making hot slow runs fun

When it gets much above 100, I alter my running somewhat. I rarely run early, but I do think I should reconsider rolling out of bed and hitting the trailz.

I've been catching up on my geocaching lately, tracking down 14 in the past two days. I'll run a little, and walk as I get closer to GZ (ground zero.)

Plus, I get to play with my new camera apps. The fisheye lens is one of my faves.

Between 11th St and 66th Street, there are around 20 geocaches now, and about half or more are brand new. Whereas a lot of urban hides are predictable and borderline boring, these require a little more hunting. Hunting = fun.

Where are they hidden? Well, I shouldn't say--would not wanna spoil the quest for prospective cachers, but--it "might" be somewhere in these vines.

Or this one "might" be in this hole in the root system of this tree. There's only one way to find out, and yes, there might be a critter lying in wait to defend its domain.

I was sure there was one in these pipes. But no, I was off by a few feet.

Finally--another find. Most of the ones today were fairly easy though. It's a thrill to be the FTF (first to find.) It's kind of like bragging rights, although for many of the old hands in the hobby, maybe it's not that big of a deal.

Inside this small canister is a log, which explains what a geocache is (in case someone finds it by accident. These folks are called "muggles".) Notice that no one has signed this log yet. Woo Hoo--I am the first!!

Some of the caches are bigger canisters--big enough to hold some swag. Finders can trade goodies, or just leave some sort of a trinket or treasure. I swapped a small plastic shark for a manta ray, then traded the manta for a small frog, then traded the frog for a blue snake.

There are a lot of people in the US who are geocachers. You probably know someone who enjoys the hobby.

From left to right starting on the top ropw, are Russell Bennett aka Luss71, Alan Bates aka Yogi, Jake, Mia Farrow, Wil Wheaton aka Wesley Crusher, Catherine Doud aka Firegoat, Gary Larson of The far Side fame, and Chuck Norris. Actually, Chuck Norris never has to hunt for geocaches. The caches are struck with such fear at the mention of his name that they jump out of hiding and surrender right there on the spot.

Muscle Maker Grill

After a hot 5 mile trail run on Turkey Mountain, me and about 16 friends went to the Muscle Maker Grill, a new restaurant in Tulsa Hills. MMG is in a small retail space right south of Peach Wave, and specializes in healthy but very delicious salads, wraps, and various entrees.

We had eaten there the night before, and I had the Rocky Balboa, which was so good, I ordered it again. It is grilled chicken and turkey meatballs with low-fat mozzarella cheese and marinara. It is available in a low carb option, which eliminates ~100 calories. The low carb tortilla was every bit as good as the regular one. Last night, I had western potatoes, but tonight I had the vegetable medley as my side. Both were food.

Dana had the Godfather, which was a grilled chicken breast with portabella mushrooms and roasted red peppers over tender broccoli with a low-fat mozzarella and a vinaigrette. I will order that next time in.

The whole staff was friendly, and gave us samples of their mango smoothie, and sugar free cheesecake. Both were excellent.

The thing I like best about this place is they list the calories, and all the nutritional data on every thing on the menu. You can order something, and know exactly what you are putting in your mouth, which helps immensely when carefully following a diet. If there are any drawbacks to MMG, it is that they do not offer fountain drinks or ice--only bottled water, juice, and sodas. They do have very small cups for water, but after a trail run, I can slam down a couple of quarts of water/tea/soda. I may bring my water bottle in next time. And there will be many next times. :-)

Mid week runs, and new camera apps

There was just enough time to squeeze in a mid id week run last week. I have not had time to post pics since I have been busy doing race reports but new camera app pics are fun, and Jake likes it when I post his pictures too. He wants his own Facebook page. Dogs these days are so spoiled.

This the Lomo Lens app. The perimeter shadowing is cool.

This is from Camera Plus. I had this app a year or so back, but deleted it. They have made upgrades, and the reviews were so good, I re-installed it.

Camrea Plus again. It takes such a quick shot, that even Jake, who rarely holds still for pictures, is clearly in focus.

And the Lomo Lens again. The shading makes me look skinnier.

Finally, a Fish Eye Lens. I don't know why I like this--other than it's just different. Was there a time when this was the best a camera could do?

full mOOn

So after the adventure race, Rob, Russell, and I headed southeast to Morrilton AR and checked into our room at the Super 8. Rob napped, but I was restless, and went for a drive and thought about geocaching, but did not. I should have been hitting the Gatorade pretty hard, but drank sodas only. Bad.

