Started when the sun was low which makes for long shadows. Since my knee injury a couple years ago I always walk a half mile before running.
I am being a little ambitious with my running this Fall. I have signed up for the Tulsa Run 15K and the half marathon event of the Tulsa Route 66 Marathon. I’m also thinking about doing the 25K event at a Trail Race on Turkey Mountain. And of course it is all well and good to sign up for this stuff but at you also have to train for the runs.
Tulsa is a city of trees and Up with Trees is a great organization that wants us to have even more!!
So most of my training runs have been up and down the River Trails here in Tulsa. I love the River Parks trails but you know, you need a little variety now and then. There is a park a few miles northwest of our house, Lafortune Park. It has an 18 hole golf course, and a 18 hole par three course, lots of picnic areas, tennis courts, a library, a tennis center, a lawn bowling pitch, a high school, with football and baseball fields, and best of all a 3 mile running/walking track that winds its way around all of those other things.
I ran by the offices of Crisis Pregnancy Outreach. This is a great organization that is devoted exclusively to the babies and their mothers. No time for wedge politics or anything like that. You want to do politics go somewhere else. If you are concerned about babies and mothers, this is your place.
I have run around the park many times, and Heather and I have walked around it a lot, even son Logan and I have done the three miles a bunch of times.
The closest thing to Fall Color I saw on my trek
Well I wanted to close the loop so to speak by running from the house to the park. From the house I have walked, run, and biked to the Creek Turnpike Trail. And although I have not done it all in one outing, I have walked, run, and biked about 20 miles to the east, and to the west and northwest probably 30 miles or more. So I wanted to extend my connectivity the few miles to Lafortune and get an 11 mile run at the same time. I had already done nine miles last week, so I wanted to do 11 this past weekend.
I love old signs. This sign has been there a long time even the store is long gone. It’s days are numbered though as there is some construction going on.
So off I went. It was different than running on a running path. First of all I wasn’t wearing headphones. Running on the street with headphones is a prescription for getting run over. I had a good friend who got run over and died while running on a freeway frontage road with headphones on. Second is the camber of the road. The crown. You really have to alternate what side of the road you run on otherwise you will tear up your knees or ITB band.
I passed a new restaurant going in at a busy intersection. I am a sucker for glass blocks.
But hey, it was all good. A nice brisk, sunny day.
Saint Francis Hospital.
It about wore me out. I didn’t have any time goals. I just wanted to finish and yes I walked a lot.
Probably 60% on the streets, roads, and sidewalks, the rest on park trails or vacant fields.
I know, I know, I should have been in church on Sunday morning but running had me totally in the moment and it all seemed to go by in a flash.
Next Saturday is the Tulsa Run 15K. It will be my 23rd. it is my favorite race of the year. It will be cold!!! but that is okay. I have the cold weather gear. I know how to dress for the cold weather, the hot weather, and wet weather, and dry weather. It doesn’t matter to me.
Here is the garmin video my very slow run.
Here is the much more fun “relive” version of the run. I like it much better for its 3D aspect plus it makes it appear that I ran the whole way.