Category Archives: Running

Tulsa’s Williams Route 66 Half Marathon

Sunday I ran the Half Marathon part of the Williams Route 66 Marathon. It has been since the late 1990’s since I’ve run the distance but I thought I’d give it a try.

The race had about 6700 people overall. They formed us into groups called corrals. I felt like saying moo several times. They started us in groups also. First time I’d ever encountered that but I’m told that that how the bigger races do it.

Lots and lots of people had to use the portapotty’s. My office is a block away from the start so no portapottys for me! At the start anyway.

Oops, I digressed, at each start they shot confetti in the air. It was everywhere.

By the time I made the turn onto Cherry Street, I was way behind. Actually that was by design. I decided to run four minutes and walk a minute through the race. I hadn’t trained for the distance so I just took it easy. Makes it easier to take photographs also.

There were lots of good bands on the route playing some solid rock and roll. Flutes and violins are nice but not during a run.

I loved these ladies and their signs. I hope nobody is offended.

We ran past a local synagogue with reminders of the Ten Commandments.

Midtown Tulsa was in full Autumn color mode. It was beautiful.

Because it was chilly at the start some runners take clothes they can discard and throw them down on the ground as they warm up. The organizers pick the stuff and it is distributed to those who need them. I hope that the clothes are washed first!

I was worn out as I came to the end of the Half Marathon. I was plum tuckered out. The full marathoners were just halfway.

I didn’t know spiders drank beer!!!

Anyway, lots of fun to be had. I’m doing it again next year.

2012 Tulsa Run 15K

Here I be, all bundled up to run the 35th Tulsa Run 15K road race here in Tulsa. We’ve had a wonderful October but it decided to get all cold and windy for the race. Part of God’s wrath over Obama’s getting elected I think. I’m not sure though. Sweetie took the picture with my “good” camera. Didn’t she do a good job, especially considering what she had to work with?

Speaking of Sweetie here she is. She and SuperPizzaBoy participated in the Fun Run part of the Race. Smart duo, the Fun Run is only 2K.

And here is SuperPizzaBoy. Just in case you are wondering he is not both bigger than I am and heavier. But I can still take him. At least I hope that he still thinks I can take him.

And here is a group picture of all the kids, staff, and parents from Town and Country School here in Tulsa who participated in the Fun Run. Nice to see kids outside away from their video games. Oh well, I’m digressing.

The jumble of people waiting for the race to start. Lots of costumes by the various runners. I took a recyclable camera they seem to work better for running. I brought along my ipod but it was too cold to use as a camera.

The gun started and we inched toward the start line. I start way in the back to avoid being trampled. Plus psychologically I love passing people from the start of the race to the end.

There were several bands along the route. I always appreciate them. They are out there early in the morning in the frigid cold jamming for free.

I found several Minnie Mice running in formation. Don’t you think they have very nice shapely tails?

Here they are picking up the pace. Sometimes I’m embarrassed how slow I run. You can imagine that if I’m embarrassed how the people I pass feel. Being passed by Yogi in a race is a good reason to drop running.

Hey, here come the cops. with the lead pack right behind them.

Here is the lead pack, six guys all bunched up together. Between me and these six guys we had first place wrapped up. I’m into teamwork like that. Sorry I chopped their heads off, didn’t mean to. You can see though that it is time for another road maintenance bond issue here in Tulsa. I’d vote for it.

I was going to post this picture and say that was the group right behind me. But if you found out the truth your confidence in me would be shattered. Couldn’t have that. I’d have to leave the gas industry and go into politics for a living.

Another band, rock on dudes!

Two women, they were sharing socks. How come guys never do stuff like that. I mean guys in America’s heartland. We know the guys on the coasts are liable to do anything girls do. Hey don’t get mad at me. I don’t make the news, I just report it.

Getting toward the end. The last mile or so was uphill and I was about to die (don’t worry I didn’t). Was I ever bushed. This was my nineteenth consecutive Tulsa Run. I just love it. It is a like a 15 kilometer meditation. I love the wind and sun on my face and the sound of my fellow runners. It seems like it is over in about five minutes.

I went through the snack line and grabbed my two Snickers bars and gave one back when I got scolded that one per person. So I went back to the front of the line and got me another one. (Just proves that yes guys are still pretty childish at 57 years of age, in case you were wondering when we grow up, we don’t, we are guys.) I had one beer and then went back to my car and went home. Too danged cold to hang around taking pics.

Who won? Julius Kogo of Kenya. Yet another year when me and a Kenyan had the top spot.

Skywatch – Training Run on the River

I take off work early on Wednesdays to run a long ways on the Arkansas River Trails here in Tulsa. I’m training for Tulsa Run 15K the last weekend in October and half marathon segment of the Route 66 Marathon to be held in November. I’m a little nervous, I haven’t run a half marathon since the 1990’s! So this will be my first of the new millennium This pic is from last week about 3 miles into my 8 miles that evening. I used to take my camera with me but I now have an Ipod Touch with a pretty darn good camera, for a music player, don’t you think?

