It was an early day--one that stared with grieving news. I had a couple of missed calls on my cell phone--but it was on silent. Dana was up getting ready for work at 5:00 am, and checked her phone and listened to voice mails telling of my mother's passing. Mom inherited diabetes--from both her mom and dad. That, along with some subsequent heart problems, high blood pressure, and a couple of strokes made her last couple of years a less than desirable existence. She had lost her sight, and use of the left side of her body.
This morning May 7 in the wee hours, she had raised up from bed to get a drink and told Dad her blood sugar was low. Dad got her some orange juice which she quickly drank, and she nibbled on a peanut butter sandwich. This normally brings her blood sugar levels up quickly. Dad went to check on something, and came back a minute later to find her on the floor face down. Her heart had stopped. He called 911, but she was already gone.
Dana and I spent the day with my Dad, a sister and niece. We cleaned house, Dana cooked a meal, and then we went to the funeral home to make arrangements. The funeral director in Sperry Ok seemed like a good old country boy--very nice and helpful. He treated our family like a friend--and not at all in a fakey salesman-ish sort of way. I was very satisfied with our encounter there. The funeral services will be this Saturday morning.
I prefer to remember all the fun good times instead of wallowing in the grief of loss. Mom lived a GREAT life. She was young at heart. She was a young bride, and I came into the world just before her 17th birthday.
Mom and Dad used to camp a LOT. We did the tent camping thing for years, then graduated to a tent-trailer and finally a travel trailer. Many summer weekends were spent on the shores of the Illinois River where we'd cook out, fish, swim, and float.
Mom was a wicked card player. Liverpool rummy was one of our favorite face-offs. She had an evil streak LOVING to catch everyone with a handful of cards. These were such fun times.
She was a stay-at-home Mom while I was growing up. I have two brothers and three sisters. After I was 18 and on my own, she went back to college. I was doubtful that as a 30-something that she could/would finish her degree--but she did and upon graduation, served as a parole officer for a few years.
Later, she taught school at Cornerstone Christian school. Mom and Dad adopted three of my nephews--effectively giving me three more brothers.
Her teaching position financed these boys (as well as another nephew and niece) graduating in this good private school.
I have no doubt she made a huge difference in so many kid's lives. Mom always looked for the good in people--overlooking and ignoring people's shortcomings. I miss her--and the hurt comes and goes in waves. I look back at her last few months and years. They had moved to Skiatook--some 25-30 miles from me--and I wish now I had made more time to come see her. As busy as I thought I was--I still should have made time to pick up that phone and call from time to time. Sad--how a cell phone glued to my ear could have been so much better used.
It was an early day--one that stared with grieving news. I had a couple of missed calls on my cell phone--but it was on silent. Dana was up getting ready for work at 5:00 am, and checked her phone and listened to voice mails telling of my mother's passing. Mom inherited diabetes--from both her mom and dad. That, along with some subsequent heart problems, high blood pressure, and a couple of strokes made her last couple of years a less than desirable existence. She had lost her sight, and use of the left side of her body.
This morning May 7 in the wee hours, she had raised up from bed to get a drink and told Dad her blood sugar was low. Dad got her some orange juice which she quickly drank, and she nibbled on a peanut butter sandwich. This normally brings her blood sugar levels up quickly. Dad went to check on something, and came back a minute later to find her on the floor face down. Her heart had stopped. He called 911, but she was already gone.
Dana and I spent the day with my Dad, a sister and niece. We cleaned house, Dana cooked a meal, and then we went to the funeral home to make arrangements. The funeral director in Sperry Ok seemed like a good old country boy--very nice and helpful. He treated our family like a friend--and not at all in a fakey salesman-ish sort of way. I was very satisfied with our encounter there. The funeral services will be this Saturday morning.
I prefer to remember all the fun good times instead of wallowing in the grief of loss. Mom lived a GREAT life. She was young at heart. She was a young bride, and I came into the world just before her 17th birthday.
