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This is a 5 mile trail race held @ the Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness Area in Tulsa, OK. They also have a 2 mile run that is on a combination of paved and unpaved trails.
To quote the race literature “The course is challenging and will test your trail running skills and endurance”. Duly noted…
I ran the race in my VFF KSO Treks. I thought about running BF, but was having a little toe issue and DID NOT want to hit it on a rock! Still managed to whack it on rocks a couple of times, but at least it had some protection. I’m not saying you couldn’t complete this course BF, but you would have to walk a fair amount of it (well, Ken Bob might not have to, but we “mere mortals” would). I wouldn’t call it BF friendly at all.
The race started @ 7:00 a.m. I arrived at the Turkey Mountain trailhead around 6:00 a.m. Walking across the parking lot, I noticed another runner with VFFs. We started visiting about our shoes (amazing conversation starters, those VFFs). At about 6:30, we were joined by Matt, also in his VFF Treks. This was my 2nd timed trail race. Matt runs a lot in various races. This was Scott’s first timed race of any kind. We are in the photo, me on the left, Scott in the center and Matt (skinny guy) on the right.
Race started on time and about 130 runners take off heading up the trail. The first couple hundred yards are hard packed dirt, then the real fun begins! You start climbing in elevation and the path narrows to mostly single track. These trails are fairly technical (I think “technical” is Latin for “really rocky & steep&rdquo
and we climbed up and some down for the first couple of miles.There are over 25 miles of trails on Turkey Mountain, and I’ve been lost most of the time I run here, but that was not a problem today. The trails were marked with pink ribbons about every 50 feet, with yellow “Do Not Cross” tape to keep you from going off on a side trail. Kudos to Fleet Feet for the job they did marking this race.
There was one water tent set up on the course. It was located between two loops of the race, so we visited it twice and yet never ran on the same path twice. There were several volunteers on the race course to help make sure you stayed on the right path. (Thanks Volunteers!)
A couple of times I felt almost like I was rock climbing as opposed to trail running. There is a lot of mountain biking & horseback riding that takes place here, but I can’t imagine doing this on a bike! But up and down and around go the trails. I passed a couple of people and some passed me. There were some places where you could swing wide and pass a couple of people at a time. Everyone was really good at trying to make room for people to pass them on the trail (me included).
Matt passed me early on, and I didn’t see him again until the finish. I started in front of Scott and didn’t see him until he finished. We hung around some after the race and had several people talk to us about our Vibrams and how they had performed on the trails.
But the weather was gorgeous (for Oklahoma in September) and a good time seemed to be had by all. I finished in 50:43, which I didn’t think was too bad, given the current state of the body. J
