It’s like forty five degrees out and here I am causing drama in beautiful Mammoth Lakes California again. It seems in this part of the world it is abnormal to wear shorts on your morning run. Maybe it is abnormal to run here when the wind chill is below freezing. I saw one other runner all morning. She was not wearing shorts. She was wearing many layers, and yes gawking at me.
When I set out to explore Mammoth this morning, my first full day here I had no clue where I was going. It had to be in the low forties this morning as I stood on my balcony, sipping a latte and watching my breath swirl in the morning mountain air.
Last night was relaxing, Panko Crusted Calamari and some craft beers for dinner, than relaxing in the Jacuzzi on a cold mountain night and starring at the stars from the outdoor terrace before coming back to watch the CMA awards.
This morning when I stood on the balcony, pondering my first day in Mammoth, I had no idea where my morning run would take me. My phone has gps with a detailed map and I was considering taking Lake Mary Road up to Tamarack Lodge and that area. It’s supposed to be epically gorgeous, but all the roads I was running on were highway-ish and there was a lot of traffic. Quickly getting annoyed with all the traffic around me after making a loop around most of the city of Mammoth Lakes, I made my way to Lake Mary Road and was soon annoyed that there was practically no shoulder to run on. Well, there was a shoulder, but it was covered in snow. If I’d had my snow shoes I could have done this no problem, but I just had my running shoes and my Trax in case it got icy. I made an attempt to run on the snowy shoulder but gave up pretty quick and turned around.
I found a great little road, also highway-ish but with way less traffic and a super wide shoulder on my way back and took this back to near my hotel. I was about to give up on running at this point.
I live at six thousand feet and I train at up to eight thousand all the time, but yet today, running at eight thousand I was out of breath and felt horribly out of shape. I have even been huffing and puffing going up the two flights of stairs in our hotel, which is ridiculous because my house is two stories! I’m used to stairs! Stupid altitude, making me feel like a wuss.
At this point I was a little annoyed with myself. I was feeling out of shape, annoyed with all the traffic when all I wanted was to run in the forest and unsure where to go. My buddy had offered to let me use his amazing gorgeous jeep all day and I wanted to punch myself in the face, for saying
“Oh no, I don’t need to take the magical jeep, I’ll be fine exploring by myself for a few hours while you snow board” Why did I not take the epically wonderful for mountain fun jeep to drive in Mammoth and go exploring for a few hours? Really, I have no idea what I was thinking.
So by the time I neared the hotel again, four miles in, I was annoyed with myself, but then found a little paved path on the edge of the forest and thought, oh I will explore this for five minutes.
Five minutes turned into five more miles.
Go me.
I found the foresty dirt roads I was looking for, and the place to go for my run tomorrow, unless we get the foot of snow forecasted, otherwise this will be a great area to snow shoe tomorrow A.M. before we continue on to Lake Tahoe.
