Category Archives: Running

Tulsa Run 2010

I ran the Tulsa Run 15K yesterday with about 4200 or so other people. As you can see I start way at the back. After the gun started it took me about 3 minutes to get to the starting line. Psychologically it is better for me to start at the back and pass people steadily than to start at the front and get trampled.

A couple hundred yards past the starting line. It always amazes me how fast the lead runners are. Up until the Iraq War a group of soldiers from Fort Sill would show up and do their chants the whole way. I’m looking forward to the day when they return.

Some of the many bands along the route. I really appreciate these guys. I don’t think they are used to getting up this early.

Runners are litterbugs, especially down the road from water stops. I am a litterbug also. I have learned the art of drinking while running. It is more running than drinking but little things like that is why I finished 3385th instead of 3387th.

Go Go Boots. I remember being a young lad when Go Go Boots were popular. I remember my mother being scandalized by the short skirts and boots. She said that she just couldn’t understand the attraction. I did,and still do.

I’ve noticed that running skirts are getting more and popular with woman runners. So is the next big thing running tutus?

Lets see, we have the big bad wolf, little red riding hood, and the woodsman.

Looping the Loop over Riverside Drive.

This guy was cheating.

That was it folks. I was experimenting with a disposable camera. I had very mixed results. It only had 27 exposures on it so I was not able to memorialize my thrilling finish.

It’s Sunday, time for the all time most often quoted running scripture. From Hebrews 12:1;

“…let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

Check out That’s Baloney for other pairings of images and scripture.

Wild Wild Weekend

Whew, what a weekend.

Started Saturday morning when I ran in a 10K race. The Tulsa Zoo Run.

Sorry, I didn’t take any photos during the race. I decided to run this one.

No, I didn’t win it. In fact this is the scene I came upon within seconds of going through the finish line.

You know what this is? I’ll tell you. The results of the race I was running in had already been determined, printed, and posted by the time I finished. That was a clue that I didn’t win it.

However, I did get a picture of tiger defecating.

Just to remind you that although I love mommybloggers I am not one.

I also got a pic of resting rhino.

Later, Sweetie and I got dressed up for an early season Halloween Party.

Meet “Dirty Dog” and his woman, “Chick.”

Greatest collection of female hotness ever gathered together in one spot in Oklahoma. Hey where is Dawn?

An image stuck with me though. I don’t know why. It was like I was haunted.

Sweetest woman I’ve ever known but something not quite right about that girl.

Not done yet, Sunday afternoon SuperPizzaBoy and I played a rousing match of disk golf with the Tulsa Gentleman, Bill at the River Parks.

SPB beat us by a stroke to take the match!

What did you do this weekend?

Turkey N’ Taturs Trail Race

I ran a trail race Sunday morning. The Turkey N’Taturs Trail Race on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain Park. I’ve come to love Turkey Mountain and trail running. They had races of 10K, 25K, and 50K lengths. I opted for the 10K (about 6.2 miles). On trail runs I start at the back and pretty much stay there the whole race. I like to take photographs, and pics and fast times are mutually exclusive. Of course, those who know me think that I’d be at the back with or without a camera but I digress.

The weather was great, cool and sunny. A few pics:

About 0.1 miles from the start. Sorry, I had to stop and get an image.

A muddy pond near the end.

I just loved that for a little while we ran on the “Fairy Dust Trail.”

I just love a sense of humor.

Luckily we just had to run besides these rocks, not through them. I refer to these as “snake condo’s.” Great place to hide a geocache huh? The clue would be “Look in the rocks.”

Isn’t this nice? A flagstone running path. Here in Tulsa we don’t have enough money to pay our police and fire departments but nothing but first class for our runners.

Going up hill behind the “Three Graces.” Three ladies that stayed ahead of me until just before halfway then they let me pass. They were very nice and great runners.

Wow, just as I was in the groove running in the woods with the birds and the squirrels and fixing to go totally Ralph Waldo Emerson mode I pop onto a power line right of way, whoa, urban chaos and a strangely empty Arkansas River.

I finished the race and rested a bit. I went looking for a malted beverage. Some lady told me, “Don’t you think that it is way to early to have beer especially on a Sunday morning?” Boy, she gave me a look when she saw what I grabbed out of the cooler. So I had two, hey, she didn’t want hers, beer doesn’t drink itself you know.

The race was great. Everybody was very chilled out. I won a technical shirt as a door prize, and ate some great barbecue. Some amazing times were run.