The full mOOn 50K/25K starts where the Arkansas Traveller does, and actually uses some of the same roads. Lake Sylvia is a small but beautiful lake, and a dip after the run always seems like a good idea.

We left out in plenty of time to get to the race, and it is always good to see old friends. This time however, I did not see a lot of the Arkansas regulars I usually see. Carrie, Pete, Patty--I missed seeing you!

I was glad to see my friend Tom Brennan. This is Ton's kind of race, and I had no doubt he'd win the 50K. As of this writing, I am not sure if he actually did, although when he passed me on the out-and-back, I think he was a good mile ahead of 2nd place.

Aaron made sure all the Oklahoma runners got together for a group pic. Most of the Tulsa bunch was running the 25K> I should have ran that distance, but more on that later.

We all listened to RD Suzie give the usual race directions. She always makes it funny.

Not sure what was going on in Andy's head here. Russell has his game face on.

AT 8:00 straight up, we were sent on our way. We had .45 of a mile of pavement, and then a long climb on gravel, which is what the most of the course was. This climb lasted about 3 1/2 miles, and was rolling after that. I walked some of the hill, and after fiddling with my iPad, I got into a routine where I walked for a song and ran for a song. I felt great, and at the 5-way intersection (about 1.5 miles into the race) I kicked it up and ran most of the way. I passed quite a few people, and was confident of a good race!! At the first manned aid stop, I caught Russell. He had been there a minute or two, and left out as I was trying to get my water bottle refilled. I needed cold water, but the water in the jug was cool, so I did not bother asking for ice. Didn't wanna seem like a wimp. I ran the next downhill, and at the bottom, I decided to slow it down just a wee bit--maybe walk the next hill.

There was no moon, and if you turned your light out, you could not see your hand in front of your face. I guess there were little flying insect buzzing around my head lamp, because every now and then, a bat would dive-bomb the beam. It was startling, but their sonar keeps them from colliding with the head of a runner. *as far as I know!)

The next hill was long one--they're all long!! I was taking in a lto of water, and a SaltStick every 30-40 minutes along with a pinch of sea salt. Unlike last week atr Midnight Madness, I drank only water instead of ice Gatorade. Gradually, I began to have a bit of nausea creep in. I was sweating like a holy water balloon, although it was really not that hot at all. The humidity was really high though, and my feeling of well-being was gone. I began to dislike this race. I wondered why I even run ultras. My body decided it would help things if I purged a Wendy's hamburger and fries. But my body was wrong. After emptying my stomach, I used the remainder of my water to clean my mouth. (Sorry for the details.) Fortunately, there was a water drop about a quarter mile ahead. My good pace and time cushion was fading away, and I wondered what the cut-off at the turnaround was. When I reached the turnaround, I decided to not go on. Catching a ride back was quitting, but it was the best decision. At the pace I had in miles 12-15, I would have never made the time limit for the race anyway.

My next several miles were much quicker though, and I passed probably over 100 runners--while riding in the back seat of the sag wagon. Upon getting to the start/finish, I climbed into my car and tried to go to sleep. An hour or so later, Rob found me asleep, and when I got up and around, I felt like a hundred bucks. A beer later, I felt like another ten bucks. All is well, and I have no regrets about my race, although if I had turned around at the 25K turnaround, I might have earned a 25K PR since it is almost downhill all the way back. Hmmm....

Rob struggled a little, and walked quite a bit on the way back, yet finished in a little over 5 hours. Russell shattered his best time here by over an hour, and shaved 4 minutes off his 50K PR. All my friends who ran the 25K were gone when I was hauled in, and I do not know exactly what they did. The Arkansas bunch puts on a great race--this one seems to get bigger and better every year.

Port to Fort Adventure Race

The Port to Fort Adventure race was Saturday, and I had toyed with the idea of participating. "Toyed", because it involved a short swim, and I am a sinker. A 100 yard swim--a football field. Problem is, I doubted I could even make a first down.

After the swim, there was a 5 mile trail run on NEW TRAILZ, and then a 5 mile canoe trip. The second two disciplines, I was sure I could make up for the slowness of my slithering out of the water. The race was open to solo runners, and three man teams. Since Russell and Rob were coming with me to the full mOOn 50K in Arkansas, and this was right on the way, our three man super-team was born: Team Ruh Roh.

