Trim The Flat Off Please

When: Saturday, October 23, 2010 6:45 AM-10:00 AM. Central Standard Time
Where: Veteran's Park (21st & Boulder)

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Trim The Flat Off Please
Time is running out, as in the Tulsa Run is right around the weekend corner, followed shortly behind by Tulsa’s own Route 66 Marathon. This week it’s time to get busy understanding and appreciating the “lay of the road” that we’ll soon be Dom-N-8RZ-ing in PR fashion. Wait, you say – “we’ve been down this hilly road before”. Technically yes, but scenically no, as prior Fall Season training excursions on the Tulsa Run route have been mostly held under the watchful eyes of Mr. Moon. In many cases, the best potholes were barely discernable to the darkened eye, and they did not garner the awe and respect that they truly deserve. Frequently shed hubcaps and once tightened bolts that adorn the trail were mostly unappreciated. But this week we have a plan!


What if … dare we suggest it … that we timed the start of this Saturday’s training run to nearly coincide with the start of daybreak? Say around 6:45 AM’ish, which works out to a 7 AM Coach Kathy shout out of “Now get out of here!” Sounds like a pretty good plan, and it will help reinforce those sometimes tricky left and right hand turns with interspaced straightaway sections. But one must be careful to not change up too many things at a time, so let’s still plan on starting from Veteran’s Park to keep from getting all jittery and from knocking our creature habits too far out of whack. (NOTE: The revised Saturday morning start time has nothing, absolutely nothing, I promise, although I do appreciate, the fact that the preceding Friday night coincides with Oktoberfest, which as we all know, can really leave you on the dizzy, dazed, sleep deprived, dehydrated, and often bruised conditions – “Oktoberfesterized” – from all that crazy-A Chicken Dancin’.)


If only there were a way to make Saturday’s training run even better than a practice run of the Tulsa Run course. Seeing as how we’re scheduled for 16 miles, and the Tulsa Run route distance is 15 K, and even I know that 16 doesn’t quite go into 15 without messy fractions, conversions, and headaches that only engineers and accountants could love, we need to employ the baker’s optionality rule – the one that lets you slice and dice as you see fit in order to make it work. By carving off a couple of K’s of the Tulsa Run, we’re magically close to almost half of our scheduled 16 miler. Naturally, by unpopular demand, we’ll make sure that we trim off 2K of the Flat Part, ‘cause really, who would want to take the easy way out? What to do …. What to do …. ? Correctomundo (slipping in a little Cancun inebriaspired Spanglish) – let’s run the deviated TR course twice, just to make sure that we can remember to follow the exact course markings and to help stay between the imaginary crowds that will be cheering us on and laughing as we fall on race day.

Larry

Ar-Tee-An-Sea

When: Saturday, October 16, 2010 5:45 AM-9:45 AM. Central Standard Time
Where: Veteran's Park (21st & Boulder)

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Ar-Tee-An-Sea
42-24-36. Wow, now there’s some jaw droppin’, bone shakin’, knee knockin’, attention getting’ numbers – numbers that really command your deepest level of respect and admiration. Yep, you guessed it, it’s something all of us aspirational runners and runnerettes, young and young at heart, need to focus on, as they represent the critical balance required in getting us more than ready for the upcoming fall marathon run season.
As you undoubtedly are about to hear, proper training requires a balance of physical training (42%), nutrition (24%), and mental harmonization (36%), for a collective optimal 102% effort (a simple 100% effort no longer cuts the ticker tape in this ever-escalating and fast-paced world of PR's, WAVA, and go go go). That’s why we spend approximately 4.75 months building on our base mileage (calculates to 42%), and our down time eating and drinking whatever we can wrap our mitts around (roughly equates to 24% of something). The remaining precision honed balance of 36% is the final critical ingredient to surviving the marathon challenge – the mental game, of which I’ve often been accused of having an inherent advantage due to being nearly ¾’s (approximately 58%) mental.
So rather than Dom-N-8RZ-ing in this week’s Sand Springs resort destination-esque 22 mile training run, scheduled for Saturday morning at the tourist departure time of 5:45 AM’ish from Veteran’s Park, I plan on neatly folding my laces in a scrum, throwing them in an overstuffed bag, and heading south for a week of trying to plump up those running induced wrinkles.
Off to Mexico it is to cram in a week’s worth of 36%. I’m in the preliminary phases of polishing my wrinkle busting rehydration menu (it was a very hot and humid Tulsa summer) – carefully selected mind enhancing concoctions consisting of Rum, Tequila, and Cerveza (Ar-Tee-An-Sea), but not necessarily in that order nor necessarily consumed separately. Lime is not optional, as we health conscious mentalists must not forget the importance of daily indulgences of Vitamin C.
Buenos Dias
Larry

Hallowed Ground

When: Saturday, October 09, 2010 5:45 AM-9:30 AM. Central Standard Time
Where: Veteran's Park (21st & Boulder)

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Hallowed Ground

It’s October – already – kinda’ frightful that it’s already upon us – again – like déjà voodoo – or something like that. Regardless, when it once felt like this time would never come, that summer would just go on and on and – well, sorta’ like some run invitations that I vaguely can’t seem to block out of my overfilled memory – and then – BOOM! – with a capital “!” – it’s clearly within our clamory grasps. That’s right – Halloween is peeking at us from just around the corner – or is it from that other corner – or maybe from over the wall – or under that pile of construction debris near 18th and Riverside? Regardless, it’s down wrong scary – and not in a good way. You see, the strangest of characters seem to present themselves around Halloween, creating all sorts of confusion on what your eyes are seeing and your brain is categorizing. Take last year, when we were overrun with a plethora of Trail Zombie Ken dolls, with a new one at every turn, creating mass confusion on what was real and what was imagined.

And who can forget that certain race that happens in Tulsa near the end of October. Yes, I’m talking about the nearly infamous tradition of the Thursday night before Halloween Runners World costume run back and forth, inside and outside, of that little strip otherwise known as Brookside. Not a place for the well-heeled, but a great place for the rubberized sort. One must literally run for survival, so as not to be apprehended and tossed out of reputable establishments with the force of a gaggle of goons. It’s a place where friends gather, and adversaries should avoid, lest the powerful Good Witch Coach Kathy shall invoke her powerful spell of magically confiscating all the chocolate in the land – which she claims will be properly disposed of so as to cause no harm to any of her flocklings.

So in order to be properly prepared for the aforementioned creepy crawl, we are scheduled once again to meet this Saturday at Veteran’s Park at the moon-howling synchronous time of 5:45 AM’ish – give or take – for a 20-mile training run. In order to successfully navigate the nearly 1 mile out and 1 mile back flat Brookside course, it has been deemed necessary that we run the first part of the Route 66 Marathon course, the hilly section, topped with an over and back contortion of Turkey Mountain. We also promise that last week’s experiment of new Run Leader tryouts has been mercifully excised. Although many of us were optimistic, our hopes were unexpectedly crushed by the surprising lack of directional fortitude. Turns out that big talk doesn’t readily translate to navigational skills, as evidenced by leading the group astray before the 2nd mile had struck. Who knew that a right turn could be so complicated?

Fear not, rightful order is being restored. After all, we are sworn to uphold and protect our Hallowed Ground Trails.

Larry