competition between you and the people you are climbing with. I always used to get really frustrated that I wasn't as good as the people I was with, and I wasn't seeing improvement as quickly as I wanted. But I'm slowly learning that the only competition should be between me and myself. It's a slow process, the strengthening of those tiny finger and forearm muscles and while it's going to take a lot of persistence, it will also require patience. It'll be good practice for me!

Anyway, we had a really nice day - lots of sun, lots of laughs, lots of fun! Here are a few pictures from our adventure:

What a great day!

After exhausting ourselves on the rock, we ran down to the Owen's River and Jess and I dunked our toes in to cool off while Morgan dove in. The cold literally stole her breath and she couldn't do anything except sputter until she got back onto shore. We all left feeling very refreshed! Then we went into Bishop and hit Mammoth Mountaineering Supply, an outdoor gear and consignment store, where we had to restrain ourselves from buying out the whole place. But we all came away with a reasonable amount of stuff and didn't spend our entire months wages so it was a success!

Going to Bishop is kind of like going to the city for us - there are so many things there that we don't have in Lee Vining: a movie theatre, a big grocery store, gear and thrift stores, a nursery, Mexican food, etc so it's pretty easy to go crazy when we're there. After a day spent in the sun, nothing sounded better than a giant margarita, so we made our way over to Las Palmas to meet Ryan, our friend who lives in Bishop. We gorged ourselves on chips, salsa, margaritas and the largest burrito I have ever seen. It was wonderful!

On the way home we stopped at Wild Willie's - a complex of hot spring pools outside of Mammoth - and soaked our exhausted bodies for 30 minutes or so. What a wonderful day! Thanks, girls, for the fun!

Someone get me a Band-Aid...

...because I fell off the bus. The training bus that is. (I've been reading some other runners blogs and apparently being slightly sarcastic and REALLY tacky is en vogue right now. How'm I doing?) Anyway, I'm beginning to realize that sticking to a really rigorous schedule is not really realistic with my current work schedule. Today, for example, I worked from 8:30 am to 11 pm. I would love to think I have the motivation to get up early and run before work, but that's just not going to happen. Hopefully in the next couple weeks the schedule will settle down a bit leaving me with more down time on my work days. Because a half marathon is definitely a real goal at this point and I'm going to be super disappointed if I don't accomplish it because of work. Usually it's the motivation part that I have trouble with and I've been doing well with that so far. So because I don't have much to update on the athletic front (other than an awesomely relaxing session with Rodney Yee yesterday in my living room), I'll talk about work instead.

I think I mentioned that the majority of the groups we get come from Los Angeles County. They often have very little experience in the outdoors, with cold weather, being exposed to the elements, etc. However, because we are located here around 7000 ft, we see a lot of different kinds of weather during the 7 months that we host groups and today was a pretty good example. All day today we were out hiking in the basin. It was chilly - never got above 45 - but for most of the day the sun was out which made it manageable. The wind picked up occasionally and caused everyone to bury their noses in their collars, but considering the temperature we ended up getting a lot done. Then, this evening we decided to go on a night walk. This is a walk where we take the kids 20-30 minutes back into a forest on an old logging road and then have them walk back one by one. It's a really great confidence builder for the kids who usually leave the vans terrified and return to the exhilarated. Well, tonight we piled into the cars to head to our night walk site only to drive straight into a snow storm.

There were a couple kids in this group that had never seen snow before, much less seen it falling from the sky so as soon as we arrived at our trailhead (so to speak) they jumped out and immediately started playing in it. Let me remind you that it's pitch black out and we're about to go hiking, so we had to encourage them to save the snowball fight for after our return to the cars. We began our walk in two single file lines, all walking in silence and listening to the snow falling around us. It was so quiet you could hear each flake settle in among the others as it landed on the ground. In a place where the only sounds usually are the pine needles rustling against each other in the wind, this kind of quiet was really magical. The kids seemed to feel it too. Of course they were nervous about their walk, but as soon as we got going they quieted down and really listened to what was going on around them. The sense of awe was almost tangible around us. I had been a little worried about how these kids would handle the cold and wet, but I was so glad that we chose to bring them out tonight. I think we offered them an experience they will never forget and may never have the chance to repeat. This is why, despite the crazy hours, I love my job.

