Renaissance Run & What's Important

Today I ran 16 miles at lake Hefner, and in a couple hours I'm going to go run 6 easy miles in my Vibram Five Fingers. I promise a report soon, but I feel that I don't have enough experience yet with only about 25 miles on them.
I ran the Renaissance Run yesterday. This was my first major race of my running career. Up until I ran this race 4 years ago, I ran little small town races of usually less than 50 people. It is very well run but a bit hilly. However, I always seem to do well here. I ran it in 21:08 and that was good enough for 1st place in age group. Even though there were two other races in the area, there were over 300 people in this one.
My son and grand daughter spent the last two nights here with me. As I was getting ready for my race first my son then his daughter climbed into my bed. As I was leaving my bedroom to head out for the race, my grand daughter said "pa pa, come here." She hugged me and said "have a good race." Then she laid down and went back to sleep. That's what's important.

Makin' Tracks 5k & Training

Yesterday I ran the Makin' Tracks 5k. I've run this before and it is moderately hilly. I still wanted to see where I stood but wasn't going to hurt myself if I could help it. I didn't blog about my last 5k before this one. How much more can I say about these? It was overcast and looked like rain. In retrospect the rain would have helped, but it held off. I started out too fast, go figure, running the first mile around 6:30. After that it was slower each mile. The humidity was terrible and many runners were suffering afterward. I finished in 21:25, slowest of my last 3 5k's but good enough for 3rd AG.
Today was a scheduled 16 mile training run with the club. It is two loops around Lake Overholser. It rained all afternoon yesterday, all night, and was raining when I got up this morning. I considered not going, but it was an easy rain no lightning. I was early and a friend asked if I'd like to do 2 easy before the start. Duh, OK, let's do it. I started with the club for the 16 and fell in with a group running a pace I thought I could maintain. It appears there was some miscommunication on water stops, and we had to get water from a garden hose after about 4 miles. Then finish the first loop with no more. They did get one up at the start, and promised there would be more on the second loop. So I started out on the second and really started picking things up. There was water this time and I finished with a total of 19 miles. Things seem to be going well with my training. I'm less than a month away from a marathon I plan to run as a training/birthday run.

Jean Michel Jarre

This artist isn't for everyone. If you don't like computer generated music, you won't like him. This is an atypical song for him though, it is mostly "pan music." Steel drums as in Caribbean music. This song, Calypso, is inspired by the French oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. This is a live concert performed in Paris. Jarre holds the worlds record for the largest outdoor concerts with an audience of 3.5 million people at a concert in Russia. His set a world record of 1.5 million in Houston.
All of this information is from Wikepedia.
Oh to see him live in concert.

Run With the Bulls

Yesterday I "Ran with the Bulls." No, this is not a Pamplona style event. It is only called that because it starts and ends at the Oklahoma City Stockyards. I've run this race before, and it is well run and well attended. They give a tech shirt, and serve hamburgers after the race. The course is a simple out and back with one moderate hill that you see twice obviously. I've been feeling good lately, and felt like I could have a good race, not a P R, but maybe the best of the year. I started just a bit slow, but sub 4:10/KM. I saw 3 people I knew were similar in speed and hung with them for awhile. I passed all but one and stalked him until about the 4th K where he was steady, but I had to slow a bit. When I could see the clock, I realized that I had just missed sub-21. But that was ok. 21:01 chip time and 5th in age group. It was a fast bunch in the group. Still that is my fastest 5k this year.
Today I ran a 6 mile tempo run with the club. They were doing 12, so I drove to the 3mile mark, waited for some friends, then did the 3 mile out and back with them. After that, I decided to go to the park and run/walk 3 miles in my new Vibram fivefingers. More about them in a later post.
Later today I've agreed to run 14 miles with a friend.

Random

I had a great 9 mile run this morning, in the country, by myself. What was so great about it? See the second part of the first sentence.
Below is a paragraph I stole from another blog:
Reality: Once in a while you get a chance to impact someones life and you can only hope that the impact that was left is positive and one that will always make that person feel they were glad they met you. Your impact on this earth is very minimal in reality. We are just a second of the existence of earth. Most certainly only one or two people you know today will be here in 100 years. Most of us in our 30s will be dead in 50 years. Over half of everyone we know will be gone. That car, that house, that bill, that pain in the ass neighbor, the mean boss, the hard expectations on and on. It all just does not matter in the big scheme of life.
The writer has had some medical issues, is improving, but had in his words a "mental health break down yesterday a pretty bad one."
Why the picture above? This month marks 25 years since I've had a drink. For many that doesn't mean a thing. A few will understand. For me drinking is not an option. I didn't drink like normal people drink. And I was headed to one of three places, the street, prison, or the cemetery. I have only been running for 5 years, so the two aren't connected, at least not closely. I have at least two co-readers (we read each other's blogs) who are wine connoisseurs. I look forward to toasting our online friendship one day, but I'll have Martinelli's sparkling cider.
There are plenty of places to discuss Rick Pitino, Michael Vick, National Health Care, and all the topics of the day. This isn't one of them.
My granddaughter is in Atlanta, I miss her. As of today, all of my immediate family is out of town. A break every now and then is good, for everyone.

Two Lakes 50k

Joel contacted me around mid-week asking if I'd like to join him for a 30 mile run. I said yes. We went over our options, three times around Hefner, two times around Hefner and take the connector between Hefner and Overholser. From the time I discovered you could run between the two lakes, I've wanted to loop them both in one run. So we decided to loop both lakes. We estimated that would get us close to thirty miles. But since Joel worked near the course, we made an aid station stop there and that got us beyond 30 miles. We had planned to start at 5 a.m., but it was raining on my side of town so we started 20 minutes late. It was nice and cool then and we started off easily. Even when the sun came up it was still cloudy. When we got to Overholser it started to heat up and the clouds began to dissipate. We pushed on. Things went fairly well and when we got back to Hefner, we knew we had it made albeit at a very easy pace. We finished right at 31 miles in about 5:55, just under a 12 minute pace. We are both training for a twenty-four hour run in October.
Today I decided to do an easy six miles at Earlywine Park.

Midnight Streak & Training

Last night I ran the Midnight Streak. Two problems with that name, first it isn't at Midnight, and second it's not a streak in the old running naked sense. Anyway this was my first time running this night race run at the State Fairgrounds. It is a large race, around 1,000 people. It was hot and humid, but a cool front was scheduled to come in soon. We started at 11:00 P.M. and I had decided to run a little slow to keep from overheating. I felt pretty good and started picking things up. We had one mild uphill and there were sprinklers on the course so I ran through them. I finished and saw that my time was better than I had hoped, 21:55. Good enough for third in age group, first in my age group was a 56 year old man who ran 18:09.
Yesterday morning I ran 7 miles on trails with some friends from the trail running club. This morning I ran 9 miles on different trails with two friends. I'm feeling pretty good lately and hope it continues.