Off Route

This weekend's training run turned into one I'll never forget.  It began like most Saturday mornings.  

We set out at 6am on the river park trail.  It was still dark.  After a mile in we crossed 11th street and headed west towards Sand Springs on the Katy Trail.  The route called for an 8 mile out and back with 4 extra tagged on after we got back to the river park trail.  I ran with Lisa.  The first 8 went well, kept a pretty good pace, had lots of other runners around us and chatted.  There was a McDonald's at the turn around so we took a bathroom break, chatted with other runner's and headed back.  I was having some knee pain and feeling pretty drained.  At this point I had pretty much talked myself into cutting the 20 to 16.  On the way back my knee really started hurting and I had to start walking with 5 left.  Lisa said she was hurting too and we walked.  Everyone passed us.  Walking wasn't good either and my hips and back started to hurt.  We chatted.    

Next thing we knew we encountered an overpass and tons of construction stuff that neither of us recognized.  We began to fear we were off the route.  Lisa ran ahead to see what was past the overpass and it was the new construction of the Tulsa County Jail.  There were a number of homeless people milling about.  As it turns out we were supposed to turn right at the last water stop (but we didn't learn this 'till after we were rescued).  There were also some bathroom issues for both of us that I won’t elaborate on…

My knee was hurting too much to back track so we walked into a neighborhood.  

I had my phone but didn’t have numbers for anyone running with us today.  We called Trail Zombie who was in the Ouacita's this weekend.  He gave us "Mitch's" number.  But it was the wrong Mitch and he didn't have digits for the Mitch we needed.  So we face booked him an SOS message.  We walked through the bad neighborhood.  We ended up at 1st and Denver.  I knew we were at least 2-3 miles from Veteran's Park.  It was getting hot.  I had forgotten sun block.  We only had one water bottle between us.  

But we both had debit cards!  This was when we realized it was only about a mile to Fat Guy's Burgers in the Greenwood District so we decided to make a break for it.  In the end, we only made it to 1st and Boulder before we were rescued by Mitch.  Jason soon followed and we ended up at Blue Dome for breakfast.  

Lessons learned:

• Pay attention to your body!  If you are extra fatigued, dehydrated, getting sick...don't hesitate to keep a long run shorter.  I wish I had.
• Carry a phone with you on runs.
• Get your running friends phone numbers!
• Pay attention to the route!
• Having some cash or debit card is a good thing.
• All's well that ends at the Blue Dome.