RunnersWorld Tulsa's Urban Adventure

Last year, I ran a 100 miler on the city streets of Tulsa--four 25 mile laps that extended from RunnersWorld 41st/Peoria north through the older midtown neighborhoods, and through downtown, around the OSU campus, onto Rt 66 for a while, around the fairgrounds, south to LafFortune Park, and then back to RunnersWorld. We used Quik Trips for our aid stations, as well as any fast food joint along the way. I really am not a fan of running on pavement, and The early June date turned out to have record 97-degree heat. I finished in over 40 hours and swore I'd never run this race again. But as the race neared, I just HAD to jump in.

Picture by Thomas Gibson

This year the race was moved to late September so you'd THINK it'd be cooler. Wrong! Still, there was a great turnout despite forecasted upper 90s, and then a strong chance of heavy rain. Mitch was my partner in crime last year, and we were the last two in. This year, I actually trained a little and wanted to finish in 30 hours.

Picture by Clint Green

We started at 7:00 am, and I settled into a steady pace. 

Picture by Clint Green

I wanted to knock out 25 miles in 5-6 hours, which seemed doable. I basically ran alone for the first two laps. My strategy was to get in and out of Quik Trips quickly and skip one every once in a while. At times, when the QTs were busy, you could burn 5 extra minutes, and these small bits of tie add up.

Picture by Thomas Gibson

We ran through the Center of the Universe on each loop, and I did the echo thing each time.

Picture by Susan Melon Westmoreland

Near the fairgrounds, a car whizzed by and pulled over behind some construction cones and got out of the car. It was Melon, who just finished eating breakfast with her hubby, and they saw a floppy footed guy running and knew it was me. Melon crewed for me during the 3rd and 4th loops. 

Picture by Thomas Gibson

I borrowed heavily for pictures for this post--trying to shave off a few minutes anyway I could. 

Picture by Clint Green

I finished my 1st loop in 6:36--a little slower thanI wanted, but the temps were rising.

Loop two featured clouds, full-on sunshine, and an occasional good breeze. I took a picture last year of this bank thermometer reading 97. I was not so happy with 100.

Picture by Thomas Gibson

Here I am heading north around LaFortune Park. This is about mile 21in the loop. I usually ran this section well. I finished Loop two in 8:25, despite the heat.

Loop three I had a pacer. My buddy Clint, who is no fan of pavement either, agreed to pace me for one 25 mile loop. I had finished loop two on a high note and had high hopes for a steady run during the night/early morning hours. Things went well for most of the first 10 miles. 

About 2:15 am, we had just crossed under the Broken Arrow Expressway when we heard the sound of squalling tires, and then a crash. We looked toward the direction of the violent sounding car wreck and saw a car flipping over. I called 911 and ran about a block up a residential street to find this car butted up to a huge tree.

Picture by Susan Melon Westmoreland

The driver had stumbled out and surveyed the damage, and then tried in vain to get the car in gear so they could drive away before the cops arrived.  His female companion crawled out and lay down on the ground. Clint went to her aid and noticed her bleeding from her face and neck. From the looks of the crushed windshield, she had probably hit her head prey hard and possibly even jammed her neck.

It took the cops a good 15 minutes to get there, and the ambulance about 30 minutes. I had walked down towards Harvard to flag down a patrol car that was looking for the wreck, and when I came back, a Chinese man was standing out in the yard. He didn't say much, and I thought he must have lived in the house whose  yard we were in. It turned out he was passed out in the backseat of the car. Susan later noticed the back glass f the car had blown out and was partially buried in the yard. This car might have flipped end over end.

Picture by Susan Melon Westmoreland

I was a little shy about taking pictures of the car while the cops were investigating, but Melon had no problem playing paparazzi. It was suggested since I had spent so much time here, that I should go on and let my crew and pacer catch up with me. Clint ran to catch me, and Melon stayed and watched the girl with the hurt neck and the Chinese guy, who turned out to have wat looked like internal injuries) get carted off to the hospital, and the guy who was driving the car flunk a sobriety test and got a free ride to jail. I burned 45 minutes at least, but t was the right thing to do. I'm not sure how well the injured would have fared if we had not heard the wreck.

I really fought sleep issues fro about 4:30-7:00 am. My pace really sucked, and my 3rd loop took 9:44.

Picture by Misty Rowland

Finally, after the sun came up, and it was clear it was not gonna be a 95-100 degree day, I seemed to speed up just a little.

Picture by Laurie Biby

Clint finished my 3rd loop with me and decided to go for another loop. He got credit for running one 25 mile loop, and the medal that goes with it, but prior to this race, 16 miles had been his longest paved race. SO the idea of getting 50 miles in would have been monumental. Here we are on Peoria at Centennial Park, We had around 17 more miles to go, and it was warming up again--although not as hot as it was the day before.

Picture by Laurie Biby

We picked up Laurie Biby somewhere between mile 5-6 on the loop. Laurie matched my pace and was chatty enough to keep me alert and moving.

Picture by Laurie Biby

I had a stretch on 11th Street where I felt disoriented, and Melon started pouring coffee down me. That, plus a ham sandwich and Laurie's chatter perked me up. I started counting the miles we had to go and figuring what pace we needed to maintain to get to the finish line in under 34 hours. I finally decided that if we could average 20-minute miles, we could finish in right at 34 hours, which was the official cut off.

Somewhere on Harvard, Clint started having some aches and pains and caught a ride back. It had started to rain which felt heavenly. We kept gaining a minute or two on our time deficit. At mile 19, another friend Justin Frankin joined me, and I tried to pick it up a little more. I started running on a downhill section, and everything felt great, we ran the first half mile in a little over 4 minutes, and consistently clocked 13-15 minute miles for the rest of the way in. I'm not sure why this worked out the way it did. Sometimes in a race, you find things you didn't know you had.

Picture by Misty Rowland

I was inspired by Justin since he is one who rarely does not win a race he enters. I took maybe 3 or 4 short walk breaks and motored the rest of the way.

Picture by Misty Rowland

Quite proud of my time--some 7 hours faster than last years finish. It's always amazing how the ultra elites hang around to see the last finishers come through. I felt honored to have them waiting and cheering me in.

8:33 for Lap 4. My accepted finish time of 34 hours turned out to be 33:19. Without the car wreck, I might have got close to 32 hours. I would not have finished without the help of Justin, Laurie, Clint, and Melon.

Picture by Thomas Gibson

This lady is Thomas's wife, and although I did not know who she was, she gave me bacon a couple of times during the run. That was a very good thing.

RunnersWorld does a great job with this race. Kathy Hoover works hard with it. (She is also running 4 100s in 4 consecutive weekends--this one, Arkansas Traveller, Heartland, and Pumpkin Holler!!) Derk and Barbara Pinkerton are also instrumental in the smooth operation of this ultra. Roman Broyles spearheads a lot of the RD duties and may be asked by another  RD for hs help and input! It takes a good crew to put on a good race.

I posted this on Facebook. I'm proud of this buckle. A funny thing--a buddy asked, "When is he gonna exhale?" BWAHAHAHAHA!!!