Make plans for this race next Thursday

Next week--Thurdsay evening to be more precise--is the third running of the Warrior Princess Trail Race.
This unique race is a 10.3 mile run that is half trail, and half rural county road. There is also a 10.3K race that is all on the road. Throw in a 1.03 mile fun run, and you have an event with a distance for everyone.

The location--the Keystone Mountain Bike trailz just south of Keystone Dam on the east side of the highway. Cross the dam heading south, and follow the cars. I recommend getting there early for a decent parking place. This is a sweet course, with 5 miles of winding single track under a canopy of trees. Much of it is smooth and runnable, but there are a few rocky technical sections, and a few steep climbs and decents. It's a challenging course and fun to run.


This race, in it's thrid year, is the creation of Chrissy Whitten and is held to honor her daughter Lillian Grace Whitten, who came into the world on April 25th 2010 and was with us for 103 days before earning her wings August 5th. Chrissy loves the trailz as much as I do, and a trail run to celebrate her memory is so cool.

In the first year, there were a few water crossings, but none that could not be crossed easily. This year, I expect a few shoe soaking opportunities, but there is still a good probability of dry feet.

For those running who are not obsessed with running a PR, enjoy the run and take your camera. This is one of the most scenic trailz in the area.

Keep your eye on the trail, but look up often. I have bumped my head here once. It won't happen again.


When you pass the powerline tower, you're about halfway through the trail portion.

You'll have a couple of awesome views of the Arkansas River near the tower.

Here's one of the rocky sections. Actually, walking these rocky inclines is not really much slower than trying to run them--unless you're a mountain goat.

Once you finish the trail portion, you hit the road. The first half mile is a long downhill where you can really pick up the pace. At the bottom, the 10.3 milers head east, while the 10.3K runners take a left to do a short out-and-back, and then they head east. It's well marked, and there's a course marshal here to make sure everyone goes the correct way.

The road section is tree-covered for most of the way. About 2.5 miles out there's an aid station with water, Gatorade, and all sorts of yummy goodies.

Last year, the train track crossing was under construction, but all is repaired this year. Hopefully, no one will have to wait for the train to pass.

This race, with the unique distances, is a sure PR--if you've never ran a 10.3 mile or 10.3 K race. And it's a good challenging venue for the speedsters like this trio.


It's also a good course for those wanting to support Chrissy's cause with the 1.03 mile fun run/walk.

It's not too late to sign up either.You can sign up here online, or you can sign up at the race.

There's great shirts and finishers medals for all participants, and awards for the winners. Following the race, it's been a tradition to launch a sky lantern. This will be the last year for the race in April at Keystone. The event will be moved to Chandler Park, and will be held on Lillian's angel-versary on August 5th. The format will be a timed event, where the runners will see how far they can run in 103 minutes--sort of like the 3 Hour/6 Hour Snake Run. Keep an eye out for more details in the coming months. But don't miss the Warrior Princess Trail Run next Thursday!

black white gray

Boston

I skipped my run this evening--saddened beyond words. I cannot comprehend the evil that would lead a person(s) to kill innocent blameless people in love with life. I just did not feel this evening that a run would make it all better for me. There is no fix.

Finding the people behind this bombing is futile, although I would love to see the demonic beasts tortured forever for the tragedy they caused. Bring them to "justice" and there'll be more following in their footsteps. This kind of evil never changes. Senseless crime like this cuts to the quick, but this time, it was my friends slaughtered. My friends. If you love running, you are my friend. Two strangers who run meet, and in three minutes, they are friends. I know of no kindredship as amazing as what we as runners share.

Those responsible for the bombings know only hate, and they have made me hate. I hope the killers burn in hell.

Lake Heyburn/Shephard Cove Trail/Rattlesnake Trail

After a morning run with the TOTs on Turkey Mountain, Jake and I headed foe Keystone State Park. There was some sort of biking event going on there, so we headed southwest to Heyburn Lake to run some trailz that I knew about but had never run. Always a bonus!!

These are equestrian trailz, but the are the same single track that trail crazies like me likes. Never once were there sections that were beat to death with horse hoofs, and even though it had rained yesterday, there were very few muddy spots.


Jale was a happy pup, and did his usual trail guide thing, acting like he knew exactly where he was going and coming back to make sure I did not get lost.


We passed the trail head for the Boot Tree Hill trail, and actually took that route on our return trip. The highlight of the trail was this tree.


