Actually 2 days before the full moon, but it was bright last night. I headed out on my usual Tuesday night solo run—well, vigorous hike is more like it. Beach beautiful, with a 100-foot long glistening inland pond in moonlight, no one there, I had one of those almost chilling moments, surrounded by such beauty, alone, waves breaking, negative ions up the kazoo, super energizing of chi…
I started out in a down parka and gloves, brrrr…I don’t feel like going out into the cold night, but as always, the heart likes to pump, and pretty soon I take off the parka and gloves and climb the hills in a t-shirt. Circulation, circulation, circulation…
As I came back down into the valley, a coyote startled me. It was so close, and so beautiful. There were 2 of them close by and another at a distance. They were singing. Totally. One did a yodel, starting high, then breaking voice down to lower sustained note. Then a distant coyote would respond. Oh my!
I heard this about Australian aborigines: the smoke signals don’t contain the message. Rather, they’re a notice to a group maybe a few miles away to tune into psychic forces and get a telepathic message. Wow!
On the way home, moonlight streaming across the ocean, on Little Steven’s Underground Garage (Sirius): “Beautiful Delilah” by the Kinks, followed by Chuck Berry doing same (his) song.
https://grooveshark.com/s/Beautiful+Delilah/2725La?src=5
A friend of mine, an older runner, told me this story. He was heading south up into the coastal trail from the new Muir Beach parking lot last week. It was dark. He was heading on a route that he and his friends have been running for decades. There was a new sign posted saying “No Entry After 6PM.” He saw a ranger’s SUV parked in the lot. Uh-oh.
As he crossed the bridge, 2 rangers were approaching him with flashlights. As he got closer to them, one said, “Hey you can’t go out here.” He kept running. They probably expected him to stop, but as he pulled up abreast of them, he sprinted. “Hey, you, STOP!” — shining their lights in his eyes. He flew past them and kept running. He felt good, like he was a kid again, as their shouts receded in the distance.
He says he’s tired of the increasingly intrusive and aggressive attempts at control by rangers. Sure, there are things you shouldn’t do in a national park, like chain sawing or dirt bike riding or disturbing seals during mating season, but a solo runner leaves no trace, bothers no one.
He says he’s not going to submit to rangers’ questions or follow their orders anymore. He’s gonna run.
It’s been almost 4 months since my shoulder surgery, and a few days ago, I realized the tendon was finally reconnected to the bone and strengthening. Yahoo! Yesterday I was talking to Elmer Collett, former 49er guard and neighbor, about how when you’ve got an injury, it seems like it’ll never heal and then, one day, voila! You’re on the plus side of the situation. He knew exactly what I meant.
I had a bit of a setback, let it rest, then started doing rehab exercises, and in the last few days have started using my Vasa Trainer, a pulley type device for swimmers and surfers, which approximates paddling, and it felt OK. I’m gonna be able to surf again, not just sit on the beach or cliff and wistfully watch the action.
It was a dramatic change, in both function and mood.
The recoverability of the human body is awesome. Dr. Henry Bieler, in his great book “Food Is Your Best Medicine,” has a chapter titled “The Magnificent Human Body.” And so it is.
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My friend Roger and I went on a 1-1/2 hour run—well, swift walk—in Frank’s Valley last night. Bitterly cold on the coast, but as we got deeper into the valley, and got circulation going, it got warmer. We’re about the same age, both recovering from shoulder surgery, and both San Francisco natives, so we have a lot to talk about. Last night we reminisced about the theaters on Market Street in the ’40s. The Fox (a movie palace), the Orpheum, the Warfield, the Golden Gate, the United Artists, the Esquire, and in an alley behind the Esquire, the Tivoli. Then on to the neighborhood theaters, like the Empire, The Parkside, the El Rey…
This is a photo shot with my iPhone on the way home, driving along the coast, the red lights being an approaching car. I discovered that if I touched my brakes, I saw the road reflectors light up red in my rear view mirror. So I’d touch the brake pedal every once in a while, see the string of red lights in the mirror, then focus back on the road in front. It was like a light show, with this music on Sirius Radio: Meet Me in the Morning by Bob Dylan, Rambling Man by Waylon, then Bring Back Joe by Scotty McCreery. Fahhr out!
Great pleasures can be so simple.
