Saturday night, I joined friends again for a little night run. A mysterious post about a hilly run had circulated around Facebook. The course was a straight line, and the elevation profile was one that looked like it could be deceiving. In fact, it looked like a big lie. My kind of run!! The plan was to meet at RunnersWorld and caravan to Terlton, where we would run 5 miles out and back on Beknight Road. So, we carpooled and caravaned 30 miles or so, got our packs filled, fired up our Garmins, and away we went. The hills greeted us warmly and right away.

For trail runners in Tulsa, all hills are expressed in relation to Lipbuster, and it was said that these were not as bad. But a couple of them had more ascent yet were longer than the actual distance of our beloved Turkey Mountain standard. There were many more hills like this.

Thomas took off like a shot. My thoughts--if he was thinking about going 20 miles or more, he had blown his chances by running hard out of the chute. This pic was taken with the sun at my back., We had climbed 150 feet or so, at this point. I wanted a pic of Lake Keystone.

The puny looking elevation profile posted looked harmless. I copied and corrected the graph, and this more accurately conveys the task that was before us. Shark week was this week on the Discovery Channel, and this amazingly resembles the mouth of a Great White.


I also had concerns of this road being a semi-heavily traveled thoroughfare with Bubba buzzing by over hill and dale at 70+ MPH. There was no shoulder and diving into a ditch to keep form being ran over seemed like a probability. But that never was really a problem.

This was taken right after Russell had found a box that had once contained an adult toy. And I don't mean a remote controlled car. Kathy was still giggling.

I spotted a long lost GOATz tribesman, happily munching grass. I did put a notice on the GOATz FB page that one of theirs was missing.

Nobody splained this to me. Not sure what it meant.

We made it from a little quickie store on HWY 48 to the metropolis Terlton just before dark, but not before Sally's closed. Such a shame. Pie would have been so good!

Arnold had his truck stashed here. Read that--mobile aid station. We all refilled, and then made a side trip directly to jail.

This is it. Back in the day when this was used/needed, if more than two inmates were held, or if one of them was portly, overcrowding was a real issue.

This jail was the real deal though. The massive iron bars and reinforced concrete walls did not lend to the likelihood of a jail break.

From there, it was a west-to east return trip. We actually had a nice eastern breeze in our face for much of the way. A car stopped us about halfway back, and is was none other than Trail Goat, Thing Two, and their dad. They had ran the Waterloop in Muskogee, and then drove 80 miles to find us on the run.
They had ran their 5K, and then ended up doing 12-13 more miles with the likes of us, making them the only people in the history of the world to run in Terlton and Muskogee in the same day. I bailed after one out-and-back, having ran in the morning, P-90-Mow all afternoon, and knowing I had the TOTs the next morning. So, I had 23 for the day. Yay me. Most of the group did one more out-and-back, with 2680 feet of gain. Studly.

Next week, the Western Hills Endurance Run Invitational. 19+ miles with 1939 of gain.