I'd liken this trail to Lake McMurtry. Not many rocks, a few short ups and downs, and a view of the lake here and there.


One of the few rocky areas was on the Rocky Point Trail. With a name like that, I'd expect no less.


I took this 1/4 mile stretch of double track to avoid going back the way I came to from Rocky Point. At one time, Lake Heyburn had a LOT of camping. There are primitive campgrounds, spots with pads and full hookups, and almost all of it is abandoned.


"Hey Dad--you coming??"


I was very interested in this trail. I had read, and heard from a friend Clint Green that this was a good run/hike. From this sign, it is supposed to be 4.5 miles to the end of the line. I was banking on a 9 mile trip from here.


About 10% of the way was single track across open fields, which is about all the meadow running I like in a run.


Most was wooded, and if this trail had a bit more foot traffic, it would be perfect. A few fallen trees blocked the trail and quite a bit of the route was leaf covered but but gave no problems on our trip.


We crossed several drainages--small creeks that meandered into the lake. I never got my feet wet on the water crossings, but Jake did.


Towards the end of the trail, we ran alongside Brown's Creek. It's a muddy creek, and Heyburn is a muddy lake. Jake is a bit too chicken to take this dive.


Water was flowing over Brown's Creek falls. I bet it's a dry waterfall much of the year though.


From here, we headed back. If the Sunday TOTs make a road trip to run here (soon), we can put a water drop at the end of the trail which is right on HWY 33. Those wanting a 5 mile run one way could catch a ride back if we had a sag wagon. I bet we can work that out.


I took a few pix on the way back, but with a tired dog and a tired me, we just slogged and hiked it out. The day was seeming long.


Most of the color today was from the sky, but the green will be overpowering when I come again. We ended up with 10.6 here. The Rattlesnake Trail just under 9 miles out and back. The trails in the main park (Shepherd Cove, Boot Tree Hill, and another couple of spurs) can add as much as 2-3 miles.


One last swim for Jake. I actually got in the water too. I have a theory about Chiggers--if you wash your legs off soon after the run, I think you'll brush off a lot of the suckers before they anchor and bite. So far, so good. I collected a few ticks. No bites, but I felt a couple of nibbles before picking and disposing. I am a tick magnet, and in a trail run, the first runner gets the most. Jake has FrontLine, so any tick bites he get kills the tick. And he also had a good bath when we got home.

Info on some Arkansas trailz

My friend James Reeves has put together the Trails of Bentonville, a trail guide of single track offerings around the Bentonville Arkansas area. There are hundreds of miles of trailz in Arkansas within a moderate driving distance of Tulsa, and since there is a mobile Zombie-lodge sitting in our driveway (a new camping trailer) and we plan on exploring each and every one on on James' list.

In this post, James details The Crystal Bridges Trails, Slaughter Pen Hollow, Blowing Springs Trail, Hobbs State Park, and Lake Wedington. He has several pictures, links to maps, and a couple of scary looking course elevation profiles (isn't profiling a bad thing?) He is going to expand his guide to include Devil's Den and other Western Arkansas trail treasures. I am adding this list to the TZ Trail Guide. Check out the Trails of Bentonville.

The Okie Relays

Years ago, there was a yearly race in our state that actually began in Kansas and finished in Texas. It was a 4-person relay, and drew hundreds of runners each year from a 5-state area. 

According to WIKI,
The Okie Relays was a four-person relay race on a 40.4 mile course between Elkhart, Kansas and Texoma, Texas, on the third Saturday in May. The race was promoted as a way of claiming that one has run across the entire state of Oklahoma (when actually the course merely bisects the narrow panhandle of Oklahoma.) The last two years the race was held, the direction was reversed and ended in Elkhart, Kansas. The race was held 1968 to 1996.

News OK recently republished this article.



Okie Relays a tri-state run

Mark Turner | Modified: June 6, 1982 at 12:00 am | Published: June 6, 1982
Usually highway 95 running from Elkhart, Kan., to Texhoma, which sits astride the Texas-Oklahoma line, is fairly quiet. Except for an occasional farm truck or car passing through the flat countryside, the highway's tranquillity is uninterrupted.

