A teaser and a belated Tuesday report.

It's late Saturday night, and I took a bunch of great pics of some places never seen by most of my running friends--secret places that have remained hidden on Turkey Mountain.

But I hate to get things out of order. I also have some pix from our Secret Society run last Tuesday. So, if you'll indulge me a little, I'll post a few and I'll get to the Turkey Mountain discoveries tomorrow.Tuesday, we started in our usual hard-to-find location, and we ran a different direction. Holmes Peak was our destination, and since the days are getting longer, we were able to make it there and almost back to our car before total darkness. We had a full moon to light our way, and I was the only one in our group to have a headlamp. Would we need it?

From the top of Holmes Peak looking toward downtown Tulsa. I have never crested this peak withot taking a pictue of this Tulsa skyline. Arena will like this picture since she looks much taller than the Williams center.

From the top, we headed down the other side on a newly cut trail. Our friends with the Tulsa Running Club have been very busy working on the trails here in preparation for the Post Oak Lodge 50K/25K/10K/Marathon/Half Marathon on Saturday and Sunday February 26th and 27th.

We were running short on daylight, but at this point we had ran just a little over two miles, and we all wanted three.
It was a smaller group this night. Tuesday the weather was fairly warm, but a cold front was soon to be bearing down on us.
Looking westward across a beautiful manmade lake at the Botanical Gardens. We headed west on a nicely groomed trail that I knew made a 1.5 mile loop and came back near our cars. I turned on my trusty Princeton headlamp, and we all stayed fairly close through the woods and across a natural grassland area.

In a grove of trees a half mile out from our cars, an eerie bench beckons us to sit for a while. I am quite curious of the significance of the crucifix hanging on the tree.
A final phot of a beaming moon through winter's trees. It was a nice outing and an interesting route. We'll do it again I'm sure.

Turkey in the Snow

It was a brisk 20 degrees with a breeze, but Dana had the idea that she wanted to run on Turkey in the snow. She had no problem at all talking me into that!!Yesterday, the trails had a lot of action--and I do mean a lot. There were lots of mountain bikes out, a few runners and hikers, along with several dogs. Most of the way, the trail was well trodden.

The sun was already up, but we were dipped down on the western side of a hill and got to see it peek over the top on it's way back behind the clouds.


With these "screw shoes" (my Montrail Hardrock HS12s) I did not slip even once in the 5 miles we ran.Notice that I have the screws around the perimeter of the shoe. I have seen folks put the screws in the center of the sole, but coming down on a pointy rock would make me afraid of impaling my foot with one of the screws--maybe not possible, but I dunno. I use 3/8" screws and they seem to do just fine, and I rarely lose one.

At the top of the hill, we ran into Jason. It may seem crazy to get out in sub-freezing temps and run through the woods in the snow, but it seems the most natural thing in the world to us.As I said, our plan was 5 miles, and we wanted to get some great pictures in the process. We headed north on the bunny trail--and we did infact see some bunny tracks!!

To steal a line from a Frank Zappa song from years back--"Watch out where the huskies go, and don't you eat that yellow snow!"

We're approaching the Aquarium Trail--a trail named among a small circle of friends by Mike Snyder some years back because the gray shale and the large pourous looking rocks look like something you'd see in a fish aquarium. Just add fish.It's possibly the most beautiful stretch of trail on all of Turkey Mountain, IMHO.Chalk up a good day and a fun run. It was both.

January TOTS Trail Trip

The T-TOTs took a road trip to run some different trails. (That has an ironic ring to it....) We car-pooled and caravanned to Keystone to run some mountain bike trails there. This network of trails is 5.5 miles, if all the loops are ran continuously, although any of the loops can be skipped for a shorter total.65-70 trail runners made the trip, and we broke up into a super-sonic fast group, a impressively fast group, a non-impressively fast group, and a walking group. I was non-impressively fast this day, and led the group that seemed to fit my pace.
Thing One and Thing Two buddied up with our group so I sent them ahead to kick all the rocks out of the way.
Brain aka Head TATUR, aka DIC-TATUR bought a new Canon camera--one that shoots raw images. I am afraid the censorship codes on Blogger might keep me from using his pix. (Actually, I learn new nifty camera stuff and lingo from Brian every time we chat cameras.)
Dee, Aaron, Cash, and Winnie are ready to run. Winnie had a wandering spirit today, and poor Dee spent most of the day tracking her down.
I played cat and mouse with my group--sometimes leading, sometimes taking pix. (If anyone pays close enough attention, they will see that I often stop to take pictures midway up a hill. Sure, it looks like I am just getting pics of my group, but secretly I am sucking air.)
Rachel leads a train of trail runners on a slightly less technical stretch of trail.
A little climbing never hurt anyone--right?
There were a couple of water crossings, but they could be easily crossed without getting your feet wet.
It was a cold morning--there was a good layer of ice on the creeks.
There were several newcomers to out TOT group. Ashley and Emily--sisters--were running their first trails ever this day. They either had a good time, or they are great actresses.
I just like this shot. Several times during the course, the trail crossed a power line easement. For most of the morning while we ran, the sky was gray.
A .15 mile uphill climb over rocks. You're not gonna see me riding a bike down this.
Ashley, Chris, and Cindy are cruising at mile four.
At the end of the big serpentine loop, we stood around and talked about the run, the rocks kicked, the face-plants or near misses, other trail trips, races, and who knows what all. I had the pleasure of running with an old friend Mike, who was a great buddy 22 years ago, and is a great trail running buddy now. The bug has bit him.

After everyone was taking off for home, Mitch and I ran a few miles in search of some trails I thought I saw the day before. Check back tomorrow at 4:00 pm for the tale and pictures of that.

