State Number 19
– Williams Route 66 Marathon, Tulsa, OK
22 November 2015
As a practitioner of the civil
engineering discipline and a lifelong student of American history, the
nostalgia of U.S. Route 66 definitely fuels my interest.
Established on 11 November 1926, Route
66 is known as the Main Street of America or the Mother Road that traversed a
portion of our country from Santa Monica to Chicago. Although the highway officially no longer
exists and has been replaced by the current Eisenhower Interstate System, a large
portion of this legendary highway still exists and can be driven and enjoyed by
travelers and adventurers.
Tulsa’s Route 66 Marathon was held on 22
November 2015, 89 years and 11 days after the Mother Road was established, and
also the tenth anniversary of the event itself.
Coincidentally, this is the second marathon I’ve run that covered a
small segment of the original U.S. 66, with the first being the Pasadena
Marathon in May 2012 with a portion of the course crossing the Colorado Street
bridge spanning Arroyo Seco. That bridge,
constructed in 1913, in all its glory is designated and listed as an ASCE
Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.
Although most, if not all, runners may say, “so what”, to me, running
across that bridge was exhilarating.
In the city of Tulsa, a small section
of Southwest Boulevard (Marathon Mile 11.5) and a small segment of 11th
Street (Marathon Mile 19.7) near the University of Tulsa lies on the U.S. 66
alignment. The original bridge
paralleling Southwest Boulevard spanning the Arkansas River still exists, but
closed to pedestrian and vehicular traffic.
I am happy the city is keeping it for historical significance.
The journey to Tulsa commenced at our
local international airport in the early morning hours of 19 November. A text message from the airline notified my
wife that the flight to Denver was delayed due to “mechanical problems”
experienced in Denver. Of course, we
would likely miss our original flight from Denver to Tulsa, so the gate agent
rebooked us to a later flight that left at 2020 hours. We found out we only missed the flight by a
few gosh-darn minutes! Oh well, what can
one do? It is what it is.
After spending six hours in Denver
people watching, eating lunch with a fourteen dollar food voucher given to us
for the inconvenience of the delay (wow), and watching angry passengers unleash
their frustrations on the gate agents, the skies started getting dark and cold
and looked as if it would snow any moment as I was monitoring the weather with
my weather app. I overheard it was
snowing heavily in Cheyenne, WY as flights were delayed and being
redirected. It was only a matter of time
Denver would be receiving snowfall.
About an hour later, it began to snow and snowed heavily before our
plane from ORD arrived. The plane
finally arrived pretty much on time, but we wondered if we were ever going to
get out with all this snow and would end up spending the night in another
airport. That’s not what I signed up to
do.
Once boarded, we spent over an hour
sitting in the plane at the gate waiting for our turn at the de-icing
station. There were about six inches of
snow piled on the plane’s wings getting deeper as the minutes ticked by, so ice
was a real likelihood. After the
de-icing process was complete, it was our turn to roam the taxi ways of
Denver’s large airport to taxi into position on Runway 8 for departure. Even though I didn’t show it, I was a little apprehensive
about taking off, but since large machines dispersed heated water-diluted Newtonian
glycol fluids to create exothermic dissolution reactions that allowed for
stronger melting power, any uncertainties about Bernoulli’s principle were
alleviated. In other words, the ice
melted and we were finally off to Tulsa with an initial heading of 111.63°,
more or less.
The Airbus A320 lifted off without
incident after 2200 hours and by connecting my smart phone to the aircraft’s free
on-board wi-fi, our ETA into Tulsa showed us ahead of schedule simply by
exploiting a 165 mph tailwind. During
the flight, I thought of the classic song lyrics from Glen Campbell, “by the
time [we] get to Oklahoma, [we’ll] be sleeping.” That seemed to be the theme and that lyric
created a cerebral redundancy I didn’t need at the moment. It was after midnight when we landed on
Runway 18L and was almost 0100 hours when we arrived at our hotel in the Deco
District. The hotel’s shuttle driver was
there to pick us up to drive us to the hotel.
I bet he was tired of driving to and from the airport that day due to
the arrivals of marathon runners from around the country. Needless to say, our plans for a Friday exposition
were dashed, but now that we were living on “Tulsa Time”, we could sleep in and
take our time at Saturday’s exposition at the Cox Business Center.
When we were ready to saunter on over
to the exposition, the cold temperatures hit us as soon as we stepped out of
the hotel lobby doors, and factoring in the wind chill, it was bone-chilling
cold. Lucky for us, the Cox Business
Center was only a few blocks away. There
we picked up our bibs, received our tenth anniversary jackets, purchased a
couple of shirts, and even met up with Bart Yasso for a photo op. What a great guy he is for allowing photos to
be taken with him.