But once a year the Kansas and Oklahoma border towns are briefly awakened for the coming of spring and the Okie Relays, the world's longest four-man relay. The race begins at the Kansas line in Elkhart and ends at the Texas line in Texhoma, a distance of 41 miles. This year's contestants ranged from local runners to runners from as far away as Norway. Their ages ranged from seven to 63.

The runners' occupations varied, too. There were doctors, lawyers, teachers, professors, civil service workers, store managers, farmers, and assorted college and high school students.

This wide variety of runner provided some interesting team names: "The Amarillo Hose Heads," "Time and Motions," "The Night Crawlers," "The Road Runners," and "The Wichita Wunners."

What possesses these people of different walks of life to run, and run far--some 40 miles a week?

Jim Butler, a 63-year-old retired civil service worker from Oklahoma City said, "I like the competition, and it makes me feel great. It also keeps my appetite up."

Butler said, "I run up to 30 miles a week when I'm not preparing for a marathon, but I run at least 40 miles a week when I do decide to enter one."

A runner with the "Time and Motion" team said, "It's insanity, of course."

Many of those who ran in the field of 50 teams and 200 runners were serious about their running, checking their wrist stop watches immediately after crossing the hand-off point, some stopping their second hands before allowing their knees to buckle to the ground.

Others came tiptoeing in lightly, knowing they hadn't set the road or green pastures on fire with any spectacular time.

The run, known for its 41-mile jog touching three states--Kansas, the Oklahoma Panhandle and the Texas border is frequently marked with torturing high winds, up to 35 miles per hour in 1981, or rain, or any other thing that Mother Nature is known to unleash during spring across the plains.

But on the morning of May 15 this year, one would have thought Mother Nature was in a particularly benevolent mood. There was just a slight cool breeze stirring the trees from the northeast, coupled with a bright crisp sunny day.

Around 7:30 that morning, one-half hour before the start of the race, all runners were gathered on the outskirts of Elkhart, comparing running shoes and predicting which part of the race would be the hardest.

The first team of runners faced the easiest part of the course, mostly flat and level. The second 10.25 mile-leg wasn't any more fierce, with a few gently rolling hills, unnoticed by the well-trained runners.

For 59-year-old Morrisine Chandler, a professor of English at Central State University in Edmond who chose to run the last leg independently, the pace was slow but steady. It took her more than two hours to make it to the finish line, but she came in smiling.

"I like to run for the fun of it," she said, "I only run when they have races, and I enjoy it." She didn't compete on a team because, "I didn't want to slow anyone down."

Chandler wasn't the only one who showed the younger generation a thing or two. Roy Jones,40, of Abilene, Texas, became the third runner ever to make the entire distance.

Jones, a journalist, left Elkhart at 6:43, and finished six hours, 10 minutes and 10 seconds later, crossing the finish line a few minutes before one o'clock.

Jones' formula for a successful 41 miles? Simple: run 70 miles a week.

"The teammates I had rounded up for the race dropped out one by one," he said, "but I decided to run the course anyway. A state trooper got in front of me," he continued, "and I didn't want to feel stupid, so I kept running. That's when I got tired."

Jones said, "It's like "Chariots of Fire'. I don't run fast. I run for the glory of God; not much speed, but lots of endurance."

Dr. Ken Osgood, a pediatrician from Las Vegas, N. M., and a five-time veteran of the race, recalled some past experiences when running wasn't for those caught up in the latest fad.

"I can recall back in the 50's when I was arrested in Los Angeles while running because some policemen thought I had stolen something and was running away."

Just after 11 o'clock the first team of runners began coming into sight at the edge of Texhoma, population about 1,300. Some crossed the finish line in full stride with courage mustered up from who knows where; others staggered in rather pale with shirts and shorts soaked in perspiration.

The first runner to come across the line was Robert Stuemky of the "Ponca City Road Runners," winners in the open class competition.

Stuemky had the best time of the day with a 58:34, and his team completed the course in 4:04:23.

Moments later the first high school division team finished the race, the Perryton, Texas,"Pace Setters," as the anchor man crossed the line to give his team a finishing time of 4:22:52.

In the masters division, the "Kay Payners," from Stillwater, devastated the old record set in 1981 by better than 30 minutes as they crossed the line with a time of 4:22:24.

And what would a relay be without the old college try, as the "Recon Runners," also from Stillwater, finished with a time of 4:27:30, to take first place in the college and under 30 division.