A Little Bit of Everything

Wow, there I go starting another blog and then immediately abandoning it. I'd like to think I have a reasonable excuse - I've worked 58 hours in the past 5 days. Whoa. But I'll try to be more regular so they're not all so long.

I'm not quite sure yet how comfortable I am writing about my work. There are confidentiality issues and it's also something I'm not quite sure yet how to talk about, but the general gist of it is this:

I'm an environmental education instructor with the Mono Lake Committee, a fantastic non-profit organization based in Lee Vining, CA. I get to live right next to Mono Lake, a 55,000 acre terminal lake on the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountains and 12 miles outside of Yosemite National Park. Some mornings I have to pinch myself to make sure this is really my life. The kids we spend time with are inner city youth, a large majority of whom come from Los Angeles County and have not had the opportunity to spend much time outside. During the 5 days they spend with us, they can't use cell phones, ipods or any other technological devices. They spend at least 12 hours/day outside learning the natural and political history of this beautiful basin that I get to call home. Many of them have never touched snow, never seen the stars without light pollution, or have never walked alone in the woods. Selfishly, it's really wonderful to hear them talk about the changes in their perception of the outdoors, "nature" and conservation when they leave. Though they only stay for five days, we get to know them pretty well and it's really rewarding when they begin to open up to us, engage in what we're teaching, even ask about how they might be able to come live here someday (that hasn't happened to me yet, but I've heard it's pretty common). It's mentally and physically exhausting, but I can already tell it's going to be super rewarding. Ok, haha I just realized I said I couldn't talk about it much, then proceeded to write about it for like 10 minutes. It's the day-to-day stuff that I can't write about much, but I'll try to talk about some of the hikes we lead, lessons we teach and cool things we get to see around the basin.

This week we had some weird weather - we were supposed to get snow, then rain, but both of the days this was forecast it turned out to be beautiful for the most part. The hikes we took with this group were pretty short, but it was great to be outside with them. Because I was working so much, I missed a few of my workouts, but I also fit a couple in which I was pretty proud of (and consequently exhausted by). I'm following Hal Higdon's 12 week half marathon training program for novices which can be found here. I just completed the first week, with a few adjustments. My second 3 mile run was on Tuesday and I followed the same route as my first - Utility Rd to 120 to 395 and back home. I completed it in about the same time, but this time I didn't walk at all. Though you can hardly call what I was doing up Utility Rd "running," I was proud that I kept my feet moving the whole time. My body whined about that all the next day - my hamstrings were REALLY sore and my knees were a little tendonitis-y, but the hike we did with the kids the next day really helped break up all that nasty lactic acid. To me, this run was a big personal accomplishment. The day before I was supposed to do a 2 mile run or cross train which I was a little too lazy for, but our hike up to Parker Creek plus all the walking we did around South Tufa probably added up to more than 2 miles, so I didn't feel too bad about that. Thank god Wednesday was supposed to be my rest day because I worked from 7am to 11pm with 1 hour off in the middle. No time/energy to run. I also missed yesterdays 30 min cross training session because after I got off at noon I slept for the ENTIRE afternoon. Then, a good friend of mine arrived in town and we spent most of the evening catching up and hanging out. So as far as sticking to the program goes, this week was less than perfect, but I felt like I got a decent amount of exercise overall.

