On New Year’s day of 2003 I watched the sun rise as I waited for the start of the resolution run. And in the evening I watched the sun set from the top of Rocky Pine Ridge.

It was a lovely sunset.

Later I realized that I had watched the sun rise and set on the same day, something I don’t normally do.

So when the next year rolled around (or perhaps the one after that), I decided this was something I wanted to repeat.

I’m rather proud of what I did in 2006/7 when I decided to do a hike up to the top of Cathedral Peak to watch the sunset on New Year’s eve of 2006, and then another hike to watch the sun rise on New Year’s morning of 2007. It seemed very symbolic to watch the sun set on the old year and rise on the new. (it helped that that year the resolution run was held a day (or two?) early because the city would not give us permits for new year’s day).

However getting up in the cold and dark so I could hike (in the colder, windier dark) up to Cathedral Peak to watch the sun rise proved a challenge I have not repeated. And the custom has faded back to what I started with: watching the sun rise from the Resolution run, and doing a hike in the evening.

But that year I also started going out on the day of the winter solstice, just to Hendry’s beach (’round the corner from my house, so it’s easier to get to) to watch the sun rise, and back later to watch it set. And so far, I’ve been able to repeat that.

Today was cloudy. A solid grey overcast which turned sea and land to grey also.

But then the pelicans came out to play on the waves (which were quite large for SB).

Am I wrong to use the word play? They were not fishing. They were not mating. They were not resting. They were doing things which would make human joyful. Animals do play. I think the word is appropriate. Those pelicans were out there having fun, playing at the edge of the waves. Surfing the air.

Yoga has its traditions

In class, my yoga teacher mentioned that the proper way to greet the solstice was to do 108 sun salutations (type “A”). But we proceeded to prepare for, and do scorpion instead. So when I got home, I unrolled my yoga mat and did 108 sun salutations on my own.

Why 108? Do traditions need a reason? If you google “108 sun salutations” you will get many answers. Which seem to me to boil down to “because 108 is a sacred number”. Which boils down further to “because.”

Evening

It did not rain, and the clouds actually broke a bit allowing some light and color into the sky.

I finally found the full text of the accord.

What’s wrong with it

1. It isn’t an accord yet. It has not been adopted by the plenary session.
   No, it was neither accepted nor rejected. It was “noted”. (I don’t know what noted means, in this context and I doubt anyone else does either). And some nations did not “note” it.

2. It isn’t legally binding. It’s not a treaty, just a collection of intents.
   (This broke a commitment made at the 2007 conference (COP13) which said a legally binding deal would be made in 2009)

3. It has no substance
   • There is no mention of any cuts in emissions for any nation.
   • There is no mention of how much any individual nation should pay into the fund set up to help the developing world.
4. The general statement that a US$100billion/year fund will be set up by 2020 is far less than the US$600billion/year fund deemed necessary.
5. Emissions targets for non-annex 1 countries (China, India, Brasil, etc.) are even less explicit than the unspecified ones for annex 1 countries.
6. Each non-annex 1 country will perform domestic verification of its emissions. There does not seem to be provision for international verification.
7. In theory this accord provides a framework for moving forward, BUT there is no word on what the next step should be. No mention of COP16, or any other mechanism.

It’s full of rhetoric and has some good intents, but if it was this difficult to reach a rhetorical agreement, I can’t help wonder how difficult it will prove to reach a substantive one.

What’s right with it

1. It does not throw out the Kyoto agreement.
2. It does say (for the first time in an international document) the intent is still to limit global temperature rises to 2°C. However, since the document was not accepted, and the proposals on the table at the time would let global temperatures rise by 3°C, this statement seems like hypocrisy).

If nations make substantial commitments on 31 Jan, and if they move forward to make and sign a real treaty, then this may prove a useful step. But there is nothing here to make me think that will happen.

What worries me

Even with a rise of at most 2°C there will be droughts in Africa and floods in Bangladesh (and many other places of course). Hundreds of millions of people will be affected. People who have nothing to eat, who have had their house destroyed tend to be angry. And they will be angry with the United States.

The US has been for years the largest polluter. (OK, China now produces more per year, but that’s only recently been the case. The US has dumped more carbon in the atmosphere than China over the last century). The US has had the largest per-capita carbon footprint of all major nations. The US never signed the Kyoto agreement (And that wasn’t just Bush’s fault, Clinton did not get it passed either). In the run up to the Copenhagen negotiations the US only committed to a 4% reduction from the 1990 levels, while most other developed nations offered more like 20% reductions. The US negotiators tried to remove the teeth from previous drafts. The US is responsible for the current “accord”.