Check out Skywatch Friday for other views of the Sky from all over!

Signs – Lighting it Up

I run with two Ipods now. An antiquated Nano for music and a newer Touch for taking pictures (cuz I’m a picture taker not a photographer). I happened by this plant a week or so ago on a morning run just as the sun had come up.

I’ve always admired the old school giant neon signs of PSO’s Tulsa Power Station right on the Arkansas River, especially the script “Electricity in big red letters just so we know what is going on there. Its from a different era where utilities promoted themselves a little more aggressively.

Signs, Signs

Finding Something that is xSTINKt

Last Wednesday evening after work I headed over to Turkey Mountain here in Tulsa to go running and find a geocache.

It is hot here in Tulsa and when it is hot I like to go running in the woods rather than the concrete and asphalt. It also just so happens that there are lots of geocaches on Turkey Mountain, good ones, hard to find ones.

The map to the left shows the caches on Turkey Mountin. The happy faces are the caches that I’ve found. The stars out caches that I have hidden. The little green boxes and the question mark are the ones left to find.

Wednesday night I went looking for the xSTINKt Cache. I had looked for it before without any luck. It is hidden by a very clever geocacher who goes by the tag adairmd.

I took along my geocaching GPS receiver and my running GPSr and my Ipod touch. It has a camera and I am using it a lot these days. Lots smaller and easier to carry than a regular camera.

A good omen about six minutes into the run. A deer! I’ve seen lots of deer on Turkey Mountain but they don’t generally stick around long enough for me to fumble around with my camera. It is right in the middle of the photograph above just to the right of the slender tree in the middle. Makes me think I need to carry a better camera! One with a zoom.

Turkey Mountain has lots of ponds from one end to the other.

I popped out onto the powerline right of way for a little bit just as another runner went running by.

That evil adairmd, owner of the cache, has promised to delete all logs of the cache that show spoilers. Sorry adairmd, it is my journalistic duty as a blogger to leave nothing out. Above is a look of the sky from the cache location. Below is a pic of my GPSr.

The dead giveaway is the leaf below. Study it carefully, when you see a leaf exactly like that then you are within three feet of the cache. In all serious, I’m not giving any hints, except for the leaf. This is a unique cache and he wants you to find out what is unique about it for yourself. The cache was placed in April and I was only the fourth one to find it. It’s almost a two mile walk from the parking lot to the cache site. Most people are not going to go that far especially if they are not familiar with the trails on the mountain.

It started to get dark on the way back. I’ve never run in the dark on Turkey Mountain but I have run in the twilight. I love it.

It’s still hot on the mountain but you are out of the direct sun and off the reradiating hard surfaces of the city. Also, there are not very many people up on the mountain. It’s pretty quiet except for the mountain bikers getting a little rambunctious.

The sun gets really low and really colorful.

It’s a great place to gett your head on straight.

I uploaded my run to Garmin’s website. You can see my route and a whole bunch of metrics on the run by hitting the green button below. You’ll go to the website. And then hit the little triangular “play” button like you playing a cd player. You’ll be amazed by how slow I run and how long it took me to find the cache.

Hey, you can do better? Get after it!

And by the way, adairmd is a nice guy

Geocaching 101

Autism Center of Tulsa Ready, Set, Run 5K

Last Saturday the Autism Center of Tulsa had their Ready Set Run 5K and Fun Run. I got to help out getting ready on Friday night.

I’m on the sign crew. The race starts and ends at Hunter Park and extends out back along the Creek Turnpike Trail so the course is a little complicated and needs lots of signs.

Robert and Shannon my coworkers putting out signs.

I keep telling Shannon that drinking and driving don’t mix.

To the right everybody!

For the big sign out in front of the park Robert shows off his manly form.

And then it is Brian’s turn. I’d help, but somebody has to record these things for posterity, right? I’ mean I could do it, but my motto is not to mess with people who are in the groove, and these guys are definitely in the groove.

Then Michelle shows up and gives us all a lesson on proper zip ties.

Wow, that Brian is a steel post driving machine!!

The next day the 5K’ers show up for the race. I saw the famous Trail Zombie. Talk about machine he was running this race and then going to Turkey Mountain to run some trails with a friend and then headed to Stillwater for his third run and second race of the day.

So the race went on and everybody had a good time!

Ready Set Run 2012

What do you have planned on the morning of Saturday, May 19?
Do you like exciting racing?

Sports Mascots?

Do you want to be fawned over by cheerleaders?

Hang out with hot women?

See happy kids?

Or get a nice sweaty hug?

