It's not a no man's land

A few posts ago, I declared the sand bar that extends South from the I-44 bridge a "no man's land." Well I was wrong. On Tuesday evening I ran out here with hope of capturing some nice sunset pics with the bridge as a backdrop. I quickly noticed that a tarp tent had been erected a few hundred yards South of the bridge, on the leeward side of a sand dune. As I walked down to the river, someone emerged from the shelter and appeared to be studying my movements.

After some hesitation, I opted not to turn around. He was obviously down on his luck, and felt that he had no other place to stay. Perhaps he was worried that I was there to shoo him away. After a few minutes of watching me poke around in the brush for photographs, he went back into his tent.

The sunset didn't amount to much, but I still managed to get some fun shots with my S-100.

Ramping it up

I put in about 30 miles over the break (Wednesday to Sunday) and still feel awesome. The Half and Half is on the 14th and I just might give it a go.

From my run this morning. Pics taken on my iPhone.

Exploring the Arkansas shoreline

On Wednesday I ran South along Riverside again, this time leaving the trail under the I-44 bridge. There is a huge sandbar South of the bridge that has great views of Turkey Mountain, and lots of cool flotsam strewn about, so I thought I would follow the shoreline as far South as it would let me.

Disciplined runners would not do this. Running through brush and on sand is not conducive to keeping a good pace. In fact, it was a very soft sand, so I walked the whole thing.

And that's OK. These days I'm running for the love outdoors and the adventure of exploring places both new and familiar. Pace is a low priority.

I followed the bar for a few hundred yards until brush made the way impassible, cut across the dune and came back to the Riverside trail just North of where I explored on the previous day. 

A cool little no man's land this is, between the bank and the river. I can't wait to go back and explore the treasures that have washed up over the years. Here are some shots of Turkey that I took with my I-phone:

Down in the ditch

This morning I ran South along Riverside to the outdoor gym around 53rd street. On a whim, I scrambled down the steep bank to a ditch that runs parallel to the river. It runs between the bank and a large scrub covered dune, collecting water from concrete pipes that drain the neighborhoods just East of Riverside. The place is quite beautiful if you ignore all the trash that has been deposited from the heavy rains. Riverside is just a few hundred feet away, but this place feels remote.

Here is an example of one of the flood control outlets.



The bank has slowly eroded around this structure so they've had to reinforce it with some pilings. The pilings themselves are decaying, so this may be gone in the next flood.

If you follow the ditch South, a nice view of Turkey opens up. I'd like to come back here with my DSLR sometime.

In black and white

I ran the new trails on the South side if 61st on Sunday. Like the Hi-chi, these trails are pristine single track, a real pleasure to run. I've been told that is belongs to a private land owner who's cool with bikers and runners using his land. If you look carefully, there are all kind of cool artifacts strewn about the property.

All pics taken with my iphone.

Old trees and a mystery

I had a few events to work at this weekend, so I left work early on Friday and drove out to Turkey for a short afternoon run. It was around 70 degrees and overcast, only a few days after our "polar vortex."

I took the Hi Chi trail Northbound, my favorite on the river side of the mountain. The trail is actual singletrack. It's used far less and is designed much better than the other trails that hug the Eastern side of Turkey Mountain.

There are some ancient trees on Turkey, particularly in the areas where it has been too steep for early settlers to harvest. This is an example of one of them. If I had to guess, I'd say this old sentinel was around before Tulsa was settled by the Creek tribe. Old trees around here are not necessarily the tallest. Rather, they are distinguished by their twisted and knotty trunks. Their battle scars bear witness to the endurance of life in an environment of extremes.

all pics taken on my iphone

There is still some color to be found on the trails.







A strange billed creature emerges from the oak. A platypus, perhaps?







I returned on the far Western end of the wilderness area. This is a crossing of a creek bed that remains dry for most of the year. I dream of wading through a knee-deep torrent rushing over these rocks. Someday, I will live that dream.




And then I found this. Woodchips on the pipeline trail. It looks like they did some tree clearing here, but for what purpose? I guess this is on the Simon property, but I can't image why they would clear trees here, so far away from the road and so far below the ground that was cleared last year.




The Pipeline trail up to 61st was flattened and widened by obvious tractor traffic. The actual site of the proposed outlet Mall is up the hill on the right and the wood-chipped area is behind me. Hmmm...



They don't have permission to build yet, so what is going on? Just routine property maintenance? A mystery to be pondered.

Lipbuster 2014

The elite race

I was up early on Sunday, riding my bike in the rain in order to run repeats on a muddy hill. I mean, can you think of a better way to kick off Father's day? The Lipbuster Challenge is simple: run up and down the trail that parallels Elwood Ave. as many times as you can in one hour. Its around of 140 feet of climb and descent in a half-mile lap. The weather did not cooperate this year; it rained enough in the early hours to make a muddy mess of things. The rain finished just before 8:15 elite race, but at that point the damage had been done; the clay dirt trails were as slick as a greased sumo wrestler. 

I ran the 9:30 heat, hoping to best my ten lap PR from last year. It turns out there is a huge difference between ten and eleven laps in a race like this. 

I finished the tenth lap with about five minutes left on the clock. There was a good chance I could pull it off, but it would be close. Sure enough, reaching the bottom of the hill for the eleventh time, I see that there are twenty five seconds left to run several hundred more feet. Pretty soon the race director is shouting in the megaphone and people at the finish line are cheering me on and I'm sprinting for the finish. Alas, it was not meant to be. Five seconds short!

While the first ten laps were mostly a blur, I can still remember details from the last climb and descent. Details that could have made the difference of five seconds... maybe. Its funny how you second guess yourself when you come up just short of meeting a race goal. 

Don't get me wrong though; it was thrilling to be that close. And I did improve my time from last year and got some conditioning in for our upcoming trip to Colorado.

West Tulsa

I love the smell of Tulsa in the morning... That sewage, methane, and sulfur smell. Smells like... victory.