The world’s anger will be directed towards us. And that anger will only grow with time as conditions get worse.

How hard will it be to put one man with Ebola onto a plane to the US? How hard to send a fishing vessel with an atomic bomb on board into a US harbor?

China also shares some of the blame, mostly by the industrialized nations though. China was smart and claimed that it was refusing to sign the deal out of solidarity with the other G77 nations who were insisting on a stronger deal.

What terrifies me

Britain’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers (the national engineering society) says that Britain does not have the resources to achieve the necessary changes to combat climate change.

I simply do not see how an 80% global reduction in carbon output can be achieved by 2050 (which is what the IPCC says is needed). Can we find technologies which are 5 times more efficient than what we now use? Can we find replacement technologies with lower emissions? Look at cars or trucks. A Prius takes us from 25mpg cars to 50mpg. We’d need to find a technology which goes to 125mpg cars. Actually we need more than that because there will be more people in the world. What about electric cars? Well, an electric car is going to be less efficient than a gasoline powered car. There is a loss in the car’s battery, there is a huge loss in national power grid, and there is a loss when the power is generated. If the electricity is generated from hydrocarbons then gasoline powered cars are better than electric ones.

What saddens me

Humans will probably survive, though our civilization may not. But the natural world will be horrible denuded.

• Heat is killing off many coral reeves
• Acidification of water (caused by the increased CO₂ in the atmosphere) will send many species to extinction.
• Habitats will be lost on land.
• As other sources of food vanish, people will hunt other species to extinction.

My conclusions

Many people (including Obama) said that a bad agreement would be worse than no agreement at all. A bad agreement makes it look as though something has been achieved and there will no longer be the will-power to do something real.

This accord looks to me like an agreement which is worse than nothing.

Other views

• Quotes from the delegates
• The Guardian’s questions
• GreenPeace
• Gordon Brown (UK PM)
• A nice summary of the dangers

Oh great big town of Copenhavn, how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets gathers an ever-growing blight;
The hopes and fears for future years were dashed in thee last night.

What can I do?

Two degrees C is a somewhat arbitrary figure, chosen in the hope that the world’s eco-systems would be able to adapt if the temperature rise were limited to this amount.

Current consensus is that is now no way to achieve this, and the rise will be at minimum twice that.

I listen to politicians blither on about making 20% reductions by 2020 and 50% by 2050, and I wonder — do these people have any idea what they are talking about? In the 10 years from Kyoto, German was able to reduce emissions by 6%, and that was the best in the world. How can we reduce by 20% in 10 years?

The engineering society in the UK says that the UK’s plans to reduce output are “physically impossible“.

I think of myself. What can I do? I already ride a bike, so I can’t stop driving a car. I have no heat nor air-conditioning in my apartment, so I can’t turn down (up) the thermostat. I already use mini-flurescents, so I can’t switch there.

Once a year I fly to see my parents. I could stop doing that (but I won’t). I could stop buying running shoes every three months… I could turn off my computer (and do what with my life?).

I could commit suicide.

That seems the only way to make a significant reduction in my lifestyle, but I’m not going to do that either.

Of course, things are worse than they seem. If we want to reduce global carbon output by 50% in the next 40 years then we in the industrialized world will have to reduce by considerably more. The Malgasy peasant’s carbon output consists of his cooking fire and not much else. He can’t give that up and survive.

Population will increase, so the per-capita decrease must be even greater.

Oil is running out. This will cause more wars, which increase carbon output.

Coal has a higher carbon footprint than oil.

Food production will decrease. Wars will increase.

Who’s got the bomb?

The IPCC came out with its recommendations in 2007. An number of researchers within the IPCC have come out with an interim report saying that the 2007 report was far too cheerful, and things are much worse than we thought, and we are doing less about it than we expected.

Every new report says that the last report was too optimistic.

Obama says Copenhagen will decide nothing, and I expect he is right.

I’m worried.

I feel powerless.

Eli Eli lama sabachthani?

Recently, I have become fearful of running.

This is distressing.

For the last 6 weeks or so, every hard run has been paid for with extreme pain in my left leg after which my hip was out of alignment so that my next run was a lurch.