Mom and Dad used to camp a LOT. We did the tent camping thing for years, then graduated to a tent-trailer and finally a travel trailer. Many summer weekends were spent on the shores of the Illinois River where we'd cook out, fish, swim, and float.
Mom was a wicked card player. Liverpool rummy was one of our favorite face-offs. She had an evil streak LOVING to catch everyone with a handful of cards. These were such fun times.
She was a stay-at-home Mom while I was growing up. I have two brothers and three sisters. After I was 18 and on my own, she went back to college. I was doubtful that as a 30-something that she could/would finish her degree--but she did and upon graduation, served as a parole officer for a few years.
Later, she taught school at Cornerstone Christian school. Mom and Dad adopted three of my nephews--effectively giving me three more brothers. Her teaching position financed these boys (as well as another nephew and niece) graduating in this good private school.
I have no doubt she made a huge difference in so many kid's lives. Mom always looked for the good in people--overlooking and ignoring people's shortcomings. I miss her--and the hurt comes and goes in waves. I look back at her last few months and years. They had moved to Skiatook--some 25-30 miles from me--and I wish now I had made more time to come see her. As busy as I thought I was--I still should have made time to pick up that phone and call from time to time. Sad--how a cell phone glued to my ear could have been so much better used.
It's getting close to my goal races for the year, and my longest run since last October has been 10 miles. That's hardly a good enough base to do a 25K then a 50K then a 25K (3-Days to 100K) all in one weekend. Doing a crash course crammed in training run is probably not the best plan, but it was a necessary evil in my way of thinking.
So yesterday, my mission was 20 miles--slow easy miles--all on trailz. Dana and Jake were game to do part, so after sleeping late, eating breakfast, and filling our hydration packs, we set out.
Jake was game provided he could get some swim training in. We had a route that featured a pond per mile.
Once his fur is saturated, he is running in air conditioning.
Some days, Jake runs way ahead--but the day before, he had ran 5 miles with Dana and he only had his B-game. This meant most of the time he was running at heal, and the sides of our leg was wet with pond water. Thanks, Jake.
The trailz were great today. The little rain we had last week had left the running surface nice and soft. The high for the day was in the low 80s, but the humidity was low. I sweat, but barely. Even in the thick woods, there was a decent breeze.
We took Jake home after 5 miles, ate some lunch, and headed back out for more miles. Dana had only a water bottle for this loop, and after draining it, had to share water from my Camelback. She was worried we'd run out of water, but we had plenty.
She finished her day with 10 miles, and I refilled and headed out for 10 more.
My plan was to run the Half and Half Marathon course, which is 6.5 miles of the easiest trail on the mountain. I skipped the first section and headed to the Westside Y where I'd turn around and run the entire course backwards. The walking breaks were becoming LESS frequent due in part to the easier course, and the zombie shuffle was working to perfection. I just kept clicking off 14 minute miles.
This is the last picture I took on my run. With about 2 miles to go, I ran out of water. I had some shortcut options in place, but ended up staying the course until the parking lot where I gulped water from the drinking fountain there. I still needed a few tenths, and took a short half mile loop which popped back out on the lower Powerline trail, and then headed home. I finished with 20.01 miles--how's that for good planning?
Sunday morning, the alarm clock went off at 6:50. I intended to get up and run with the Sunday morning TOTs. I thought about it and turned the alarm clock off. Then Jake barked to tell us he needed out to pee. So I got up, let him out, had my morning pee, started the coffee, let Jake back in, thought more about running, and then went back to bed. Then the recurring alarm sounded. (I hit snooze instead of turning it off. ) I had 15 minutes to get there, so I hopped out of bed, got dresses, and headed out to run.
Sarah and I pose to show off our matching scars. We both had creatures removed from our foreheads this past week. My scar is bigger than hers!! :-P As it turned out, Stormy was there and led the group. I tucked in at the back of the pack, and held on for dear life. I stayed within sight--actually staying up for much of the run--and had the best trail run I've had in a while. 5.4 miles in 1:04. I really think I am back.