Can I squeeze another hobby in??

Like I really needed another hobby....I have read for a year or so about geocaching from my friend Yogi's blog.Geocaching seemed to me like something that might be fun, and something that might fir in with a long run in the woods. But stopping and hunting for a hidden treasure for 30 minutes or so would most likely be the end of my long run. Besides, spending big bucks of a handheld GPS might mean one less pair of trail shoes or scratching a race. But when browsing for iPhone apps and seeing a geocache app for $9.99, I took the plunge. This, along with a subscription to geocaching.com, gets you an endless list of treasures to seize.This app locates a boatload of hidden caches near you, or near an address that you enter. See, you can plan a whole day of hunting in an area where you will be anyway--how convenient!!

So what is a geocacher looking for exactly??Containers of varying sizes and descriptions. The common theme is "water-tight". Inside these treasure boxes is a log to write your name down and the date that you discovered the cache. Then, you can log in your find on the said website along with comments about how nifty the location was, how much fun you had trying to find it, or whatever.

Not all caches are large boxes however. Some are magnetic key boxes with room for a log and maybe a small treasure such as a coin of some kind.
Some magnetic caches are much much smaller, and can be hidden in places that are next to impossible to find!!These small magnetic nodules are referred to as micro-minis, or nanos. A similar vessel--a bison tube--is hung by a chain or small keyring in out-of-the-way places--always hard to find.
Inside these micros, minis, nanos, or bison tubes, there is not room for knack knacks or souvenirs. Inside you'll find a miniature log rolled up and if you write small enough, you can put "TZ was here", or whatever your geocaching name/handle is, along with the date. I always look for Yogiabb, or Firegoat1--the alias of Catherine and Corgi, which telles me they were there before I was. Yogi has found over 1,000 caches, and Firegoat1 is in the 400 cache range.

Speaking of Firegoat1, while finding a cache a couple of days ago, she "found" a treasure that someone had left.I am halfway certain that this find was not associated with the cache, but who knows--I could be wrong. I am fairly sure Firegoat and friend did not roll this back up to stuff into the canister. This discovery has spawned a few "fully functional blow-up doll walked into a bar" jokes on Catherine's Facebook wall--but that's another story.

I'll post more on geocaching in the future along with some hair-raising stories of my own. The one mapped on my iPhone above is tops on my list.

a post run run

After running with the TOTs, I ran with Mitch down the big paved hill to try to find a trail/road I had spotted the afternoon before whilst hurrying home. We ran out about a mile and a half, and found the remnants of a jeep road with several blow downs, and gave up the search and returned back to the parking lot UP the long hill we ran down.

But I was not through. I drove the old pot-holed road which used to be HW 51 decades ago. Upon driving out about 2 miles, I found what I was looking for!!A trail led from the semi=paved road down to the river via a single-track trail. The trail from there was a narrow single lane road that looked like it might have been an old railroad bed years ago. There is a well maintained railroad track that runs right alongside it, but maybe this was the one the old steam engines used back before I was born.Most of this was runnable. Not super duper 5K PR fast runnable, but nice for a zombie like me.I ran east, and took a few pics of the trail and the Arkansas River as I went. My thoughts were that I had found a trail running goldmine.Eventually, the railroad bed/trail ended and I followed a washed out road down a big hill right onto the sandy bank of the river itself. There was still a resemblance of a road here, and I followed thinking it might get better. The sand evidently was damp, and in the shady sections it was frozen and firm. But once out in the sun, the sand was loose, and my shoes were filling up fast.I did take a picture or two of the river, which is very low. These rocks are usually under water--maybe 4 or 5 feet deep.Upon returning to my car, and then running the trail back west, I found a great parking area at Swift Park where the 1.5 mile trail could be run out-and-back. While this is not a trail running destination, it is a good place for a cool down run after pounding the mountain bike trails at Keystone.

a Wednesday Night Tempo Run

I did not run Monday. I did not run Tuesday. I meant to get up early and run this morning, but I did not. So tonight, I met a friend at the river and ran 6 miles! It's about dang time, doncha think? Gonna be hard to get a finish at Rocky if I don't get in some sort of a run here and there.

I dressed in layers of Icebreaker, and Asics tights, along with the magic shoes, and drove to 21st and Riverside to meet Alan, who also is known as Yogi in the blogging world. Alan has a blog-- Yogi's Den-- whch discusses his runs, his hobbies such as reading books--lots of books, his travels in his work, his vacations, his Sweetie, his cool son aka Super Pizza Boy, and geocaching. Geocaching involves a GPS device (slightly more sophisticated than our Garmin Forerunners) and using them to locate hidden caches in parks, wilderness areas, and secret hiding spots downtown. The above website has a list of GPS coordinates that help locate these treasure boxes that are actually Tupperware containers, army strong boxes, or other waterproof containers. The contents include a logbook, a pen or pencil, and usually some other souveneers or trinkets left by other finders. There are hundreds of these treasure chests hidden in the Tulsa Area alone, and Alan has hidden several, and found over a thousand! I don't really have time for another hobby, but this one really seems FUN!! Maybe after I get all my races out of the way--whenever that'll ever be.

Our run tonight--it was cold. We started at 21st and Riverside and once we got running, I was certainly warm enough.Notice the ice on the caps. Any colder, and I would have had snotsicles. We ran 6.3 miles at a 10:15 to 10:30 pace. Alan said towards the end of the run that it was a little faster than he usually runs, but I think he was just being nice. I had to hustle at times to keep up, but it felt good. After the run, it was a bit too cold to stand around much, and I hurried quickly and fired the heater in the Prius up.I know it was 7 degrees this morning and I know a lot of my running peeps ran in it. Good on ya. I'm glad I ran tonight instead.