Since the half marathon, I’ve been almost unable to run at all. My legs are simply exhausted. I managed to “run” up to Inspiration Peak in 1:11 — that’s probably a record. I tried to run the last long run before the marathon, and could barely manage a mile at marathon pace. Not even MP, we started slowly.

I hope they’re better soon. I’ll try the long run again tomorrow.

Alone, unfortunately.

In the meantime: I’m whining.

Sigh.

DON JOHN: … eat when I have stomach and wait on no man’s leisure.

Much Ado about Nothing, I, iii

SIR TOBY BELCH: Does not our life consist of the four elements?
SIR ANDREW: Faith, so they say; but I think it rather consists of eating and drinking.

Twelfth Night, II, iii

I don’t like the idea of carboloading. I’ve never actually done it, but it sounds nasty and a really unnatural thing to do to my body.

On the other hand I know I need to do something. The last time I tried to run sub-3 I hit the wall at mile 18.

When I did my ultras I took a GU pack every half hour.

And I ran for 9 and a half hours.

According to my heart rate monitor I burn about than 630 kcal/hour in an ultra. In the last half marathon I burned 710 kcal/hour. I presume a road marathon will burn at a little less than the rate of a road half, somewhere around 700. But it doesn’t seem that different from the burn rate in an ultra.

So I can’t help but wonder if I could manage by eating a GU every 25 minutes or so.

I haven’t seen anything that says that this doesn’t work. On the other hand, it seems so much easier than carboloading that surely it must have been tested before now (OK, they didn’t have GU packs back in the ’60s, but they could have used packs of honey or something like that).

Rusty seems skeptical, though he hasn’t actually said he thinks it will fail.

Does anyone know?

SIR TOBY BELCH: Thou’rt a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink.

Twelfth Night, II, iii

The owls were hooting outside the window when the alarm went off this morning. I’m not sure what they felt they needed to say to each other, but they kept at it for almost an hour until dawn lightened the sky.

It was overcast, and chilly. Excellent. Yesterday, sitting in the SB Running parking lot (passing out race packets), I was too hot, and I was afraid for the race.

Rusty wanted me to do a 3 mile warmup, strides, and then start easy. My whole pace group was supposed to start out at 6:35, marathon pace. Which should be easy, except, of course, the first two miles of the half are up-hill. So it wasn’t quite as easy as all that.

Still, we were a very companionable little group. Chrystee, Michelle, Jeff and Laura (Yay! we haven’t seen her in a month!), we lined up behind Drea’s little group (Drea, Tim, Jamie, Mike). Eric was there too, but although normally part of our group, he was going for a faster start than the rest of us.

I noted with some glee that Shiggy did not appear to be here today. Perhaps I’ll win my age-group? If not today, then never. I’m the youngster in the group, and I’m pretty sure that Shiggy is the only one of our local runners who can beat me in a half… so if he’s not here…

When the gun went off, it was hard to hold back — I kept wanting to run with Drea. After a bit I was running beside Tim a bit behind from Drea, and asked why he wasn’t running with her. “She’s going too fast,” said he. Oops. Chastened, I dropped back a bit.

We were chatting together as we went up the hill. Novel. I’m not used to chatting in a half. In a marathon, yes. And I guess I’m going at marathon pace, so it makes sense.

At the 1 mile mark I discovered that I had failed to start my watch when we crossed the chip mat. I start it now. All it displayed was that my heart rate at about 85% — which seemed reasonable on a hill. Chrystee says 6:23, and then corrects herself to 6:33.

Drea is being paced by two out of town women. I worry a little about that. I want Drea to win. I want Chrystee to place. Michelle too. I don’t want out of towners in the top spots.

The male leaders are beyond my ken already, but the women leads are all around me.

One (out of town) woman, breathing very heavily, passes us. I think she’s going way too hard. And a mile or two later we pass her again. Breathing even more heavily.

Laura says she’s feeling poorly and is speculating that when we run past her house (somewhere along here) she’ll just run inside and stop racing. I tell her not to do that.

At the two mile mark the previous mile was 6:40, and I shout to the others that we need to speed up. Chrystee and Jeff both point out that it was an uphill mile and 6:40 is just fine.

I realize that Mike is running with us. Normally he runs with Drea, but he seems to be happy to hold our pace for now. Then Kent comes up from behind. Kent likes to start slow and speed up, he is nominally in our group too, and for now he seems happy to be part of our clump.

