Tulsa time

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Did a little more than 17 miles in Tulsa today. It felt pretty good. I started feeling a little tightness at about 9 or 10 miles, as we moved into the hillier section, but it was generally pretty easy.

Instead of doing the beginning of the course with the marathoners, who started an hour early, I decided to do my first four miles through downtown Tulsa. It was pretty cool. They've got a lot of art deco buildings mixed in with Chicago-style modernist towers. This church is especially cool.

The race itself was great, very well organized with a terrific spread of food at the end. Tulsa has a real pretty riverfront road, and a lot of the course followed it. We were joined by the marathoners at the 10K mark, so that was kind of cool having the faster runners move by us. Some of them were obviously hitting the wall. They were laboring pretty hard. One guy was moaning loudly as he moved past me at the final mile mark. I decided to try to keep up with him the rest of the way in. He wound up finishing in 3:20, which is what I'll need to hit if I want to qualify for Boston after my 40th birthday and until I'm 44. So by finishing with him I was able to fantasize about qualifying.

Back at the hotel I chatted up a guy who had qualified. It was his first marathon, no less. He seemed pretty pleased with himself.

I feel a little sore right now, but I think that's partly due to jumping into the car right away and driving for four hours. I suspect that I'll feel a little tight again tomorrow. But by Tuesday I should be like new.

All in all I'm pretty pleased. 17 miles is a pretty good distance. Makes the marathon seem within reach now. I've got two more long runs -- 20 miles on December 9 and 23 on December 30. The 20 miler is the one I'm the most nervous about, because I'll be doing that here in KC. I've talked a co-worker into doing 16 of it with me, though. So at least I won't be alone. The 23 will be at this weird eight-loop Marathon down in Springfield. I'll duck out of that after 7 laps.

I'm really starting to look forward to Carlsbad and Austin. It's making for a fun winter.