Kudos to the Tulsa Area Trail and Ultra Runners (“TATUR“). Kudos also to my blog friend Trail Zombie (aka Ken) who spent hours and hours marking the trails and who knows what else and was also a sponsor of the race.

Of course you know the most important part of a race,

It’s the shirt and the participant medal. I’m the king of participant medals.

When is the next race Ken? I’m ready!

Back on the Trail Again

Its been a busy six weeks. Vacation to southern California, wife’s family reunion in western Oklahoma, two trips to Wichita, Kansas in two weeks, ill advised geocaching outing in the Kansas tall grass without chemical protection resulting in massive chigger infestation (I took pics but deleted them, you can thank me now), and a lingering sinus infection. I finally went to the doctor’s office and got to see the PA. (How come doctors are called doctors and PA’s just have a first name? I told the front desk I was their to see Miss R****, and they didn’t know who I was talking about.)

You know how it goes, chigger bites “resolve themselves,” doctors (and PA’s) are generally clueless about running injuries but luckily Miss R**** had an orthopedic student shadowing her that day and he pronounced that I had a swollen ITB (shame on you!!!, its the iliotibial band, a tendon that stretches from your knee to you foot on the outside of the leg)but I should be good to go in a week. Miss R**** was doing a furious head bob agreeing with el studiante, at least Miss R**** was able to prescribe some antibiotics.

So anyway I went home, took my medicine, and healed up. Wednesday night after work I went out for a test drive on the Arkansas River trail and ran four miles with no problems.

Life is looking up.

What have I learned. First, never, ever, ever, go into tall grass without Deet. Second, my Doctor’s day off is Wednesday. Miss R**** is cute as a button and very nice, but she is not a doctor.

Hot and Humid

It’s been hot and humid lately here in the heartland.

Let me talk about humid first. I put a ceiling fan on our back porch yesterday. It took me a lot longer than it should have to get it done because this one was designed to be installed by somebody with three hands and lots of manual dexterity. I stuck with it and got’er done though. And of course since my whole life is spent looking for something to blog about, I grabbed my camera and took a picture of my the ceiling fan in action. Here it is.

No fancy photo editing here. Just condensation on the camera lens. That’s humid.

Sweetie, as always is so appreciative anytime I get off my butt and actually do something she agreed to sit for a pic under the fan.

Lets talk about HOT.

Last week we decided to go to Nana’s house. Great, she has a pool, lets party! I decided I was going to run to Nana’s house. At about 2:30 in the afternoon. It was only 92 degrees but the heat index was over 100 degrees because of the high humidity. (Review above section on humidity of you need to.) So off I went (Sweetie and SuperPizzaBoy went in an air conditioned car.)

Things start out so nice. Here’s a dove in our flower bed. He didn’t want to go with me for some reason.

Things got hot fast.

I finally find some shade, I ran in the shade for a while instead of the designated trail. Don’t tell anybody, I’m sure I violated the law against shady running.

I stopped to smell the flowers but they weren’t looking the same.

I finally staggered to Nana’s front door. I was totally disoriented but there was an angel there to guide me. I was worried though, I didn’t know where she was taking me.

Man, I burned lots and lots of calories!!

Just don’t look at the pace. I’m sure many of you could of walked the distance faster.

A Run on Turkey Mountain

I had Friday off. I decided to go run a few miles on Turkey Mountain on the running trails there as change. I’m sorry about so many posts about running lately. It could be worse, I could be posting about geocaching. Or the latest evil plot by our President to make all our future children be born naked.

I love it Turkey Mountain. There are not too many people there. I just love trails.

Every once in a while you can get a get good view of the Arkansas River and the city of Tulsa beyond. Kind of hard to imagine. Somebody over there is getting mad about something trivial. Not me, I’m totally zoned out.

Lots of rocks on Turkey Mountain. I haven’t seen any turkeys yet. I saw a beautiful whitetail doe while running. But she wouldn’t stay put until I got my camera out.

I had a short lived interruption on my running prayer at the turnaround point.

Woops, ugly, I’m glad the trail turned back into the woods. I know that we need electric power, sewage treatment plants, and ugly streets but it makes for a jarring transition.

Soon enough the trail turns back to the woods and my equilibrium is restored.

“I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.”
Psalms 119:32

Skywatch Friday – Morning Run

I went for a run earlier this week. I could tell it might be a good Skywatch opportunity coming up.