As we climb up Mesa Lane, I hear a father, who is spectating, explain to his daughter “It’s alright, they are allowed to run fast in the street.” Mmm. Yes, he probably doesn’t want his three year old out running in the street.

As we run we switch places, we’re a rather loose clump, sometimes one person will be in front, sometimes we’ll be in a long line across the street, sometimes a different person will be in front. Hmm. When we do tempo runs we’re not usually in so much flux… I wonder what’s different today.

We’re up on Cliff now, real traffic beside us for the first time. We have one lane of the Cliff’s four, so we’ve got a fair amount of room.

And here is the three mile mark. 6:27. I guess Jeff and Chrystee were right, we didn’t need to try to speed up, it just happened when we got away from the steep hills. Behind me Jeff says, “We can speed up now!”, and I do.

I’m testing something on this race. I want to eat GU on the marathon course — one every half hour or so, just as I did in the ultras this summer. But I’m not sure how well that will work. I’m running a lot faster than I was then, it’s harder to manipulate things at high speed. So I’m testing to see if this idea will work. I’ve got a small belt pouch with 3 GU packages in it. I haven’t reached the first half hour yet, but I know there is a water stop coming up, and I want to drink after the GU.

I can’t find the zipper on the pouch, so I rotate it round to the front and discover the zipper is on the wrong side from what I was expecting. I open it in front of me, extract a GU pack, and rezip, and rotate it back. Seems to have worked. Then I eat the GU. I hold the packaging in my hand until the water stop, dump it in a trash can, grab a cup, and go off.

At the 4 mile mark I see 6:03. Oh dear. Way too fast. I got excited. Of course it is a downhill mile, but still too fast. Nice that I could do that while manipulating the GU and going through a water stop. So I think the system is working. But I do slow down a bit. It’s still a downhill mile, but I don’t want to go that fast again.

Footsteps behind me. Jeff? No, Kent. He passes me. Kent has gotten faster recently (and I have gotten slower) — in fact, this will be the first race we’ve run together where he has beaten me, but from the way he’s been running in workouts it is not surprising.

We’ve looped back down to the starting area again, and Nichol and her kids are on the side of the road cheering us on (They’ve made up several signs, the one being displayed now says “Go George!”, ).

No longer downhill. There’s a certain jerk when I hit the flat level ground and I have to remind myself to slow. I can’t run that fast on the flat — or I can’t run that fast and still run another 8 miles…

At the 5 mile mark I see my pace was 6:19. Oh.

I had hoped it would be faster than that. Somehow. Foolishly. I was hoping I could run 6:20s for the rest of the race. But it doesn’t look like it. If I could only do 6:20 on that downhill, there is no way I’ll maintain it for the next 8 miles. Sigh.

I don’t adjust my pace, because I’ve already slowed to what feels right for the flat, but I do adjust my expectations. Pity. In the back of my mind there was the faint hope of a PR. Gone now. I’m still nursing the hope of a PR for this course — my previous best (here) was a 6:30 pace, and I think I’m a little bit faster than that. But we’ll see.

Suddenly the bushes beside me erupt and there is Eric.

Hunh? How did he get behind me? I thought he was ahead?

He had to use the port-a-potty. Oh dear, that is not a good sign for him. You don’t stop in the middle of a race unless things are fairly grim. Still he passes me and moves ahead.

At the next water stop I observe that Kent does not know how to drink. He slows, and I pass him. Not that I am that great at it — I often end gasping for breath with my head swimming, or coughing and then gasping — but I don’t slow as much as he does.

At mile six (State St.) my pace is 6:24. This does not feel bad. I’ll bet I can maintain this. Excellent, looks like I’m on track for a personal course record. Well, it’s something. And maybe an age-graded PR?

At mile seven (before Milpas) my pace is 6:23. Looks good.

Jamie and Kent come up from behind and pass me again. Sigh.

Coming up to mile 8, 6:24.

I am passing Eric now (he must be feeling awful if I can pass him). As I pass I tell him “You know you are faster than I, come on.” and he sadly replies “Not today.” Poor guy.

I make myself look up as we go past the bird-sanctuary. Seeing mountains across the lake is probably my favorite view on this race. Little spots of clouds dot the mountains and the sun is shining now, but I’m in shade.

Here is the race leader, preceded by Rusty on the bike, it’s Aaron Sharp (Haven’t seen him for a couple of years…).

