Let the games begin!

I am launching a full blown attack on the wasps on the snake trail this week. The possibility of our runners being stung during the Turkey and Taturs race is not something I will tolerate. To ready myself for this endeavor, I have been conditioning myself to not panic while being pursued by these wasps by experimenting with honey bees. I do actually have on underwear in this picture!


My grandfather was very allergic to bee and wasp stings, often having bad swelling problems and pain and itching that lasted for days. Some people when stung on the neck or face have trouble breathing. Other people stung only have the aggravation of having it hurt like hell, but no other bad affects. This is no one I know....just a picture borrowed from the web.


This is an actual picture. It was taken right here on Turkey Mountain. (Actually, that's not entirely true....it was posted on this blog while I sit at my computer.... right here on Turkey Mountain. Not really relevant, just shamelessly posted for shock value.)

But those winged menaces had better beware! I am coming after them!And I will be armed! Check out my new electronic bee whacker!And if this fails, I have plan "B" all lined up.

And yes, I did some running this past week. I have been hitting the trails pretty hard and racking up some decent miles. Tonight, I ran with Jason and Jessie, my son and daughter-in-law, both of whom have ran a little, but are fairly new to trail-running. We got 4.3 miles in tonight and got rained on just a little right at the end of our run.

3 quick things

Friday, August 8, 2008

Justa quick coupla things before I head out the door.

1. I finally reached a milestone in my running. I collected my 100th tick on the trails this morning. YAY!!!

2.Wednesday night is turning into quite a great night for trail running. There were 10 of us romping on the trails last Wednesday. Come out and join us!Pictures clockwise are Dee, Vicky, Mike who was in town from Kansas City and joined us for a run, Rob, Kirk who is Bob's brother-in-law, and then Bee Sting Bob himself, Dustin, Me, Andy, and Cool-Shades Aaron.

3. Speaking of bee stings, the snake trail is still being terrorized by these aggressive hornets. I am fairly certain it is not the red hornets pictured previously in my blog. Dana was stung this morning again although we tip-toed very quietly through this section. Wednesday night, several of the runners were dive-bombed. I manged to capture one of the meanies and was gonna take his butt home to see if I could find his likeness on the internet. 
I did not have my camera with me this morning. I had hold of him by the wings, and I thought he was dead. But a few minutes later, he started growling-humming-buzzing or whatever it is they do, and I looked and his stinger was going wild trying to nail me on the fingers. I of course let him go and ran like a deer down the trail!

I googled and googled and could not find any pics that looked like this hornet. This is the closest I could find. It is not a yellow jacket at all. These hornets are black but not shiny black. It has a yellow-orange wide stripe on his stinger. They are actually pretty small....maybe 3/4 inch in total length. They are quick and very direct in their attack. I am gonna take some paint or signs or something to mark the area where they are, and still try to find their nest to destroy it. More details later.

More googling: It is a Mason Hornet. They may have yellow striping, or red, or orange. Ours has a burnt orange stripe....must be from Texas. Hmmph!

Mud slide? Earthquake?

This sign was posted on Keetonville Road not far from where I used to live two years ago. I was over that way and wanted to get a soy latte from the Pecan Porch on the Port Road, but to my disappointment, they had gone out of business. I had heard that the heavy rains had destroyed the portions of Keetonville Road near the Verdigris River, and of course I had to go check it out. Reading the sign, I shrugged and hopped over the old makeshift iron gate that someone had rigged up to block the road. Had to get a closer look, ya know!

The first sign of damage was a huge sink hole which had allowed a half moon sized chunk of road to crumble away. My thoughts were why not just fix it?
A couple hundred yards later, it looked like the side of the mountain had suffered an earthquake.
Still think a 4 wheel drive vehicle would have no problem getting through here.
This used to be one of my favorite running routes. From my house northward all the way to highway 20 and back was seven miles, complete with a river view, several hills, and lots of peace and quiet. Night running always brought a lot of glowing eyes into play. Sometimes the eyes were far enough apart that my pace picked up considerably!

They have no plans at all to rebuild this stretch of road. People living just on the other side of the road damage have to drive an extra 10-15 extra miles or so around through Claremore or Owasso to get through what was otherwise a short 3 mile trip. But I think it's still a good place to run, provided the warning sign is just a bluff!

Thursday, July 31, 2008Friday, August 1, 2008

Kenny3 introduces Beckett

I am a grandpa for the 2nd time!!! My oldest son, Kenny3 and his lovely wife Lynnsey had their 1st addition to their fanily today. They named him Beckett. A middle name has not yet been determined. He was born at 5:30 this morning, and weighed in at 8 lbs 13 ounces. Here, Kenny helps his half sister Emmy hold her little nephew.

Lynnsey is doing great, and Mom and Beckett should get to go home tomorrow evening. Beckett is eating well, and producing fill-ups for his diapers with regularity. Everyone said he looks a lot like me. I did not really see that.... he has a great head of hair. There were 11 people, mom and baby included, crammed into this small room. Fortunately, the nursing staff were ok with the throng of visitors. One by one, we got our turn to hold little Beckett. He slept very soundly until just before we left, when he awoke and decided he was HUNGRY! 







I waited patiently, and finally got my turn. Grandkids are great!!!

procrastination

Guess what I'm finally gonna do today....


And the proof of a job well done (as I pat myself on the back and consume a cold beer!)