Maybe you have noticed lately that I have been wearing a hat a lot lately. I have a growth on my head. Here's the story: When I was 6 years old, I got in a rock throwing fight with some neighbor kids. BAM!! I was decked with a good sized jagged rock dead center in the forehead, and blood splattered all over me, my clothes, the yard, and then the car while being sped to the family doc in Sperry to get sewed up. It left a small invisible scar and was no biggie until 1997. Right around Christmas, I got what turned out to be a HUGE zit or boil right on the scar. The slight raised up area gave the pimple a good head start to being a real beauty. It was tight, red, and painful. Christmas Eve, I was looking in the mirror and picked at it a little despite the pain, and the gift emerged. It was huge, and in two waves, it was excreted. The next morning, the place was practically healed. I do not know if either of these events had anything to do with the growth that popped up 4 months ago. 
Today, I had it removed. The doc called it a Lipoma--a growth of fatty tissue and it's rarely ever cancerous. They shot the area up with Lidocaine, and then cut into it. It was not really painful, but was uncomfortable. There was a lot of snipping (imagine the sound of hedge clippers--the scissor kind), and tugging (imagine a huge hoop earring through the meat in your forehead and pulling and tugging every which way.) The darn thing just would not let go. They they got out their sewing kit and stitched it up. The incision is supposed to be horizontal and on one of my forehead wrinkles. (HMMMPH!! I don't HAVE any forehead wrinkles!)
So now I'm home with an ice-pack, a headache, a dose of Tylenol in me, and thinking about some better pain meds. Googling around, I have learned a little more about head lumps. This is sort of like the bumps on a young buck deer. Those little nubs are just what mine looked like, and you know what they grow into. But could humans grow horns?? Oh yes they can!!
The pic below is one of many on Google. Over the centuries, many people have had horn-like growths. This gal looked the most believable.
I'm glad I got the thing fixed before it got this far. I would be catching that thing on every low-lying limb on the trail. Plus, it would make wearing a headlamp feel like hell. (Actually, with the lump I have, a headlamp is not my friend right now anyway.
This could very well be a continuation of the previous post. Dana and I worked an aid station at the FlatRock 101K--touted as the toughest mile-for-mile course in Mid-America. I can attest to the difficulty of the course, and while I did really want to run this year, I saw the pain and heat exhaustion the runners faced, and was actually happy to be on the other side--helping Dana. 
We woke up before the sun came up and pulled our trailer to the trail head at Oak Ridge, and then sped back to the starting line just in time to say hi to a few friends and see the runners off. Then, we loaded up drop bags, food, and a good supply of water and headed to our post to set up shop. A ginormous box truck followed and dropped off tables and a cook stove, and my job, as assistant cook at Dana's Aid Station, was to fix pancakes and bacon. I cooked around 20 lbs of crispy bacon, and ate fully 20% of it myself.
49 runners had signed up, but only 37 showed up--it thundered and stormed an hour before race time, and the forecast for the day was pretty iffy. 37 runners get pretty spread out over 15.5 miles of rugged trail, and we had quite a bit of down time. Still, the faster runners were coming back through while the zombie-paced one trickled through. We never had time to catch a nap.
I did get a little antsy, and took a short run down an old abandoned road that dead-ended into the lake--or at least a finger of the lake. As many times as I've ran here, I had never been to this part.
Did I mention that Jake was with us? This was a new thing. Jake has camped with us, and enjoys running with a group of runners. But being at a race--guarding his home turf while runners barged through and took food from his table--well, he did growl a time or two. We had a talk and he decided all was cool. And he loved the swim breaks--we took several.
I tried to find the least muddy entry/exit points, but when a wet dog--clean or dirty--lays down in a gravel parking lot, he is dirty no matter how clean his swimming hole is.
I did not take a ton of pictures of the runners as when they were there, Dana and I were filling bottles and hydration packs, getting drop bags, and talking them into eating, and checking on how they felt. But for a TON of race pictures, Mile 90 Photography took hundreds of awesome pictures.