Join our team, Logan’s Free Time, (because as you may know, nothing is more important than free time to teenagers) raising funds for the Autism Center of Tulsa.

You can register for the race, or donate money by clicking the link below.

Logan’s Free Time Running Team

2012 Snake Run

Today I ran in my second Snake Run. I love it.

The walk from the parking lot to the starting line is about half a mile and good steep climb. It is its own warm up and the woods are beautiful this time of year. (I’ll say that regardless of the time of year.)

Race Director, “Trail Zombie” (aka Ken) gave us some pre race instructions on how the race is marked and just what the deal is. Most races have a set distance and you try and minimize your time. This race, the time is set at either three hours or six hours and you try and maximize your distance. Fun, fun, fun.

It was kind of chilly so some people brought their snuggies. I wish I had thought of it.

TZ should have spent some time explaining what everybody was wearing. Remember the late 70’s when women wore leggings? Well men have them now. What’s the deal. I felt really under dressed without my snuggie and my leggings. I guess that I’ll have to go to the running store and get me some leggings.

So the women don’t wear leggings, I guess these are “armings.” Is putting them on called “arming” and taking them off called “disarming.” Going without is “unarming.” Oklahoma is about to be an open carry state my tea partier representative tells me. My tea partier state senator doesn’t talk to me. I don’t blame him.

Nice view of downtown. Turkey Mountain is an urban wilderness, so the city surrounds it.

I think Maytag is a sponsor of the race. This appliance actually still works. Honest!

Trail races are fun and the food is great. They have it on the course, not just the end.

This is the crew that counts how much you ran. They have a four mile loop and a half mile loop. So you just run yourself silly until time is up.

These are the awards. This is also what Okies look like to our President. He came to Cushing (oil pipeline capital of the USA) to announce his approval of a project that didn’t need his approval. The state GOP went nuts trying to outdo each other expressing how sorry it is. Some of us Okies thought our elected officials could have been a little gracious to O.

This is the award I won, in fact awarded myself two.

This is also what I got, muddy feet. At least I didn’t fall. I do have a little booboo on my right knee. I kept asking people if they noticed it. They didn’t, so I’m looking for a little blogging sympathy.

And I got a nice medal and a brand spanking new tee shirt!

What did you do today??

Skywatch Friday – Evening Run

It’s been raining off and on for days. The weather broke Wednesday evening just in time for my weekly Wednesday night run on the Arkansas River trails here in Tulsa. I love daylight savings time as it means that I don’t have run in the dark!

Skywatch Friday!!!

2011 Tulsa Run 15K

Saturday I ran in the 34th Tulsa Run 15K Race. It was my 18th. It is the one race that I never miss.

One of these days my streak is going to break. Oh well, a year at a time. Over the 18 years I am on my third generation of co-runners. It seems people start running in their late 20’s or so and do it for about five or six years before getting bored with it and quitting. I intend to run for as long as I can.

We used to have a large contingent of Army guys from Fort Sill that would run in formation and chant. That was cool, especially downtown when their chants would echo off the buildings. They have been in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting for us. Today we had the guy above and a few soldiers. However a unit of the Air National Guard based out of Tulsa, the 138th Fighter Wing, participated in a 15K race in Iraq that went on at the same time as the Tulsa event. About 600 airmen from the 125th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron participated in the race. It’s going to be an emotional day for many when our troops will be home and can run in the race again.

We had a fireman who ran the whole race in his bunker gear. Tough guy in my book.

And a girl with a balloon tied to her hair.

And some ladies with Tutus.

There were about 3860 finishers in the race.

Off they went. It took me about three minutes to get to the start line.

This is a long post. I don’t want you to miss the hero of he race. At least she is my hero. This lady had a sign on her back that said that she was nine months pregnant and today was her official due date.

I ran up to her and asked if it were true and she said yes.

Here she is, running 9.3 miles on her due date with a big smile on her face. I sprinted on ahead. I didn’t want to be the one to deliver her baby. For one thing where would I get boiled water?

The only thing worse than having to use a portapotty on a race course is waiting in a line to use the portapotty. I learned early on in my racing career to not “carbo load” the night before a race on lots and lots of pasta. Unless of course you want to spend part of the race waiting to use a portapotty.

We had several bands along the route. All of them good.

I loved this girl’s nice socks. If I ran in something like that I’d get laughed at. Of course they laugh at me anyway, but that is another story.

This dude (it’s a dude, shaved legs and all) wore sandals.

I don’t know who the striped guy is.

Batman and Robin

Some witches.

And Fred, Shaggy, and Daphne from Scooby Doo.

Lots and lots of people

The loop de loop over Riverside Drive.

Nice thing about running races is that you can just throw your cup down at the water stops. I love that.

This was my last shot on the disposables. I brought two of them this year and used them both up with 5k to go. Best because the last 5k hurt and it was pretty ugly. But I finished vertically.