What's Up

It's been awhile since I posted, but things have been very busy, plus I have been doing a lot of soul searching lately, but enough about that for now. Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to lead a training group at the Post Oak lodge here in Tulsa. The Tulsa Running Club is putting on a massive trail run the last weekend in February. Starting with a Marathon on Saturday followed by a 50K, 25K, and 10K on Sunday. This will be the first ever race out at the Lodge and this was the first TATUR & TRC training run. Rain was not in the forecast and I checked Accuweather for the temp when I woke up and saw rain on the map. I immediately opened the back door and saw it was indeed raining. Not the ideal running weather considering we had just melted off about 10 inches of snow the same week. I still managed to get dressed and out the door as I was not about to miss an opportunity like this. 80+ people has RSVP'd, but only about 40+ showed. I headed for the lodge and ran into good friend and great Ultrarunner, Randy Ellis and got to talk him. He was the celebrity runner for the training run and I also saw, El Mustapha Khoubiz, my good friend from Morocco had showed up. He needs to do some Ultras, but he is trying to make the Olympic standard for the Marathon Trials. Sometime a little after 7 we took off. We started out on the road, but we finally hit the trial after about a half mile. As soon as we hit the field, shoes were soaked and man was the water cold. We hit a hill at the beginning and we soon ran into a few more hills. This course was truly pretty intense. We finally made it to the big one, Hamburger Hill and headed up the highest point in 3 counties. I ran all the way up the hill, but it was strenuous. The hill was a turn around and we headed back down the trail. On one downhill I saw a doe cross right in front of me. This timber and the trail reminded me a lot of back home in Illinois. We made it to the last big hill before the return trip to the parking lot and I could not run all the up it as I could not get my footing. I hope we have some drier weather before the race to harden up the trail. We got back to the parking lot and no was one around, so we headed down the road and saw one of the last groups going on a different trail and we joined them for some bonus miles. We ended up back at the parking lot with 9 miles. Some others were heading back out, so we joined them.
We ended up running some of the trails by the lodge. In this group was K2 on the left, myself, Elaine, Johnny, and Joel taking the picture. On this part we got some more water crossings and some extra bonus miles on different trails. Total for the day day was at 11.5. When we got done, my fingers were so cold, I could not get my key back on the key ring. My feet weren't too bad, but my fingers were stiff. This was a great run, great lodge, and it always nice to see old friends and make new ones.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about this blog, life, career, and just in general, a lot of soul searching. I am not for sure if I will continue the blog or not. Only 5 people read it, but I guess that doesn't matter. I write it because I like to write and it is a good way to communicate what is going on in our lives. I am very proud of my family and the things I have accomplished, but when I write that, I get comments that I make selfish, abased, arrogant type posts. Well, last I checked, it was my blog to write about whatever I want. I also get anonymous or fictitious name commenter's by a certain fellow blogger in town who feels, I guess jealous, that anyone else can have a blog or they might read mine instead of his. I am not for sure what all is behind that, but to each his own. So, who knows what I will do. I may continue, I may not. A lot depends on my time schedule and the rest on me. Thanks for the 5 who read the blog, we will see what the future holds.