We were pre-registered, and our friend Stormy was in charge of packet pickup, and had our stuff set out for us when we strolled in. There were 61 teams, and 35 solo competitors, along with 283 who opted to just do a 5K trail run.

I wondered if this was the mascot, or maybe an award for winning?

The green arch was the finish line. The start was down a hill and on a concrete dock of sorts. We had to jump into the water--a 6-8' drop to the 12' deep water. I stayed way to the back, and had several waves of fear. There was an option to just wade through a shallow section of the water, and some people did this, but I wanted to be tough. How tough? Not tough enough to not wear a life jacket. I think I was the only one who did, although PFDs were allowed. There were a few who used little chest boards, and buoyant tubes. I hit the water and sunk deep, before popping back up. Without the life jacket, I would not have surfaced. Doing the breast stroke was not working. I flipped over and did the back stroke, and paddled for what seemed like 30 minutes. In reality, it was about 8 minutes. In reality, it was only about 50 yards.

I was the last one out of the water, and since I did not have my glasses on, I could not find Rob and Russell, and my drop bag with my shoes. But when I found them, I quickly got my shoes and socks on, and we were off and running. To our credit, we were not the last ones out of transition.

We were off for the run. I was IN MY ELEMENT, and we passed a lot of people. I felt light on my feet, and other than fiddling with my camera for a minute or two, and taking a pee stop, we really made up some time.

This is a fairly new trail. The first 2-3 miles are around a year old, and the last part was a lot newer than that. Much of it was carved out of a dense thicket, and wound and twisted it's way along the wooded banks of the Arkansas River Channel.

Everyone's least favorite part of the trail--a short exposed section that was loose sand. There was no fast running through here.

But most of the way, we were treated to single track, or a wider path, with a few rocks, a few roots, and a few stumps to trip you up.

About 2 miles into the race, we had a challenge. We had a slingshot and five chances to hit a target. Five misses, and you had to jump rope 50 times. I am not to coordinated, so this could have been a disaster, but Rob smacked the target in the first shot.

There were several tree-falls, but rather than remove them, they became part of the adventure. Evidently, Stormy thought this one might decapitate someone.

No danger of tripping on these.

Step in a hole--bad. Stepping in a pink hole--really bad.

The last two miles were awesome. We went down one ravine and up another. There was a log-jam here, as ropes were needed to scramble up.

The wait to rappel here was a good ten minutes. The delay spaced out the train of runners, making it harder to catch the teams ahead.

A short jaunt through a park-like area, and then we hit a water crossing.

Knee deep water, and shin deep mud. Great fun.

More squeezing through fallen trees. After this, we reached the transition area, but first we had to run up a hill to the fort--hence the name Port to Fort.

These are some of the oldest buildings in the state of Oklahoma.

The fort-keeper greeted us with a trivia question about the history of river travel--"Which river is referred to as the Grandfather of Rivers?"> I guesses Mississippi, and it was right. had it been wrong, we would have been imprisoned and put in locks and shackles for a few minutes. I do not know how many were penalized like this--would have made some good pictures.

We ran back to the river bank, and boarded our canoe. There aluminum canoes seemed to teeter back and forth. I do not remember having the feeling that the canoe trips on the Illinois were so unstable. While we were technically going downstream, we were bucking a headwind, and thew water was deep and still. If we stopped paddling even for a second, we were dead in the water.

So we paddled non-stop for about an hour. Most canoes ahead of us were going left and right and left and right. We did our best to keep the canoe going straight, and doing that allowed us to pass several team canoes and single kayaks. We were moving up in the standings, and by the end of the race, we had passed everyone we possibly could have caught. If we could have bypassed the snags with the ropes on the trail portion, we might have finished a bit higher.

Entering the harbor, we landed, and carried our canoe up and across the finish line, finishing in 2:32. This was good enough for 10th out of 13 men's teams, and 28th out of 61 overall teams. Super fun--and a much better finish than I thought we could do. But still, we could improve on that next year.

A lot of races give you a medal for finishing. This race gave all finishers an AWESOME hat. I love mine. Plus, there was burgers, hot dogs, chips and sodas for all the participants. I loved this race, and will definitely be back next year, as well as back a time or two to run this trail. Joel deserves major props for pulling off an exceptional race. And Stormy did packet pickup, the pre-race briefing, the race start, and the awards ceremony. He is race director material!