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As a runner who recently traveled from the East Coast to the Rockies to the Left Coast - spending several weeks in each of the latter locales - I am obligated to draw comparisons between these various environments. Ordinarily a rather sessile sort, I had the opportunity to spend the bulk of the last month of 2001 in the company of Brian Erb and his wife Rachel in Farmington, N.M. and the opening weeks of 2002 in Irvine, Calif. with my friend Eric Kobrine. Geographically, these cities are about 760 miles apart; socio-culturally, they are separated by several parsecs and as well as a few decades. Nevertheless, all named individuals share the common distinction of being twice-a-day runners (Brian has run a 1:08 half-marathon and Eric a 1:15) and ambitious tour guides, so I got to know my surroundings quite well in a short time. The following words, sentences and paragraphs constitute my jaunty and biased observations. Setting a Blistering Pace I arrived in Albuquerque, a three-hour drive from Farmington, the day before Thanksgiving and was greeted there by my host, a 6' 4" research librarian with a shaved head and a fondness for Nietzsche and WWF's "Smackdown" (you know the type, every running club has one). We spent two days at Eddy Hellebuyck's $10-a-night hostel for transient distance runners on the outskirts of town, where we were regaled by amusing tales from the unassuming likes of South Africa's Johannes Mabitle, a 2:11 marathoner and the 1998 Beach to Beacon 10K champ; Kenyan James Bungei, a past winner of the L.A. Marathon; and Richard Rono, a 2:14 marathoner who will represent Kenya next month in Salt Lake City in, of all things, Nordic Skiing). Brian and Rachel ran a road race on Thanksgiving morning, which I - leery of the 5,500' elevation and my lackluster training of late - declined to attend; it was about the last break I would take while away from home. We reached Farmington - also over a mile above sea level - on Friday and over the weekend Brian introduced me to his main training drags. One thing I learned quickly is that motorists in Northwestern New Mexico do not generally burden themselves with the use of turn signals, nor do traffic lights seem to have any particular significance. Most notably, drivers will not change lanes unless something larger than their vehicle stands in their way; since not even Brian holds that distinction, the practice of running worry-free in the path of oncoming cars (a curious habit of many Worcesterites) would likely result in unfavorable and possibly permanent alterations to skeletal integrity. As a result, we ran either on sidewalks (where we still received shouts of derision from scrap-heap cars bearing patriotic stickers preaching domestic unity) or on fire roads on the outskirts of town. The latter afforded us spectacular views of the larger peaks of Colorado to the north, the unique natural obelisk called Shiprock to the west, and, on one occasion, a mountain lion about sixty meters due south. During runs in town, the distinct, acrid, and sometimes nauseating smell of burning pinon (the wood of the New Mexico state tree) emanated from residents' homes, which were almost universally tan or beige in color. In fact, everything in Farmington was tan or beige, including most of the cars, dogs, and people. While the natural surroundings were sublime, the scenery effected by humans was homogenous to a fault. I also noticed that in the rarefied air, not only did I feel like a beginner (speed work was out of the question), but daily temperature fluctuations were extreme. After a noontime run in 55-degree weather, for example, I'd change into shorts, hang around the house, then head out at 8 p.m. or so to grab some food at the Kroger across the street. By then it would be about 20 degrees and I'd be getting skeptical looks from the natives, none of whom would laugh at my stupid checkout-line jokes like polite New Englanders do. Overall, were the area not so economically and aerobically bereft, it might, owing solely to its yawning aesthetic beauty, be a decent place to settle. But like cities and towns themselves, opportunities to race in the "Four Corners" part of the U.S.A. are few and far between. (As it was, Brian and Rachel decided to move back East themselves within a month or so of my departure.) From a running standpoint, my most noteworthy accomplishment was logging 135 miles during a week in which every step but three was painfully compromised by a burgeoning blister roughly the size of the Centrum (the venue, not the vitamin). The Bridges of Orange County Strange indeed that one of the world's most populous urban areas should give rise to some of the best in-city training grounds I have ever seen. Think the New England sticks are ideal for off-road running? So did I, until I ventured into Irvine, a planned community of 137,000, to find an unbelievable variety and expanse of trails and paths; the latter are surfaced sometimes by dirt and more often by asphalt, with