Saturday, I ran in the four mile event of the Greenleaf Trail Run at Oklahoma’s beautiful Greenleaf State Park. I say I ran, its more like I participated with my running friends Paula, left, and Melissa. We trotted a few hundred yards out of the four miles and the rest of the way speed walked it.

There were three races, a twelve mile, eight mile, and ours and each started separately. Since these are trail races, there is almost always a traffic jam right away. Nobody worries about it much though.

We ran through a bunch of great views including a segment out and back on a dam.

The State Parks do a great job of keeping the brush down in the parks. The lack of thorns is especially appreciated.

Melissa and Paula on the trail. I was wearing some brand new Hoka One’s that I bought over a year ago just before I had to quit running. A lot of the trails were on side slopes, which is fine, but the Hokas were too high and put a lot of torque on my ankles. Plus they were not broken in yet.

Warning ahead! Bigfoot area. Eastern Oklahoma is a hot bed of Sasquatch sightings.

And here is the critter himself. It was groundhog day. I didn’t see any groundhogs but Sasquatch couldn’t see his shadow, so does that mean we are having an early Spring?

All three of us finished the race vertically so that was good. I thought the race was great. The course was beautiful, the package pickup was well organized. I love the cotton poly blend long sleeve tee shirt.

They had cool coffee mugs at the end for everybody.

They had great medals as well. You can see Melissa’s above. I went bushwhacking for a nearby geocache at the end of the run. I didn’t find the geocache but the medal fell off when I was out there. Anyway it was cool.

I give this race five stars out of five. Thanks to the organizers and the army of volunteers who did everything from handing out packages, cooking and dishing out the food, marking the course, directing the runners during the race, and a myriad of other jobs.

I am linking with Our World Tuesday