As the most recent post apprises you, I and my wife ran in the Tulsa Route 66 Half Marathon on Sunday, November 18. The decision to do this race was mine, and she nicely tagged along with me. I had figured that it would be a good opportunity to do a half, and I didn’t particularly want to run either the half or the full in Atlanta on thanksgiving (I don’t like the route; it’s boring).
There were about 5,000 runners in all of the races. The race organization was good, with plenty of portapotties (which is critical to a good start). They also had every single mile marked with a time-clock. I was impressed by this feature. With only 5,000 runners, that’s a lot of electronic equipment. I don’t know if the marathon had a time clock every mile between 6 and 20, but they did for every one along the route of the half marathon.
The course was exceptionally nice for someone who trains in Atlanta. There were only three real hills that caused some strain, and most of mile 12 was coming down from the top of those climbs, which made my last mile a very nice time. Frankly, comparing it to the routes I run around the house, the course might as well have been flat. It was beautiful. I’m going to have to find flat race courses more often.
Full results are available here, but it’s worth noting that the winner of the marathon (2:30) beat the winners of the marathon relay by a good 2 minutes.
Jenn noted on her twitter feed that we had dinner before hand with a bunch of runners. This was a new experience for us because we don’t hang out with any other runners (which is weird, really). Being around people who were psyched about running the half, the full, the quarter, whatever, and participating in detailed discussions about nutrition, other races, the Boston, etc., was invigorating. As Jenn mentioned, it may have sparked (or resparked) the marathon bug in us. But first we have a 10k in January, and I’m planning on an Olympic triathlon in May, so maybe next fall.
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