I ran my 15th consecutive Tulsa Run 15K Saturday morning. I love running it. It is the perfect race, Its a doable length, it is in the Fall and you get free candy bars and beer.

Running it is kind of like a dream. I don’t go internal, I go external. I’m aware of the wind, the sun on my face, the scenery, the other runners. It seems like I start, and then its over, I’ve lose all track of time, and don’t remember much.

I like to get their early. My office is right near the starting line. So I get there early and read my book. Where its warm. When I got there, the sun was just coming up.

About 15 minutes before start time, I go down to the starting line. Where it is cold.

Then the gun is shot and off we go! I took my camera and was I going to document the run. I only took a few photos and then quit taking the camera out. It was messing with being external and just taking everything in for the moment.

One thing I missed was the Troops from Fort Sill. They are in Iraq this year. They had a parallel Tulsa Run there in Iraq today that they ran. 15 K.

The thing I heard this year that I hadn’t notice before was the sound of thousands of feet hitting the pavement.

I finished in a shade under 1 hour 40 minutes. The best time I had in years. I was lagging at 14K and thinking about taking a break. A friend of church, (I’ll call him “Sinatra Doc” because he is a surgeon who likes to listen to that kind of music during operations. ) came up on me and helped keep me going. Ironically he had to stop and walk because he was cramping very badly. Being the good friend that I am I left him behind and ran on in. I didn’t see him again. I heard his wife’s name called at the finish line ahead of me.

I grabbed my two snickers bars, a beer, and headed home. I was hurtin.