I wasn’t getting a whole lot of running done. Then things changed quickly.

There was only a few seconds difference between the above photograph and the one below (and some magnification)

Then the colors started fading away quickly

Thirty minutes later, no trace of the colors. But hey, the moon is still up over my favorite tree.

If I’d have stayed in bed I would have missed the show.

Please check out Skywatch Friday for views of our sky from all over the world.

My World – Fort Worth Botanical Gardens

A few weeks ago Sweetie and I visited the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. Its sprawling grounds are a treat.

They have huge koi ponds, with huge koi.

They have a Japanese Garden with some charming sites.

All sorts of birds make the grounds home.

A favorite of mine was the sand garden.

I
And guess what, they even had a few flowers. I have no idea what they are. Ask Sweetie, she is the certified Master Gardener.

They had the remnants of a Children’s Garden that hadn’t been kept up. Too bad. This is the biggest sunflower I’ve ever seen. We appreciated the little shade it gave us. It was 105 F when we visited.

I just loved the little angel inside this flower.

Another panting customer that day. Hey, stay on the walk dude!!

Lots of water features, at least they make it look cooler.

Check out My World Tuesday for great glimpses of our world.

Ready Set Run 2010

The Autism Center of Tulsa had their annual Ready, Set, Run 5K and Fun Run today at Hunter Park here in Tulsa.

What do you think of this. I was going along the race course and came up on the Finish Line. I was thrilled, there was absolutely nobody ahead of me. Look at the photo. Can you believe it, me all alone at the Finish Line!

Of course it was an hour before the race start but still.

I did beat a bunch during the race. Below is a couple of sore losers. I kicked their butts good.

Here is the star of our team, SuperPizzaBoy and his mom Sweetie.

Another of SPB and his old man.

An action shot of SPB sprinting toward the finish.

Here is Sweetie and our friend Baloney. They were busting some moves. I think Sweetie has a leg up on Baloney on this particular photograph.

She is called Baloney because she is full of it. Check out her blog That’s Baloney. She has a major blogging mission going on. I think at last count she has brought to salvation over 140,000 people. That’s very impressive. I’m about to start calling her Baloney Graham. I try and try but about 3 people have lost their salvation reading my blog. She has setbacks also. Last year she was voted Oklahoma’s hottest mommyblogger and I personally know 7 guys that lost their salvation as a result.

The Run is the major fundraiser for ACT but almost more importantly is an annual gathering of families who are affected by autism. When they start the fun run everybody lines up. It is a very emotional site seeing how long the line is. Lots of people in northeast Oklahoma are affected by autism.

After the race SPB took full advantage of the other attractions.

There was a mascot for the new Tulsa Shock WNBA Basketball team:

And he jumped right in the middle of a bunch of cheerleaders.

Anyway, we and everybody else had a lot of fun. Thanks to everybody that contributed to the event!! We appreciate it.

Logan’s Lightning Thieves and Ready…Set…Run 2010

More Info

Do you like to Run? Do you like to Walk? Do you like to help a good cause? The Autism Center of Tulsa is having their fourth annual Ready…Set…Run! 5K and Fun Run on May 8 at Hunter Park in Tulsa. The race is both a fund raiser for the Autism Center and a time for the Autism Community to get together.

You can enter the 5K or the fun run by clicking on the banner on the sidebar. If you can’t make it out that day and would like to donate as little as a dollar you can also do it by clicking on the banner. Or if you don’t feel like donating any money but want to leave a comment that is very much appreciated also. Or if you want to help volunteer on race day that would be great, we need lots of help that day and we can find you a job to do just let us know here. Either way, please join SuperPizzaBoy’s team. This year it is “Logan’s Lightning Thieves.”

If you know anybody in the northeast Oklahoma area who has a child with autism especially those who are newly diagnosed and are looking for information please refer them to the Autism Center of Tulsa. The Autism Center doesn’t provide treatment instead they are a clearinghouse of information for parents, doctors, and other health providers. They also have parent support groups, sponsor family fun nights and other events that are either free or low cost to the families. They have also done things like provide training to the Tulsa Police Department on how to deal with people with autism.

Here is some scenes from last year’s race.

The lineup for the Fun Run

SuperPizzaBoy and Sweetie. His team last year was named “Logan’s SuperPizzaPeople.” In addition to being a potential broadway star and video game champion SPB has a form of autism called Asperger’s Syndrome.