No one else is visible for the return.

There’s another water stop coming up, time to do my little GU dance. Again it works. And again I get to pass Kent as he slows to drink. He needs to learn how to do that. Or at least how to do it better.

And now uphill again. Not nearly as hard a climb as up to the Mesa, but I’m tired now. And then down the other side. Oh, no! Up again. I had forgotten that. Sigh. and mile 9 is at the top of the hill. (6:25) And then down again to the turn around. Urg. Then we do turn around and reverse the process. So many bumpy little hills.

Meanwhile I saw 3 guys I didn’t know on their return journey, and then Ricky in 5th place. Then I lost count. Tim. Drea is the first woman, and then Sara next — must have missed Sara at the start (Mmm. Maybe she was one of the two running with Drea and I didn’t recognize her from the back). Out of town women have vanished, I guess I passed them all.

Now I turn and get to see who is behind me. Chrystee is much closer than I had hoped, Jeff, Michelle and, yes, Laura are all back there. And many more people. I try to greet everyone I know, but I don’t have much breath and I have to give that up and resort to a thumbs up gesture.

It now amazes me how many people I do know in a race. As the pack gets denser I don’t always see everyone, but they see me and cheer me on.

Down the last hill now and here’s mile 10. 6:32. Gleep! Well, it was a hilly mile that’s ok, I guess.

Through the water station again in the other direction, I decide that at this point drinking is pointless, and has a fair likelyhood of causing a coughing fit.

Then the long slog back. I’m tired now. And the little hill going up to mile 11 seems interminable. And I ran it in 6:40? Yuck! that’s appalling. I’ll have to speed up.

Chrystee told me later that at one point she thought she was going to catch me. I bet it was on this stretch.

A car pulls out of a parking lot, and almost runs over the guy in front of me. There was a break in the stream of runners from the other direction and I guess the driver just wasn’t expecting anyone from ours. There aren’t many runners ahead of me…

Someone passes me. I learn later he is Tim Townsend. He passes, but this is exactly what I need, and I don’t let him pull away. I dog his footsteps. After a bit he notices and begins encouraging me.

Bike path now. With people strolling and biking, so it’s a bit of an obstacle course.

Seems to go on for ever.

Finally a change, here’s mile 12, and State St. with it’s jumble of traffic. Nice. 6:25! Thank you Tim. Back on track.

Do I really have to keep pushing? Can’t I let the pace drop? I’m tired. No one important is going to catch me. I can just coast in now.

No. I. Can’t.

I don’t know who is behind. There might be another 50 year old. There is Chrystee.

Past the swimming pool.

Tim is starting to catch up with the guy in front. And I am too.

As we pass the harbor road a large truck tries to run us over.

But stops in time.

As we make the final twist I manage to catch the guy ahead, but when we turn the corner and he sees the finish line and pulls away from me again. I don’t have anything left to fight with.

Rusty is directing traffic, when he sees me go by he tells me to catch the guy ahead. I feel like strangling him. I just lost that race.

The line is getting closer. I do pull a little closer to the guy ahead, but I’m not going to catch him, I know.

1:24:25 says the clock as I run toward it. 1:24:30. 1:24:34 and it’s gone and I’m done.

So about half a minute faster than my previous best time here, but probably not an age-graded PR. (I learn later that I fell short of an age graded PR by 0.06%. Almost.)

Then I learn who Tim is, and who the guy between us is (and that neither is in my age-group), and the guy who was behind me explains that he would have caught me if he’d known where mile 13 was, but because it was unmarked he started his sprint too late. He’s a bit put out.

And here’s Chrystee (half a minute after me). And Eric, two minutes after me, poor guy, but he hung in there. And Michelle. Jeff. Laura. (Kent finished half a minute ahead of me). My group!

I go congratulate Drea and Sara and …

I look at the posted results. I’m 27^th, time 1:24:31 (right, it’s a chip race, I guess I was further from the start than I thought). And oh damn, I didn’t win my age-group. I’m second. Someone from out of town beat me by 25 seconds. Oh well.

And then, change shoes, and drag myself up the hill again for another four miles. But these are extremely slow miles. I waited long enough to get really stiff, and can barely hobble up the hill (Chrystee thinks I’m damaged, but I don’t feel off (and believe me I have felt off a lot recently), just really tired). As I go, I start to smooth out. Some anyway. But I’m still going excruciatingly slowly.

