Ramblings

It's been awhile since I blogged about anything worth writing about. It is not that a lot has not happened, it is just things have become a blur. Life is so short and every moment so precious, that it becomes harder and harder to be able to do everything you want to do. This means that some pruning of things in my life needs to take place to make sure that the priority things get taken care of. TV is probably the biggest time waster there is. As I was walking by a TV on at the gym today, it said that the average American spends 34 hours a week watching TV. How sad. I know there are several other things that are time wasters, but I know TV is one of the biggest. But, that is enough of that for know as that will be a future blog. So what has been going on?
For the 5th year in a row, I ran the Route 66 Marathon here in Tulsa. With weather conditions here in Oklahoma, you never now what it going to be like. It ended up being muggy and very windy. Hurricane force is how one person described it. Not exactly, but strong enough to slow all the times down. The course was also changed once again this year. I think it is the 4th change in 5 years. I am not for sure why. At least this year they went to corral starts and that allowed me to get out early from the slower runners.

I really like how the new course winds through downtown and gives people an opportunity to see the sites of Tulsa. The actual worst part for me is on Riverside to where it is flat and boring. The problem this year was you hit Riverside going south directly into the wind at about mile 14.5 and had about 6 miles of strong winds. That really took the wind out of my sails or put it in. Pun intended.

I had went through the half at 1:31 and felt pretty good, minus the buckets of sweat pouring off of me because of the humidity. I had wanted to run at least a 3:05, but once I turned on Riverside, my chances started to drop. I tried ducking down behind some of the half marathoners until the turn around, but close to 41st, you are on your own. My splits started dropping down to 7:40 miles and slower at that point. At the turnaround, it was all hang on and just finish. The wind had really beat me up. I held it all together and pulled in a 3:14. Good enough for 18th overall and 2nd in my age group.
Wyatt ran the 5K that was held in conjunction with the Marathon. He managed a 2nd place in his age group. It was a good day at the races for the Dorothy family.
I was on vacation this last week and took the boys ice skating at the BOK Center before it closed for the season. Will had played ice hockey for 3 years and was not impressed with the condition of the ice. I guess they don't know how to use a Zamboni.
This was Wyatt's first time skating and he did really good. He only fell twice. He decided that was enough for the day as we had a race that night. Almost every year we do the Race into the New Year on Riverside. It is a great race put by Runnersworld running store. The best running store in Tulsa and one that I am honored to run for. The concept is to start running in one year and finish in the next. Unless you are Kyle King and run a sub 15 and finish in the same year.

I wanted to race it hard as I had been running good and thought that a sub 19 may be in the cards, but with the wind and the lack of being able to see, it didn't happen. The temps were around 20 degrees and the wind chill was in the low teens. Not bad for Illinois weather, but brutal for Oklahoma weather. At exactly 11:45 the gun sounded and we were off. I let the young guys go ahead and stayed at a steady pace with some of the lead women who were complaining that they could not see the road. Duh, it is almost midnight.

We start on the Westside trail, go up a little incline, head East across the Arkansas river bridge and head south to about 17th Street, turnaround and head home. I was running decent and from what I could tell, I hit the first mile in 6:09 and was feeling OK. On mile 2 is where we headed back into the wind and our times slowed again. Going across the bridge I think I hit the 4K mark at 15:33 and knew that sub 19 was gone. I ended up running on the Westside trail again while the fireworks were going off, so I knew I was still doing good. I ended up crossing the line in 19:26 by my Garmin. Good enough for 11th overall and first in my age group. Not bad for their being about 600 runners and the poor running conditions. I still believe that sub 19 is there for this Spring.
After resting up on Saturday and just riding the bike on the trainer for an hour, we headed to Turkey Mountain after church on Sunday and I went Mountain biking while the rest of the clan hiked and ran. I have had a love and hate relationship with Mountain biking, but yesterday was good day and it may be something to explore in the spring. I did a little over 10 miles in 1:16 and did not crash once.

Today was a 4X4 minutes interval workout on the treadmill at 6:03 with 3 minutes rest in between. Now it is time chill a little before going back to work. Have a great day!