And last, but certainly not least, came the women's division "Road Huggers" from Oklahoma City. "The Road Huggers" finished in first place in their division, beating many teams of the opposite sex with a time of 5:38:08.

As the awards were handed out and pictures taken, many runners vowed they would return next year, some vowed they would make a stronger showing, and a few vowed they would never run again.

Archive ID: 70609

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I find is particularly amusing that one runner talked of running over 40 miles per week. For most of my ultra-friends, 40 miles is an off-week. The Road Huggers women's team winning with a time of 5:38 is good, but I have witnessed one solo woman winning a 50 mile race outright in 6 hours flat.

But the Okie Relays is where ultra-running began in Oklahoma. There were a FEW solo runners in the later years who ran the whole way. Today, that would be considered a medium run in the kids I run with. There has been a bit of talk about reviving the Okie Relays. I, for one, would be interested in this--particularly going solo. How bout it--anyone else crazy enough to consider it?

Race Scheduling

I think it is awesome that more and more people are running, hiking, riding bikes, doing obstacle course races, triathlons, etc. While most of America is getting fatter, at the same time time many are getting fitter. Any Saturday anywhere in Oklahoma, you can run a race within a short driving distance of where you live. On April 6th alone (this next Saturday) there are 19 races listed on OK Sports and Fitness's Calendar. Skip ahead a couple of weeks to April 20th, and there are 26 races within 150 miles of Tulsa. When I started running 11 years ago, I could find a 5K to run on most Saturdays. Today, there are often four or more four races in the Tulsa area. This IS a good thing. You cannot run them all, although there are a few hearty 5K warriors who try, sometimes running as many as three races in a single day.

The purpose of this post, while not really complaining, is to suggest race planners (myself included) TRY to check the race calendars before planning a race on a particular day. When there are three races all in the Tulsa area at the same time, the attendance of all of the races is affected. I am fully aware that the Race Director of first race scheduled is not the one to be criticized, but feels the hit when two more races are stacked right on top his/her event. And I am also completely understand that there is often no way conflicts like this can be avoided. Of course two races--one in Tahlequah for example, and one in Sapulpa might vie for a few of the same runners, but neither suffer much a drop in attendance due to the distance between the towns. A trail race in Stillwater, a stair climb race in Tulsa, and a half marathon in Jenks--all on the same day will all lose a few attendees because of being on the same day. If they were on different days, some people (like me) would do all three. And--I know that these scheduling conflicts are sometime unavoidable, but if they WERE unavoidable by consulting a race calendar first, everyone would benefit.

I love trail races. I am RD or co-RD for six different trail races. I have held Lake McMurty 50K/25K/12K on a day that conflicted with the Rockin' K 26.2M/50M in Kansas--and felt bad about it--so I am guilty as charged. In Madill OK, the Dan Man recently revived their awesome event, and moved it from early February to this weekend. There will be some of our group there instead of LMTR, and many will not make Dan Man because of our running LMTR. Could some of this have been avoided? Maybe.

I was excited to learn of the inaugural Prairie Spirit 100 on March 23rd--but it was on the same day as the Snake Run. GRRR!! Fortunately I was able to move the Snake Run back a week ('cause I wanted to RUN Prairie Spirit!) to March 16. But wait!~~ March 16th was the St Patty's 5K, one in which RunnersWorld is heavily involved, and a LOT of our local runners participate in it (green beer--DOH!!) So, for this year, the Snake Run was held on a Sunday instead of the usual Saturday--ironically on March 17th St Patty's Day!! We celebrated with green Snake Run Shirts. Another example that I learned of just tonight--a Fat Ass event at Lake Carl Blackwell--the Churn and Burn 13.1/26.2/50K which is scheduled the same day at the 3 Days to 100K. I would do both if they were on different weekends, and I am sure there are many more like me,

Race planners could actually have better turnouts having their races on days other than overcrowded Saturdays. Friday nights are a good choice. Sunday mornings or afternoons are also good. There are even a few midweek evening runs during the summer months that have good attendance--possibly better than if they had been one of several races held at the same time on a Saturday morning. The most popular months for races are April/May and September/October. Usually, a race held in December/January or July/August has a better chance of not having other nearby races stacked on top of it.

Again--I don't mean this to sound like a bitch session. If RDs check the upcoming race calendars before announcing a date for a new race or moving an existing race, and as much as possible schedule in a way avoid conflicts, we'll all be better for it--RDs and ambitious runners alike.