Eventually that ends. Roughly 20 miles today. Not a bad training run. 4 weeks to the marathon!

When you’re lying awake with a dismal headache
And repose is taboo’d by anxiety,
I conceive you may use any language you choose
To indulge in, without impropriety;

For your brain is on fire, the bed-clothes conspire
Of usual slumber to plunder you:
First your counter-pane goes, and uncovers your toes,
And your sheet slips demurely from under you;

…
The night has been long, ditto, ditto my song,
And thank goodness they’re both of them over!

Nightmare, Iolanthe, W.S. Gilbert

Well, Rusty fixed me up so I can run without fearing that I’m damaging myself. (It’s not everyone who knows what the obturator is, much less can imagine that it might pull the hip out of alignment and make the psoas hurt).

So I started to get exited. The half marathon mile markers have been repainted (oh boy!), and the sign is up warning the Mesa residents that a race is coming through (and me with it!).

I can’t sleep. I’m too excited. I lie there figuring instead.

Now last weekend we did 9 miles at just under 6:30 pace. Should not be too hard to do that for 13. But a 6:30 pace only gets me to an 85 minute half marathon.

What I’d really like is to break 83. That means running faster than 6:20s. Hmm. 6:20s have been feeling hard recently. Of course we’ve only done them at the end of an 8 mile tempo run, but a half marathon will be even worse. Now if my legs were rested, and I had a real taper, I’d give 6:20s a try, but the legs are tired. I get a teeny taper, but they’ll be tired for the race.

Which is rather the point, of this race after all.

Oh, I’ll probably run a few… down the hill from the mesa, that always invites them.

It’s not even 11 o’clock yet. Maybe if I turn over I’ll be more comfortable.

I do tend to go out to fast, up the hill. One year I was ahead of Annie at the one mile mark (ran up hill at a 6:05 pace or something). Not a good idea. Maybe tired legs will take care of that. Or even better, running with Chrystee…

Of course the real issue is the marathon.

I want to be at 2:55. That’s a 6:41 pace. But a 6:40 pace is a lot easier to calculate with. Now the big issue is the hill on Cliff. We ran up it last weekend and definitely slowed for the half mile of steep up. So even if I’m running 6:40s I’ll lose at least half a minute going up.

I can probably push the pace going up so I don’t lose too much (I’m better at hills than most), but that late in the race I’ll end up with nothing left when I get to the top, and there’s still another 2 miles to go. Late but not at the end. I’ve made that mistake before. Question is: how to recover that lost half minute, or maybe minute?

Damn. It’s too hot. I throw off a blanket.

Can I run 6:35 up to the bottom of Cliff? Or would that be too fast? Rusty told me he would comp me if I finished the race in under 2:50. He was joking, of course because there’s no way I’m going to be doing a marathon at 6:29 pace. Or I don’t think there is… It would be nice though… (Not to be comped, I don’t care about that, but to surprise Rusty (and me)). Nah. I’d burn up too soon trying.

Now it’s too cold. Where’s the blanket?

So going back to 6:40s… my! but that’s a nice number. It’s 400 seconds. So .2 miles works out to 80 seconds. Easy to calculate with. So at the top of Cliff —after the hill— when I hit the 24 mile mark I want to be um 2.2*6:40 = 13:20+1:20 = 14:40, so I want to be 2:55:00 – 14:40 or 2:40:20 into the race. If I can get up that hill and still be under 2:40 I should be ok for the last stretch…

6:40 really is a nice number. Three of them make 20 minutes. So 26.2 = 24+2.2=8*3+2.2=8*20+14:40=160+14:40=2:40:00+14:40 = 2:54:40.

Sigh. It’s 5am. I might as well get up…

Annie used to dream about giant birds carrying her off. I wish I had better dreams…

I was talking to a friend who seemed surprised that I might not run a race because I was injured.

To me this was obvious. My hips are misaligned at the moment. Back in 2003 I ran a race with misaligned hips and got a stress fracture in my pelvis. I do not wish to repeat that. Very painful. Kept me from running for about a year.

This went through my mind, but I didn’t actually say it because my friend had already continued: “Maybe it is pride.”

I hadn’t really thought of that (and it stung a little — so perhaps it’s true). I don’t want to run a race (or do anything) poorly. Everything deserves a good effort, and if I know I can’t give that then why demean the race by giving a performance that I know will be poor, better not to run.

