Pre-race
I signed up for this race, because I thought the medal would be cool. It was advertised as a Yin Yang medal – half for a trail run, and half for a paved run. Not sure if the unique medal🏅was worth it…
I made it to Tulsa without a hitch. I have a Tesla, and have done only one other road trip in it. My husband and I drove to Stillwater, OK for the OSU vs OU game (congrats OSU 🎉) a month earlier. Despite the test-run drive, I was so nervous about the drive last night. My daily commute consists of driving a little over a mile, in-town, to and from work. I kept worrying about getting into an accident 😨
The supercharger was quite early into my trip so I fretted about getting to the hotel with only 8% battery left. There was supposed to be a Tesla charger near my hotel, but I wasn’t familiar with the area and didn’t want to chance it. It also was not a supercharger. I made a good call stopping for a second charge 🔋 before heading downtown to my hotel.
First impression… it is quite quiet like downtown Fort Worth. There is not much of a night life, and it does not seem like a walking city.
Post-race
Luckily, my mindset was just to survive… that’s what I did. My finishing time was 4:32:42, and I ran an extra 0.4 miles according to my watch. Not sure what to believe, but there were no mile markers anywhere. I actually finished third overall for females. I was 2 minutes behind second place. She deserved it 👏🏼 She passed me at the end when I decided to walk. My legs were still able to move, and my breathing felt fine, but I was tingling in my arms and feet. I may have been ignoring signs of oxygen deprivation.
I was poorly prepared for this race. I had little anaerobic endurance training leading up to the race. My heart rate was in the aerobic training zones (blue/green zones) for most of my pre-race runs. My heart rate was in the orange/red for 4 hours!?! The weather was not ideal either. It was misty and cold 🥶 My nose was running like a faucet for the trail portion. Perhaps it was the wilderness… the cold… or me getting over a cold. It was a bit reminiscent of Iowa. My snot froze on my gloves, but my water survived 😮💨
The trail was no joke. I thought I’d be running something like the semi-paved Trinity trail by my house. In hindsight, I should have looked into trail running after I signed up for this. I was not prepared for 13 miles of rocks 🪨, wet leaves 🍂, tree roots 🌲 and constant elevation changes. I fell once on my left side 🤦🏻♀️ and twisted my left ankle twice. I had to constantly remind myself to pick up my feet. I’m glad I did a wider variety of cross training recently. I definitely needed my balance and all my muscles working. It was about 4 miles in the first time I looked at my watch 😳What?!?! I thought I had gone much further… I still had 9 miles of this shit?
My knees were sore at the end of the trail run… not like when I hurt them, but the sides were sore. My breathing was another issue… I was panting 😮💨 through mile 1, and mouth-breathing, which I never do. After calming myself from the initial shock of the trail, I was able to concentrate on my breathing and change my pattern. I felt better with my breathing controlled. I had to do that a few times during the run. No wonder you have to run the trail portion before the paved.
The paved half was an afterthought. I was spent from running the trail portion, and took to mostly jogging. My stomach started to feel queasy around mile 22. I resorted to interspersed walks with 3 miles left. I was happier than usual seeing the finish line 🏁… thank God it’s finally over.
I explored Tulsa after the race. I thought Tulsa was a major city, but it has a small town feel. However, there were no chain restaurants or stores downtown 🤗 There was at least one regular at every bar or restaurant I went to. There were multiple regulars at the ramen bar 🍜… which was delicious.
My trip home turned out to be a 6.5 hour, frustrating, adventure. Tesla miscalculated how much battery I had left. I kept looking at my remaining battery, and kept getting more antsy as the battery drained quicker than expected. Mid trip, it re-routed me away from my home to Oklahoma City for a charge. I then came down the same way we did for the OSU game, and ended up back at Ardmore 😣 I hate driving, and my home looked like heaven’s gates when I reached it.
