Sat 01 Aug 26: Another Clencher Hill lap... and perhaps a new lunch spot...? The course takes a roughly 8-shaped path thru this Heights neighborhood -- and as always, try not to be a nuisance whilst getting the most challenging steps yet. Today was feeling the knee more, so decided to dial it back -- prudent and worked countless times. There's something immediately gratifying about taking this f***ing hill by the nads and charging up it... but when the pain is more than enough to warn of avoiding such haste... something equally gratifying about settling, like on your back from height onto a few stories of down-filled pillows -- into a slower rhythm. On the Hill, to the right, verdant extinct volcanic cliffs rising at 35º, topped with a hat of cloud. Pretty sure it can't be 1500 - 2000 ft less air column by itself... but the sky looks bluer, clearer up here than anywhere down on the isthmus. To my left, the center of the roughly-circular parkway loop, and houses with perfectly-groomed yet lush and interesting yards, stepped as the Hill rises around them. Trees sizzle above me, as today's windy; some puffs of breeze are hot and laden with moisture, some drier and cooler. My knees are talking somewhat, so slow a few steps to diagnose -- ah, just 'kneed' a few knee circles, hear the 'klok', then lift into the hill to resume. Passing up top on the flat and down Dipped Loop again... found where the models for these neighborhoodhouses live. Have a weird sense about home models as your neighbor -- and there were defo people and their sh*t inhabiting the house next door -- identical to the model but lacking the wrought-iron fence stretching clear to the gutter, blocking the sidewalk. I don't care for homes furnished completely but have no one living in them -- guess it's better than building a house for someone who's in a foreign country and only needs it a few months of the year... vulnerable to the night -- ever more resourceful than ever, these squatters and homeless. Guess the smell'd give 'em away... but who cares when the other shoe's only here once a year for a few weeks? Popped back onto the main drag, and followed behind an elderly woman about 50m, who kept looking back at me then walking on. Stopped to look at my calendar on purpose, letting her yard me a few dozen meters more, then back to steps. My temple ring of that one lamp post -- kind of a routine now, a cheerful reminder to stay grateful... Turned down the far side S-road -- need to make this a bit more varied next wk, I think. Used a different step to try to limit stress on the sore knee... but found an easy solution surprised I hadn't thought of before: just zigzag down. Not every few steps, but pick a spot on the opposite edge of the sidewalk 5m away, and angle down towards it: the change in angle is just enough to relieve the worst of the stress, and also serves to slow your pace down a bit, depending on how acute the zig-zags are. Felt well enough by the start of the Doggo Trail, to forget I had a blown-out knee... I just love staring down the bore of this mostly-straight, asphalt-paved trail -- and not a single car will drive on it, only bikes and footwear. The view reminds me of walking in Japan, omg so many lifetimes ago, as an 11-yo. At that age, all neighborhoods seem like a world to explore -- only sharply barking neighbors scolding you if you break the rules (which were legion there, esp for young kids). But every street in my fave aunt's neighborhood were more familiarly-homey, and groomed to the cm... a stark contrast to the red-dirt-dominated chaos of the local environs I'd grown up in. You get used to what you get used to... so that was Home, and wasn't at all scary or anything -- just was what it was. But going to Japan, and seeing the care going into even the way cinder blocks are strictly plumb and cars never being filthy for long... that was a glimpse into another world, another way. So that this place was anywhere near as orderly and neat as those nearly-50-yo memories... had a physical effect on me. At the aforementioned slower pace, seems like you're here to notice so many more things imperceptible at a respectable running pace, and defo not at vehicle speeds. Each step seems to bring your eye to multiple vantages of a single interesting thing at a time, as if your brain's taking a burst shot at it, to consider it properly in 3D. A warped board between the macadam and the crushed rock 'shoulder' of the trail. The only access to the stream passing beneath this area, in two fenced-off but vocal civil engineering enclosures, the sound of burbling water such a balm, along with chilled air pouring out of it. The meandering curve of the trail, whose level is slightly rising the whole way, but never changing up or down itself, completely flat. The 'S' turn at the end, just curved enough to need poke your head around, to see if I need give way to a runner (know how I felt running the 2-mi course against stopwatch 5y ago -- don't have time to talk, and get the f*** out of the way ). Wish the whole walk could be an hour of this place, just meandering in elevation. It seriously drains the stress up the Hill and pains coming down S-road, right out of me. Which is why I want to continue this walk thru North Doggo trail across the HS-football-stadium-sized golf grass, into Iao Valley. But driving it the other day... are 0 shoulders to walk on the dip going into the Valley, and is like that nearly the whole couple miles in. But another bit of road I'd liked when used to mtn-bike this way... is Alu Road: a fearsome 30º+ 100m, also with no shoulder. But leveling at the top, liked riding this area as a reward; were mostly older Japanese families here back then, so likewise groomed and neat and orderly. Not sure who the hell lives there now, installing f***ing Buddha statues and pink flamingoes and 8' cinder walls up now... but last passing thru in the 5G... still seems mostly old-school Local. But the work to get there's brutal, as well as dangerous with traffic up or down. We'll see -- maybe worth considering 6 mos from now, when Clencher Hill's more like Warmup Hill