(This is different from trying hard and failing — I hit the wall in Sacramento, but that was ok, I was doing my best, but to enter a race with no intention or ability to complete it well is an insult to the race).

For me, the whole point of a race is to get that added boost that the competition provides. If I want to run 26 miles, I can go out the back door and run 26 miles; I don’t need a race; I’ve done it often enough. In fact, if I’m not racing, I’m much rather do my 26 miles out on the trails where it is beautiful, not trotting around the streets of a city.

Some people enjoy crowds of spectators, or perhaps crowds of runners. I simply ignore spectators, and crowds of runners get in my way. I am focused on my race. A runner who can keep pace with me is a boon; that runner will help me do my best. But if I know I can’t do my best, I don’t care who is beside me.

That feels more like respect to me. Not simply pride.

Rather like the recent NY times blog post — if I’m gonna plod, I shouldn’t mess up a race. I can plod on my own. I prefer to plod on my own.

I begin to wonder if I shall ever get through a road marathon training period without something substantial going wrong. I would really like to run one (just one, 1) good marathon, but perhaps that is not to be.

About 6 weeks ago I noticed an ache near the lesser trocantor on the left leg. I didn’t pay it much attention. There’s always something aching and it wasn’t too bad.

But it worsened.

Hip misalignment perhaps? This happens occasionally. So I went to my chiropractor to have my hips adjusted. That helped — for a couple of hours.

Ah, the psoas is too tight, of course! Rusty worked on it, and it released.

After a couple of runs on roads with steep cambers, it got really bad again.

But now all the muscles on the upper left leg were complaining. Primarily the quads, but the hamstrings and gluts too.

Back to the chiropractor. A few hours later the quads feel better and the psoas hurts again.

The last time I had inexplicable pain I had a stress fracture. I get a little paranoid about stress fractures because I’m told it’s a sign of osteoporosis and I have no confidence that the treatments my doctor has prescribed work.

I was limping at the Tuesday workout and it was harder to complete than it should have been.

Thursday, Rusty released the psoas again and that pain completely vanished. Can’t be a stress fracture if the pain goes away.

Whew.

I saw Amanda at Elite PT Friday. She said I was badly misaligned (But Rusty just aligned me the day before! Arrrggggg!). She worked on the psoas again and it released (easily, she said).

That evening I was fairly confident I was misaligned again.

Rusty told me to do a trail run rather than a road tempo this morning. He told me I shouldn’t try to run the distance, just the time. The road workout was 19 miles — how long does that take?

Very dark at 6am when I bike out to cold spring trail. Much warmer at 7 when I get to the trailhead. With the sun still below the horizon, but tinging the clouds with color.

As I start to run, I try to convince myself that the awkwardness I feel is just, um, because I’m not warmed up, yeah, or something like that. Then I run down a little dip. Nope. I’m definitely limping, I feel very off (for some reason downhill is more unbalancing than up).

Damn it.

It’s the first time I’ve been up here after the rain, the first rain of the new water year, 10 days ago. The creek is happily talking to itself again, not just a bunch of mud puddles as it was a month ago.

I pass a father with a toddler strapped to his back. I pass a young woman hiking who wishes me a good run.

I notice my leg isn’t bothering me as much. Ah, I tell myself, I’m just taking advantage of the dished nature of the trail and running so that the trail’s camber actually supports my short leg rather than working against it. Doesn’t mean anything.

After 20 minutes (which is about normal), I come out to the open area where the fire road is. First view of the risen sun.

I go a little further up, it gets a bit lighter, and there’s a beautiful view of the Islands poking out of the sea mist…

Then I turn around, and the mountains also call out for a photograph

As I went further up my sense of imbalance faded. Perhaps I just needed to warm up? Perhaps a trail run could somehow bring me back into alignment? The many different surface types of the trail requiring stablizing muscles to tense bringing things into alignment?

At Camino Cielo I headed down to Forbush. It’s been about 10 years since I last took this trail. Don’t remember it at all…

Thus I get a little lost in the campground at the bottom, but eventually I find where the trail continues. I have a choice now between Mono and Blue Canyon. In spite of having run the Blue Canyon race, I know I never actually got to Blue Canyon trail, only the really long distance runners did that, not us wimpy 60k-ers. So I decide to go that way.

Most of the trees in Santa Barbara do not change color in the fall (or they don’t to my color-blind eyes, which might be a different statement…). But the sycamores do. They turn a brilliant yellow. And down below in the canyon I see a vibrant yellow.