the paved variety typically marked every 1/4 or 1/2 mile, and all are within easy reach of the university section of town, where Eric lives. Half of my first morning run, an eight-miler, was spent roaming the soft paths of a former duck-hunting "park" the townspeople have turned into a game preserve for, you guessed it, ducks (to me this seems akin to turning a whorehouse into a mosque, or perhaps the other way around). The temperature in the mornings was a very agreeable fiftyish. You want hills? A ten-minute drive throws you into ruggedly beautiful canyonlands that are breathtaking in more ways than one. The next evening, we braved approximately one billion aggressively piloted motor vehicles in driving to Newport Beach, where we did an out-and-back run entirely on a soft asphalt bike path that at times almost hugs the waterline. It took 43 easy minutes to reach eclectic, freak-laden Huntington Beach (where gang-bangers and skinheads can be found in curiously tranquil juxtaposition) and 35 snappier ones back to return to Newport, with a little jog tacked on to the end to ensure a total of twelve miles and another in a growing string of twenty-mile days. It's easy to see how the high school 0.2 miles away from Eric's apartment produced the current girls' high-school mile record holder, Polly Plumer (4:35 in 1981) and U.C-Irvine gave rise to the current U.S. men's mile record holder, Steve Scott (3:47.7). Early the next morning, I saw what I believed at first to be a red fox. I was close - it was actually a coyote. Owing to never-ending land development, they're both ubiquitous and fearless. The one I saw was making not-so-slyly for the duck ponds from its post on the bike path; although he had no interest in meeting me up close and personal, he - along with the many cousins of his I spotted over the next couple of weeks - didn't exactly scurry away in fear either. I suppose if my home was near some of the world's loudest, most oversubscribed superhighways, a 135-pound jogger wouldn't faze me much either. Another interesting aspect of the Orange County ecosystem is its amazing number of rabbits. This allegedly isn't even a prime time of year to be seeing them, but when I left the roads - particularly after dusk - I never went more than five minutes without seeing scads of them hopping this way and that. One night I almost urinated on one, scaring the bejesus out of both of us. As if to balance out the numerous coyote sightings, I also spotted a few roadrunners (and no, they don't really go "Beep beep"). My first weekend was a busy one. Friday morning's run was a solo foray into the part of town surrounding Concordia College - one of the only hilly sections of Irvine. (Concordia is no stranger to XC success in its division and recently hosted the NAIA Nationals.) Venturing into yet another of the town's shaded parks, I was confronted with an amusing sign that read something like this: "Be aware of the following hazards: Mountain Lions, Rattlesnakes, Poison Oak, and Rough Terrain." Um, I'll take choice "D," please. Friday night I took to the UC-Irvine campus for the first time. Like many ostensibly attractive campuses, UCI's is undergoing a lot of construction. I was wandering in circles as it was, content to rack up 70-plus minutes of random running, when I slipped through a crack in a fence into a construction zone. I spent the next fifteen minutes trying to get out - I couldn't find the break in the fence I had used to get in, so I kept stomping around in circles, watching college students watching me from outside the fence and scaring up huge families of rabbits. Saturday morning I did a tempo run on the marked bicycle path near Corona Del Mar High School, home of one of the state's most successful track and cross-country programs over the years. The coach, Bill Sumner, doubles as the Cal Coast Track Club coach, makes lots of jokes about short people, and gets about 120 kids out for the cross-country team every fall. I wedged six miles of good hard running into eleven total miles. Parts of the path resemble stretches of roller-coaster track as they dip beneath overpasses, block after city block. The locals complain this ruins their sense of pace. I couldn't believe anyone could bellyache about a well-marked path that wasn't covered with ice in January. Later, after a day at the beach, I put in nine more, some of it on the beach itself. It's funny how a stretch of sand that at first looks about a quarter of a mile long can take seven or eight minutes to cover on foot. For Eric's posse, Sunday mornings are reserved for runs in Crystal Cove State Park, near which many films are allegedly made. This is some amazing stuff! You're close enough to the ocean to see and almost smell it as you gradually (and sometimes sharply) climb a fire-road-type dirt path that to me is an ideal surface; most coastal regions don't give rise to such large hills and escarpments so close to the sea itself, but Southern Cal is an exception.
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