Ken's All-Night Birthday Run

Friday night, starting out at 9:45, several of my friends and I headed to the trails to run for hours and hours on Turkey Mountain. This is the 3rd year I have hosted an all-niter on my birthday (which is actually Sunday.)Behind me are, left to right, Candice, Johnnie aka Tatur Uno, Glenn, Arnold (just back from pacing duties at Badwater), Brian, Roman, Kathy, and Bill (who won the prize for coming the farthest.)

We headed up Lipbuster and then did a run of the Snake. I had stashed two ice chests at the upper parking lot with water, Gatorade, some cran-grape juice, and best of all....BEER! We used the upper lot as a hub, coming back to rehydrate several times during the night.
Bee-sting Bob, in the gray and red shirt, met up with us later and ran with us for a few hours. 
He came bearing gifts, presenting me with the coolest flexible tripod for my camera. I had been stacking and propping my camera on rocks when using the timer, and he saw I could use one of these. This tripod can be twisted and hung from tree limbs or jail bars, or just about anything depending on where I am at the time.

At midnight, Dana met us at the lower parking lot with pizza and made-from-scratch cheesecake with strawberries.We wolfed pizza and munched on the huge slabs of cheesecake until we could not even move.

Some of the crazier ones practiced their photo-bombing skills.

Tatur Uno resting comfortably.

Candice has ran at night before, and has ran trails before. But tonight was her first night run on trails. She ran 8 miles, kicked several rocks, and only had a bloody knee to show for it.
Afterward, I met the RunnersWorld runners at Veterans Park and ran a few more miles on roads to finish out my effort. I ended up with 28 miles, with most of them on the more technical trails of Turkey. Now, I need to work on catching up on SLEEP. Thanks so much to all of my friends who ran with me during the night. These are the best birthday celebrations I've ever had!

North on the Snake Trail ran counter clockwise about 1 mile from the upper parking lot, there is hidden somewhere a nest of bad ass hornets. Several of my trail running buddies have been stung by these very vicious pests, and earlier this week, Dana got nailed by one of them. It was time to retaliate! I loaded up my back pack with an extra thick sweat shirt, since these critters have no problem stinging through clothing, a can of extra-heavy-duty wasp spray that supposedly should shoot out 27 feet, and four Benadryl in case I got stung. To outsmart the hornets, I snuck around the back way, going CLOCKWISE. Ahh....the element of surprise! Actually, going this way I knew pretty close to where I had to put on my wasp armor and lock and load. With sweat shirt in place, and the spray can shaken and ready, I cautiously tiptoed up the trail.I scanned the woods on either side of the trail looking for the hornets buzzing around, hoping they would lead me to their nest. About 50 yards from where the attacks had occurred, I spotted a red hornet flying low, probably looking for whatever it is they eat. I nailed that sucker, and the spray did in fact have an instant affect. It immediately pissed him off!!! He flew towards me, then hit the ground, then flew up into a tree, buzzing loudly all the way before finally dying.One down, but where is the nest?? I went on a little further, and saw another hornet, this time hitting him cleanly with the spray. It was a quick kill, which renewed my faith in the so-called high power wasp spray I had laid out 3 bucks for.This guy was big, and I was l little concerned that I only had one can.

After covering about a quarter mile, I was sure I had gone well past where the nest was, so I turned around to make another pass through. It was about this time that a trail runner whom I did not know came jogging through. I stopped him and warned him of the possible impending attacks, but either he could not hear me over his Ipod, or was not concerned. I followed just behind him watching to see if he stirred up the flying warriors. No luck. I decided to go back through one more time, this time tossing sticks and rocks into the trees. (I now question the intelligence of this tactic.) After my 2nd toss, I heard the sound of a small helicopter near my ear, and then it felt like a hummingbird had dive bombed me. It was one of the killer hornets sent in to take me out. But, his stinger was not long enough to penetrate my thick armor (St Francis sweatshirt.) And, I utilized an effective military tactic that was really more of a girlie shriek, followed by a very quick sprint with my arms flapping and waving in the air.

It was 5:30, and I was to meet my trail running buddies at 5:45, so I decided to call a cease-fire and renew this war another day.
To my left are Kathryn, Vicky, Aaron with the cool shades, Bee-Sting Bob in the back, and Glenn who looks like he must have had the chili for lunch. We ran the mid trail south to north, lots of rocks, and some serious trail damage due to the mud slide earlier in the year. I propose building a wooden bridge across this damaged area. We'll need to do something before the Turkey and Taturs race.

Finally, this Friday night starting around 9:00 pm, I will be starting my birthday run. I and as many of you who want to will run all night on the trails on Turkey Mountain. We'll start out with some east trails, and maybe even do a few miles on the new paved trail along the west bank. You can come run for an hour, 4 hours, all night, or anything in between. I'll have my cell phone and you can call and let me know where you'll be and we'll meet you. My # is 814-6433. AT midnight, we'll have pizza and cheesecake at the upper parking lot. We'll have a few ice chests stashed there as well since that is really a good central location to most of the trails. If you're running past 11:00 and I hope you do, you might need to park somewhere other than the lower parking lot. You may park at my house on 67th Street, or near Elwood on 67th. You might take a chance on parking along the road at the top of the hill. I just don't want the cops hassling anyone about the curfew, and they won't if cars are not in the lower parking lot.

Any questions, feel free to call me or email me at trailzombie@yahoo.com