It's the week of Thanksgiving and that means that yesterday, Sunday, was the Route 66 Marathon & Half Marathon in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was a nice day for running. The first hour or so at least. The wind seemed to pick up as the day wore on. But it was nice at 8 AM. The sun had just risen and was shining on us we started out on the course. It was chilly, the temperature being about 40 degrees Fahrenheit. And it did slowly warm into the mid 40s over the next hour. The clouds moved in not long after the start and kept the temperatures down. It never did get very warm. Once we finished the wind was quite chilling.(I ran the half marathon.) The bands along the course were great. Crowd support was nice. Water stops were well placed and stocked with Gatorade and water at each. Plenty of volunteers. GU gels were available at the 8 mile water stop. The finish was nice. Again plenty of cheerful volunteers. They had a plethora of drinks available including water, Gatorade and Muscle Milk. Snacks were orange slices, bananas and what looked to be bread sticks. Beer was available out on the lawn of Veteran's Park along with a number of food trucks/ trailers. I didn't buy any of the food from the venders. Prices were reasonable I guess. I did get a massage. There was a group from OU Health Science with tables set up in one of the tents. I had a young lady work on my calves and ankles. A little painful but my legs felt so much better afterwards. At another tent there volunteers provided race results. You just gave them your number and they would look up your info and hand you a print out with your time, division, splits and your place. That was nice.
Now for the negative. What happened to the finisher shirts? This year if you wanted a finisher shirt you had to pay $24 for it. Don't think so. The participant shirt this year was a technical shirt. It seemed to me a little nicer than the finisher shirt. This year's Finisher shirt is blue with white and grey text. No detailed multicolor logo as in past years. Just a very plain, very simple design. Rather boring.
Also what's up with the shrinking medals? The designs are great. Very cool in fact. But, the 2012 medal, is smaller than the 2011 medal and the 2011 medal is smaller than the 2009 medal. (I didn't run Tulsa in 2010, so I can't tell about that year's medal.) My 2012 medal looks tiny next to the 2009 medal. I'm afraid at this rate I'll need a magnifying glass to read the text on next year's medal. Haven't decided if I will run Route 66 next year.
Anyway I had a good time. Rode up with my buddy Mark, who was kind enough to drive. Arrived in downtown Tulsa with a little over half an hour to spare. Another friend, Dr. Brown, had driven up the night before and had our packets. Took off my sweats and put on my number and my shoe tag. All the way up to Tulsa I wore my Baylor hat. Seems now that the night before the Route 66 marathon is the time for my Baylor Bears to knock off a ranked opponent. Last year we beat OU. This year we knocked off top ranked Kansas State. Anyway standing outside the car I had couple of folks congratulate me on my teams victory. Almost chose to wear my hat to the race, but decided not to. Didn't want to get it dirty. Had on a long sleeve Old Navy t-shirt that I had picked up at a thrift store. I wore that over my 2009 finisher shirt. Also wore some cheap brown cotton gloves. I wore my $15 sunglasses that I had bought at Walmart. Had on a pair of dark blue Nike running shorts, some Features running socks and my Brooks Green Silence shoes (Blue uppers with yellow sole and trim). After four miles I got warm enough to throw off my Old Navy shirt. I forgot my watch but did have my mile splits on a strip of paper around my wrist. Worked out fine as there were large digital clocks at each mile marker. I stayed pretty much on my target pace through the first nine or 10 miles. I had selected 7:25 as my mile pace. I chose this as it was one second under the mile pace I would need to run a sub 3:15:00 marathon. Anyway managed to stay with this the first 10 miles. Started to get a little ahead of pace toward the end and as I approached the 12 mile marker I picked up my pace. And with a hundred yards or so left I sprinted to the finish. The last 3 miles averaged out to somewhere around 7:03/mile. Anyway I was pleased with my time. This being my first half marathon. I managed to get 4th in my age group and with more than a hundred in my division I am very content.
As I was running south I saw Camille Herron streaking northward on Riverside Drive in her pink Spiderman (Woman) costume. Congratulations to Camille for setting the world record for the fastest marathon time in a superhero costume! I'm curious to find out how the costume was for running. Guess I'll check out her latest blog post. http://camilleherron.com/
Just eight weeks until the Houston Marathon. Hard to believe that it is getting that close. I've got a 20 mile run scheduled for Saturday. We'll see how that goes. Just my second 20 mile run this year. I'll actually get more than 40 miles in this week with the half on Sunday and a 20 mile run on Saturday ( two shorter runs on Tuesday and Thursday). The weather should be nice. I'll try to get enough sleep in this week, though with Black Friday coming up I may be getting up very early.
Well, happy trails and Sic'em Bears!
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