Trail Madness 2015

Have you ever waited till the last minute to decide on a race? Yeah, I have a few times and more often than not, because I wait till the last minute the registration the race gets sold out and I miss out on a cool race. Of course, I would rather wait till the last minute and not be out the money from registering too far in advance. I have made that mistake before as well. It's no fun to fork up hard end money to a race and not be able to run in it. While it is understandable if you get an injury that prevents you from participation, but is a slap in the face when you fail to realize a race that you registered for falls on an important weekend that you cannot miss and of course by then it is too late. You are not going to be able to transfer to another race in the future and you are not going to be able to run in it at all.

This past weekend was my son's 8th birthday and like many other weekends that I have scheduled throughout the year, there was also a race I seriously was considering. Last year I ran the Tulsa Run on the same morning as my daughter's birthday and it fortunately worked out for me schedule wise. I was already scheduled to run with my training group on Saturday morning and go 9 miles in all, but a winter storm rolled in on Friday and lasted throughout the day on Saturday. This cancelled my plans of running with the training group due to icy road conditions and also prevented family from coming into town for the birthday. Since there was no family coming into town and the weather cleared enough on Sunday morning due to warming temperatures, I pulled the trigger and was able to register for a race at the last minute. Fortunately for me, they had a few spots left in the race.

I had to arrive for registration early enough to ensure my spot and thus had to wait an hour and a half before the race began. The race started at 1:00 pm. Most races I participate in are early morning and thus this was outside of my normal race preparations. It fell right during lunch time and thus my body was not in any mood to run mid-day. I can generally swing a race early morning because my body is still 'fasting' and half asleep, but a mid-day run meant I had to eat something for breakfast, but not too much and that food was already burning off by the time this race started.

The Trail Madness was hosted by Fleet Feet at Turkey Mountain in Tulsa. Turkey Mountain is one area that I have grown to really enjoy running. It is an urban wilderness area that is full of trees, hills, trails and just oozes of God's beauty right in the middle of a city. I have run many races out there; including one where the trail was totally frozen from cold temperatures, extreme heat and humidity and torrential downpours with flooded trails. I have never run at Turkey Mountain when it had fresh snow on the trails. The thought of running on snow-covered trails really excited me and I couldn't wait to run.

Much to my dismay, my legs were totally fatigued from sledding on our street the day before with my boys and thus this race would be one where I would have to grind it out and just do what I could do. The first 5 miles of the race were the most challenging for me as the snow, hills and fatigue wore me down. I was happy with just grinding through those miles. Then over half way through my run the majority of the runners were behind me or finishing up the shorter distances and I was alone with God as I weaved through the snowy trails; crunch, crunch, crunch. It was beautiful and enjoyable to see the snow blanketed all over the trails and trees. The sights and smells were what I needed to just detox from the daily grind and feel apart of His creation.

My mind was a constant battlefield and I had to just quiet it with the peaceful thoughts of the scenery and I continued to trudge through the terrain. With just over 2 miles remaining on the course I began to get a second wind and saw a few additional runners ahead of me on one of the steep passes. I soon caught up with them and my adrenaline kicked in. I wasn't going to just finish the race, I was going to push myself and get ahead of these guys and kick it at the end. While I didn't have to sprint at the finish to eek a placing in the race I did push myself and finished strong.

I crossed the finish line at 1:49:59; one second better than 1:50 and less than my original goal of completing in less than 2 hours. I was pleased with my finish. Once I grabbed some water and received my finisher's medal I stayed and listened to the awards of the races and learned that I finished 14th overall in the 16K and was good enough to earn a glass goblet with the race emblem on the front of it. So all in all I was pleased with my effort. Normally I would have just ground out a 9 mile training run with the group and been done for the day, but I one-upped it and took home a shirt, medal and goblet. Not bad for a day's work on the mountain.

Here's to my continued training in 2015 and my upcoming races: Great Plains 10K, Tulsa on March 21st, Wicked 1/2 Marathon on March 28th in Wamego, KS, the Golden Driller 1/2 in Tulsa on April 25th, the Tough Mudder on May 16th in Okemah, OK and possible races of 3 Days to 100K in early May, the Volition 1/2 in Tulsa at the end of May and the Scorcher 1/2 in Stillwater the first part of June.

Until next time keep your legs moving forward.

Scarecrow Runner