Now listening to Frampton Comes Alive, a great live recording made in San Francisco (at Winterland, 1975) in front of 7000 fans, when the musicians forgot they were being recorded. Frampton said they were all amazed when they heard the recording afterwards.
I like running in the rain. Not at first, but after I get going and warm up, it’s exhilarating. Plus the smell of the air and the negative ions.
So I set out last night around 6PM, heading south along the coastal cliffs from Muir Beach. I had on my one layer of Maxit tights and a rain parka tied around my waist. The storm was just starting.
By the time I got up to my lookout spot (a point of land projecting out into the ocean that feels very much like the bow of a ship), the wind in front of the storm was blowing at maybe 30-40 mph, and I put on the parka and faced into it, taking in the wind energy and the sweet smell of fresh storm air, leaning into the storm and it holding me up. The lights of San Francisco across the water.
As I headed up on a fire road inland, the rain started. It got foggy and pretty soon it was like being in a tunnel, darkness all around and a six-foot circle of misty light in front of me. These small owls (actually, I’ve been told they’re not owls, but related to whippoorwills) fluttered up from the sides of the road as I ascended; I think they wait for mice to cross the road.
It was getting darker and rainier. I got to the top and started back down. I could hardly see. I was sending good thoughts to my Black Diamond headlamp, because I hadn’t brought any backup light, and if I lost my light in this gloom, I’d be out there all night.
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Last night I went for a run along the coast. It was misty in the lowlands, but as I got up to maybe 500 ft. elevation, there was a thick fog. Pretty soon I could only see 10′ in front of me on the fire trail road. There was a chorus of fog horns, all different notes. It was like moving through the clouds, like a fuzzy-edged cocoon of light from my headlamp. An hour later, back down to sea level and the pub, a pint of Anchor Steam porter, warmth and good fellowship on a misty night.
Last night drove my truck up in the hills, went for a run. On the way, a red shouldered hawk was fluttering in the wind, wings outspread, just floating and scanning. It was foggy, bit of a breeze, I went swimming in a pond. No one for miles. On the way back there was a very large and very dead buck, with three turkey buzzards feasting, in a field. I ran in my Sanuk sandals, a very good option for barefoot runners. You can feel the ground with your toes. On the way home on the radio, Jon Cleary was doing Everything I do Gonh Be Funky.
When it came time to do our first e-book — Marathon: You Can Do It!, by Jeff Galloway — we couldn’t find anyone we thought would do a good enough job in converting print book to ebook. So Rick Gordon did the book “in-house,” as they say — for the iPad and the Kindle. It came out really well: typography, color, graphics, and perhaps most importantly, smooth flowing of the many training charts in the book. I compared it with all the other iPad e-books on running, and it looks way better.
We entered it in the non-fiction category of the Publishing Innovation Awards this year and although it didn’t win, it was awarded the QED (Quality-Excellence-Design) Seal. Here’s what the judges said about Rick’s work:
“Marathon: You Can Do It displays a creative design that does not distract from the text, making the pages visually appealing as well as informative. Tables contain a lot of structure, yet even rendered as art are easy to read. The ‘Tips on Using This Book’ for the iPad demonstrates a thoughtfulness and sensitivity to the reader’s experience of this digital title.”
“The most impressive performance at a Toronto marathon Sunday was turned in by the man who came in last place – and is 100 years old.
Fauja Singh completed the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon in approximately eight hours, making him the oldest person ever to finish one of the 26.2-mile races.
It was the eighth marathon for Singh, who was born India in 1911 and did not start running marathons until he was 89, after he moved to England following the death of his wife and son. He says not smoking or drinking alcohol throughout his life, combined with a vegetarian diet and up to 10 miles of walking or running per day are the secrets to his health.…”
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/weird/100-Year-Old-Man-Completes-Marathon-131971733.html
Discovered by Rick Gordon
It rained bigtime Tuesday. 1½” here, real late and unusual for this time of year in California. After running along the coast a ways Tuesday night (solo these days), then splashing along in the surf on the beach, running back to the inn and jumping in all the puddles on the way hee-hee), I ducked underwater in the creek, then had a Guinness on tap with the boys, a Gemütlichkeit night in the pub, celtic music playing softly. The rain had stopped and on the way home north along the coast, the fog was so thick it was like crawling through a tunnel. Having grown up in San Francisco, the fog is a friend.
