Lake Mendocino 16 Mi

I stumbled sleepily along the trail. I’m not a morning runner, so the only thing that makes morning runs tougher than the time is getting just three hours of broken sleep between fighting with the hotel air conditioner and trying to drown out the noisy neighbors. Danny and Matt were patient with my many photo stops. After just one mile, I announced to the boys that I didn’t want to do more than 10 miles that day. We swiftly covered the undulating trail overlooking Lake Mendocino.

The lake’s mood changed in tandem with my own. Low clouds clung to the nearby hills and fog drifted slowly from shore to shore. As I felt my legs wake up and embrace the day, the fog slid away and the clouds parted. With every vista overlooking this reservoir lake, the color changed slightly. I found myself suddenly enamored by the lake’s beauty. I spent my teen years skinny dipping and biking as I admired my local lakes in Michigan and occasionally feel a pang of longing when I come across a lake during my travels in California.

 Lake Mendocino and her perimeter trail has the same look and feel as the other man-made lakes I’ve run around here in Northern California. They are all flooded mountain valleys which make for a very irregular and jagged shoreline. The trails twist and turn through the same madrone and scrub brush, circling the many small inlets.

 By mile six, we were back on the road, crossing on the Highway 20 bridge over the Russian River. Those two miles weren’t as bad as I expected, but was grateful for it to be over regardless. We stopped on the shores of the Russian River for a snack break. As we sat there, an Army Corps of Engineers truck pulled up. Noticing that only Matt was carrying any water, he stopped and asked, “Where are you guys going today?” We mentioned that we were going around the entire lake. “Do you know how far it is?” he asked. “About 16 miles,” Danny replied in his typical nonchalant tone. Truck Man’s face fell as he asked if we had biked the area before or knew the route. “Nope, we’re just winging it today, but 16 miles is fine,” Matt said. “What, are you endurance athletes or something?” Truck guy asked, finally realizing why we weren’t concerned with the length or hills on the route. He drove off with one of those expressions saying “I’m gonna be pretty pissed if I have to come rescue your sorry asses later today.”

We weren’t sure if we were to be offended by that encounter or not. I’m pretty sure we look like we know what we’re doing, don’t we? Maybe it was the bag of mint Newman Os (goofy organic Oreo) we passed amongst ourselves instead of Hammer Gels?

“Damn, we made it halfway, I guess we can’t turn back now,” I said as I glanced down at my Garmin’s 8.25 mi display. After the initial stiffness and fatigue of waking up went away, I felt surprisingly good. My body seems to provide me with a delicious mixture of halfway runner’s high and sugar rush about 30 minutes after my first snack. It completely rocks.

The second half of our run along Lake Mendocino’s eastern coast was much hillier, but much more scenic. We alternated between open golden meadows overlooking the lake and wonderful shaded areas, the perfect mix of cool and sun, now that the skies had turned to perfect bluebird.

 

Danny recently moved to Ukiah, to pursue a teaching career, and had moved just a week or so before. He hadn’t had time to explore any of the running, so we were all exploring the first time. It would be cool to live near a place like this. Too bad these lakes seem to exist in places that are hot hot hot, so I guess I’ll have to live without them. Karen melts in too much heat and sunshine, we all know this.

That evening we had dinner with Aaron in Berkeley. Aaron is my brother’s best friend from college. A couple of years ago, we all met up in Las Vegas for a January vacation to escape winter. Just as being running buddies bonds people together, so does a really drunken Vegas all-nighter and the subsequent morning hangover.

It now seems we have friends spread evenly along the entire California coast. Woohoo! More visits (and couches to crash on) are surely in our future.