A quick plug for another awesome race coming up. Thanks to Eric for letting us promote our Oklahoma races while here.
By nightfall, most of the runners were on their last leg of the race--the return trip of their second 50K. And many of then had succumbed to the heat, to nausea and fatigue. of the 37 started, 15 dropped. We had figured to see our last runners by 2:00 or so. The cutoff was 2:00 am, and every runner still in the race made it by the cutoff. Dana made sure they all ate a little before going on. The next aid station was 6 miles away, and since most of the group by this point were moistly walking, it could have easily been 2 or more hours before they'd see more food. Dana had a huge pot of potato soup that really hit the spot--and probably was the very fuel needed for a finish. Despite not running, I had several helpings myself.
Dana had put a few decorations out on the course. She had planned on making it a Hawaiian themed course, but the fierce winds (25-35 MPH all day and all night) made the fake palm trees and tiki lights a bad idea. We did hang a few Japanese lanterns in the trees. I vetoes wearing a grass skirt and coconut bra. My boobs are too sensitive for scratchy coconut shells!!
I was so proud to see my friend Melissa Bruce tough out the 101K. She has ran more miles on this course than probably anyone in the race, having lived in nearby Elk City for years. Her race report is entertaining. Read it here.
Results of the 22 finishers can be viewed HERE.
Mr Eric "EPIC" Steele puts on a great race, and I hope this race is always on the calendar. Next year, I'll be one of the grouchy back-of-the-pack finishers here.
CLICK HERE for my FlatRock 101K race report. More grizzly pics and a ghost sighting!!
CLICK HERE for the Inaugural FlatRock 100K race report--where I battled hard and finished 3rd!!
This weekend, while lots of my friends are at OKC running on pavement, I'll be in Independence KS on the trailz of the Elk City Reservoir watching my trail friends run 101K on one of the hardest trail races in this part of the states. 
FlatRock is the twisted brainchild on one Eric Steele.
Mr Steele has RD'd a 50K here for the past 19 years (and I am a proud and knighted 11 time finisher) and has put on two previous double crossings (100 and 101Ks). This will be the first year I have had to sit one out. :-( My knee is good enough to do it, but I'm trying to be smart.
As I said--this is no easy race. It is a grinder. Keep your eyes on the scenery, and you'll be thrown to the ground by an embedded rock put there since the beginning of time to flatten runners. Throw in some rain, and you'll be praying for more rocks to escape the relentless mud. This year, we will likely have mid to upper 80s to deal with. 49 brave souls are toeing the line. How many make the full 63ish miles--we shall see.
I'll be at an aid station made famous (I kid you not) by my beloved wife. The aid station formerly known as Oak Ridge is now known as Dana's Aid Station. These fine aid station volunteers will be RUNNERS this year. Jason and Melissa will not be any threat to the leaders in the race, but my monies on them to finish. Melissa has ran more miles on this course than probably anybody in the entire race, having once lived practically on the trail-head. Jason is just brain damaged enough to not quit. I really look forward to briefly hanging out with them as they pass through our oasis four times during their race.
Eric's EPIC ULTRA finish lines are amazing. Years ago, finishers were greeted by a train whistle, air horns, and people beating on trash can lids. The air horn still honks loudly and obnoxiously but the race has graduated to a laser light show at every one's finish line crossing. Knowing this is in store for every finisher, how could anyone DNF?
Mom and Dad used to camp a LOT. We did the tent camping thing for years, then graduated to a tent-trailer and finally a travel trailer. Many summer weekends were spent on the shores of the Illinois River where we'd cook out, fish, swim, and float.
Mom was a wicked card player. Liverpool rummy was one of our favorite face-offs. She had an evil streak LOVING to catch everyone with a handful of cards. These were such fun times.
She was a stay-at-home Mom while I was growing up. I have two brothers and three sisters. After I was 18 and on my own, she went back to college. I was doubtful that as a 30-something that she could/would finish her degree--but she did and upon graduation, served as a parole officer for a few years.