I think it’s yellow.

The trail drops sharply here and then becomes flatter, and opens out into a lovely meadow with oak trees all around.

A little further on there is another meadow, this one with a sign claiming that it is “Cotta Camp”. The sign claims the Blue canyon trail crosses a river, but when I try to do that the trail peters out almost instantly on the far side of the stream. So I turn back and head toward Forbush trail. (But Forbush was the name of the campsite a  mile or two back… Hunh.)

I wonder… Maybe the sign was twisted around.

Oops. I’ve been running for an hour and a half. Um. If I turn back now that will be roughly three hours when I get done. Probably long enough to run 19 miles on the road. I decide I didn’t actually hear Rusty tell me to go by time, I’m gonna run my 19 miles.

Um, well I do have to get to the market before it closes. If I don’t hit 9.5 miles in 2 hours I’ll have to turn back anyway.

Press on!

The trail continues toward the sun, and up a steep hill.

I pause to look back at the meadow before heading down the other side.

I’ve noticed a lack of footprints on the trail. I don’t think anyone has been here since the rain. Last time I saw prints was at Forbush camp. But now I see lots of prints — deer tracks. They seem to use this trail to get in and out of the meadow below.

Another track. (beside a deer track) My first guess is a small dog, but there are not likely to be small dogs without people. A bobcat, I guess. Neat!

“Oh, Pooh! Do you think it’s a–a–a Woozle?”
“It may be,” said Pooh. “Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t. You never can tell with paw-marks.”

The trail now runs about 30 feet above a little river (the headwaters of the Santa Ynez I guess?) and looking down are more sycamores.

The trail drops down and hops from one side of the river to the other. At one stream crossing it vanishes for a bit, washed out by the rain, perhaps, but after a bit of searching I find it on the other side.

Another sign, and a glance at my watch tells me that I’ve gone 9.7 miles and, oh yes been running for 2:01 hours. Time to turn back. Now is not the day to explore “Upper Blue Cyn Camp.” Somewhere I should be able to get to Romero… Not today though.

On my way back I notice something I hadn’t seen on the way out. A much larger set of pug-marks than the little bobcat. The paw here is about as big as my fist. Too small for a bear, not a wolf. Mountain lion?

That’s a little disconcerting.

The print is old.

So where is it now?

As I climb out of Forbush camp back to Camino Cielo the view east now opens up. Earlier it was into the sun, but the sun has risen a bit. It is blue as it fades into the distance…

A bit further on I see a tree with a hole right through it. I wonder how that happened?

I’m feeling a bit tired now. I’ve got a fairly steep slope to climb. Mike would probably want me to try to pick up the effort here. So I do, for a bit. But Mike didn’t actually say to do that, and I can’t seem to motivate myself at the moment so I let the effort drop back to my steady jog.

Near the top is a little spiny of pine trees. I’ve been running through sycamore, and oaks, bay laurel, chaparal. The pines look out of place. And interesting.

There aren’t many of them. Wonder how they got here.

And then on up to the camino. A long hard slog.

On the road is an inexplicable sign:

There are no hikers. There’s just me. I haven’t seen a soul for almost 3 hours now.

And now down Cold Spring trail again. I’ve gotten used to this trail now, and I can really fly down the upper part. It isn’t technical, a good surface, nice downhill, I’m zipping along at, oh, 8 minute miles. Now that’s fast:-)

Hunh. My leg isn’t bothering me. Oh, it isn’t perfect, but I only realize that when I think about it, when I was just enjoying the run it felt fine.

I wonder if running on the trail has helped it?

When I come to the final (or first, depending on your viewpoint) stream crossing there are four people there. Two men are sitting on a rock discussing ¿philosophy? of all things, while one woman helps the other onto the rock. One man is saying «There’s nothing intrinsic about it, it’s only a rock because I call it a rock.» Hunh. I think to myself, that’s silly. And I downgrade my opinion; he is playing with language, not philosophy, a deconstructionist perhaps. I don’t approve.

I get down to the bottom. A bit under 4 hours. 12 min/mile.

Today that seems fast. But Tuesday I was running 5:50s.

Said Lauren as I toiled up the horse trail to More Mesa.

It didn’t look as though the sun had risen when I reached the mesa.

Off the mesa, and into Hope Ranch.

I may have missed the sunrise, but it was still spectacular.