But I have today off, so I couldn't come up with any excuses not to run the prescribed 4 miles. Thanks to Google pedometer (thanks, Shayna!) I found a great route (or so I thought) south of town among the Aeolian Buttes (the awesome bouldering spot). The great thing about Google pedometer, which can be found here, is that is also includes a topo map. I apparently didn't pay too much attention to that when I mapped out my route this morning, neither did I take into account that the dirt road I would be running was actually about 4 inches of sand on top of graded gravel. I did all 4.16 miles, but it took me a LOOONG time because it was steeper than I planned on and it felt like I was running through quicksand. And by running I mean running on the downhills and walking most of the uphills. Luckily I had downloaded an episode of This American Life that got me through this painful run. After my Utility Rd success earlier in the week I was feeling pretty good, almost cocky, about the running condition I'm in, but this run did a lot to take me off my high horse and remind me that I truly am a beginner. I have a long way to go before I can think about racing 13.1 miles, even farther if I want to complete a full (ugh, no super tacky puns intended). But rather than discourage me, it also put the fire under my butt a little bit to be more strict with myself and my "program." On the plus side though, my pushups are going really well! I can already feel myself getting stronger and I LOVE that tired muscle feeling that I get from doing the real ones.

Ok, here are a few photos of where I live. They weren't taken this week, but they're of some things I've done in the past few days.

The view from Black Point looking back over Mono Lake at the Sierras.

The view of the Sierras from the Aeolian Buttes (can you tell I'm obsessed with these mountains?)

Bodie State Historic Park - the largest unrestored ghost town in the country. From left to right we're looking at an old bar/liquor store, dance hall and general store.

4.14 mi run/walk / 53 min (ouch!)

Let's begin at the beginning

Hello! I'm back from a long hiatus from blogging. A partial account of the adventures from my field semester can be found here. A lot of it is focused on writing and the experience of living out of a horse trailer with 23 other people. Initially I was just going to tag team it and change the focus, but I decided that would be a little too scattered, so I began this new blog as a chronicle of the adventures I'm sure to have during this next 6.5 months of living in the Sierras. Also, thanks to a new friend here and my friend Shayna from Whitman, whose blog Chacosontherun can be found and followed here, I've renewed my inspiration and motivation for various athletic goals. I'm hoping this blog serves as both a log of my accomplishments and a way to inspire myself and others to maintain focus.

So let me introduce myself. I graduated from Whitman last May (2009) after four years of good friends, great education and lots of travel. I also played volleyball in college and thus have struggled with various joint issues. I had a minor knee surgery last September and have fought a bum shoulder since I was 16. This makes some recreational activities difficult, but I think if I can learn enough to be careful about these things, I can be successful at maintaining my physical health. ANYWAY, upon graduating, I had the great fortune of finding a wonderful job in a beautiful place surrounded by people that I love (lucky, right?). The only sad part of that story was that the job lasted only 3.5 months. I begrudgingly left in mid-September, digging in my heels most of the way home, and committed to coming back as quickly as they would agree to rehire me. So here I am, 7.5 months later, back in the Sierras. I love my job and my co-workers, and I'm excited to have another summer of adventures here.

The only strange thing about living here is that there is a significant amount of downtime. Not that I'm complaining about that - it's like a ginormous playground here with hiking, climbing, birding, biking and any other sort of "ing" you can imagine except things like shopping or clubbing. I just need to focus on taking advantage of these opportunities rather than getting sucked in by movies and junk food. Hence the creation of this blog: I'm going to use this to log my adventures. I've only been here two weeks, but I've already missed a lot, too much to catch up on, so I'll just start from yesterday.

I had the day off so I started by doing chores around the house - cooking, cleaning, laundry,etc, but by noon I was bored of this. (I forgot to mention my other problem - a mild, yet frustrating, case of ADD which manifests itself during movies, long meetings, sedentary social gatherings, etc). So rather than finish any of these tasks, I decided to go hiking.

The cool part about my job is that I am forced to become intimately familiar with all the little nooks and crannies of the Mono Basin. Bummer, I know. So on a drive the other day with my boss he pointed out a little dirt road that apparently leads to a trail up the back side of Reverse Peak via some beautiful little glacial cirques that are now just snow fed lakes. Sounded pretty good to me, so I headed up yesterday afternoon. The trail was just a dirt logging road for about 1/2 mile and my little car Sebastian could probably have driven up most of the way. Oh well, it felt good to get out and stretch my legs. There's something really invigorating about pushing yourself on a walk uphill. About a half mile in, the road narrows down to a rock-strewn trail and starts going straight uphill. After another half mile or so, I lost the trail completely under pretty big snowdrifts, so I started bushwhacking through the manzanita heading for the ridge line. Shortly thereafter, I crested the ridge and got a glimpse (through a dense forest of Jeffrey pines) of the first lake. They were still mostly snowed in, but I trekked around for a little while exploring the lakes and trying to get a good vantage point of the actual peak and the rest of the June Lake Loop. The mountains are so steep that it's hard to get a good view of anything below you because it's actually underneath you, but the view from the top was great - the full panorama from Lewis to Carson to the west, the craters to the east. As for Reverse Peak, I wasn't actually at the top, but it was really far away from me to the north and pretty bare - covered in sage brush and dirt - so I decided to stay where I was and enjoy the view. I found some pretty awesome campsites up there and can't wait for it to melt out. It's going to be a great overnight backpack later on in the summer!

After I made my way down I stopped at the Aeolian Buttes for a bit of bouldering. This is my biggest athletic challenge right now. I'd really like to climb more, but my upper body strength just isn't there so I figure if I do a little bit each day, soon I'll be able to build up and actually hold my own on the boulders (no pun intended). That's the strategy at least. So after a kind of brutal first session with Jess the other day, I've gotten out for 15 min or so each day to stretch my muscles and convince them to keep trying. Let me tell you, those baby muscles on your forearms scream loud when they are tired and there's nothing you can do about it. But even though I didn't get much actual climbing in, the view from the buttes is spectacular, so I sat and enjoyed that for awhile too. You can find more pictures from my adventures so far this summer here.

So last night was my big running research night. This was spurred by reading Shayna's blog, so thanks for the info and motivation Shayna! You're a rockstar and I love your upbeat attitude. Anyway, I've been thinking about training for and running a half marathon for awhile now (props to Meg and Leslie for showing me this can be done!) and this info session really boosted my confidence and heightened my motivation. So this morning I woke up and went for my first run since I left Seattle - that's over 2 months ago. Ouch! For those of you familiar with where I'm living, I ran through town to Utility Rd, popped out on Tioga Rd and then down to 395 home. It was only 3.13 miles, but there's an almost 500 ft gain in elevation between .5-1.2 miles which was pretty brutal for me on my first day back. It took me longer than I had hoped it would and I even broke down and walked up a couple of the steepest pitches, but that gives me something to shoot for. It's funny to live ON a highway because the running options right out my door are pretty slim. Additionally, I live on the side of a mountain around 7000ft above sea level, so I'm almost always guaranteed a pretty big climb either at the beginning or at the end of a run. But there are lots of dirt roads around that I can drive to and I'm sure once I get tired of this loop that'll be my plan of attack. Plus, this is all really going to help me when I'm running a half marathon at sea level later this year (hopefully!).

In addition to the running, I'm really going to focus on strengthening both my upper body and my core. Again, thanks to Shayna for posting great informational sites for this kind of thing. I've started the 100 push-up and 200 sit-up training programs, so I'll keep you all posted on how that goes. You can find these programs here. I'm pretty confident in my ability to work up to 200 sit-ups. This was something we did a lot of in my volleyball training. But because of my bum shoulder, I haven't done a REAL push-up since I was probably 17. I can do push-ups from my knees all day, but I thought this would be a good way to really do some serious, but gradual strengthening of my dumb shoulder. So far, so good. I did a total of 17 real push-ups today. Doesn't sound like much, but it'll help me get to my goal. Plus, push-ups will also help with my climbing goals.

Whew! That was a ridiculous amount of typing. From here on out, I'll try to make it about one thing at a time, but I had to play a little bit of catch up. I'd love to hear from anyone out there - suggestions for running routes, fun strengthening ideas, good recipes, whatever you've got.

Until next time!

3.13 mi run/walk / 32 minutes