After leaving the expo, we hustled back
to the hotel for our belongings and strolled up Main Street to our next hotel,
while watching workers set up the marathon starting corrals. From there, we walked up to Tulsa’s Brady
Arts District for some lunch/dinner at Caz’s Chowhouse where I chowed down on a
Cuban turkey sandwich with some fried okra. Afterwards, we walked over to the
finish line area at Guthrie Green, honoring the late Woody Guthrie, then ambled
on over to the Center of the Universe spot and listened to the reverberations
of our voices as though we were speaking from the focal point in a geodesic
dome. This is not to be confused with a
cosmological point of view advocated by Hoyle, et al, but rather in the vicinity of the Artificial Cloud sculpture
located at the apex of the span of the old Boston Street Bridge between First
and Archer Streets. It was time to get
out of the cold and into the warmth of the hotel room to rest up for Sunday’s
marathon. We noticed that the Naval
Academy football team were staying at the same hotel for their game against
Tulsa later that evening. What a cold
night for a football game, I thought!
The Midshipmen beat the Golden Hurricane 44-21, by the way.
The morning of Marathon Sunday was very
cold, with temperatures in the low 20s in the Deco District. The skies were crystal clear with calm winds,
but it was a dry cold. What wonderful
weather for a marathon, clear and cold.
Just how I like it since I don’t do well in the heat and sun. We were dressed warmly with garbage bags
draped over us for added comfort, only to be discarded once running commenced. We dropped off our bags at the Maniac Corner
VIP tent conveniently set up at East Sixth and South Main Streets for members
of the Maniacs, Fanatics and 50-staters a half block from the starting line.
As the start time drew near, the race announcer
kept updating us how many minutes remained.
Everyone, including us, in Corral A lined up with excitement and
expectations of a PR, although due to the hilly nature of the course, a PR was
likely out of the question, at least for me.
After the National Anthem and a few parting words from the announcer,
the gun sounded with the wheelchair athletes starting first and the rest of the
masses starting a couple of minutes later, with a few minutes in between the corral
starts. With the sound of New Year’s Eve
horns and confetti flying everywhere, the tenth running of the Route 66
Marathon was officially underway.
The miles were uneventful and went
fairly fast. I was careful with my steps
since the pavement conditions in some areas were not that favorable for running,
especially with runners all around. As
an engineer, I understand the freeze-thaw effects of roads and pavements. More than traffic, it is the changing thermal
regime of the ground that affects the performance of road pavements in colder
climates such as Tulsa. With that said,
I witnessed two runners hitting the pavement either by tripping or rolling an
ankle with the abrupt edges from freeze-thaw damage. They each said, “I’m ok!” But I could see it on their faces they were
in pain. I’ve been there and done that.
With the rolling hills throughout the
course, I was not going out too fast as was originally planned. I wanted to conserve my glycogen reserves by
not increasing the rate of glycolosis and to enjoy the scenery of the various neighborhoods
and regions Tulsa had to offer.
The first several miles saw various
cupressaceous trees mixed in with cedrus,
ginko, acer, quercus, liriodendron, and pinus
tree species lining the neighborhood streets of the various districts. It being autumn, the deciduous trees adorned
the streets with orange, green and red tones.
The fallen leaves in the streets posed hazards attributable to the
morning frost being on the leaf surfaces.
As I would step on them, my foot would at times slip as I pushed off, so
I avoided the sides of the streets and would instead run in the center to avoid
the leaves. Of course, this can lead to
running longer distances.
Various road and drainage designs
always catch my eye while running. I
noticed several instances of improperly designed drainage catchments likely
because of the older neighborhoods.
Around Marathon Mile 3, speed humps dotted the roadway. It never ceases to amaze me of the improper speed
zoning and designs of speed humps used in various communities. These designs tend to delay emergency
services and should only be used when critical speeds are around 29 mph (with
proper designs, of course). Anyway, off
my soapbox, that’s a topic for another discussion.
The spectators along the course were
very supportive and encouraging. As I
ran by, I thanked the spectators for coming out for their support on such a
cold day, the volunteers manning the water stations, and the Tulsa PD providing
traffic control. Although I didn’t
partake, I enjoyed seeing the spectators lining the course providing Jell-O
shots, alcohol, BBQ, fireball whiskey shots, pickles and assorted fruits and
candies. They looked enticing, but I wanted
to avoid the possibility of an upset stomach, or worse. So, I stuck with my usual GUs or energy bars.
Around Marathon Mile 22, University of
Tulsa students (probably from a sorority) were handing out beer and other
goodies. I was thirsty enough and wanted
the carbs, so I grabbed one. It tasted
good and was ice cold. One of the
students in the group was telling runners as they passed by, “you are so not
almost there” and “this is not the last hill – just keeping it real!” Such wonderful words of encouragement, but sometimes
the truth hurts. I must admit, I’ve said
similar things to runners before, but ended with a positive note.
I know race spectators are very
well-intentioned when they tell runners they're close to the finish line. But, in reality, marathoners don't want to be
told “you’re almost there" unless the finish line is in actual sight. Even if there's just a half mile left, it can
feel like an eternity to get there.
 |
| Reverse Obverse |
God has blessed me in so many ways with
the ability to run the marathon distance and, at times, it is a big challenge
for me. As always, I am extremely proud
of my accomplishment every time I cross the finish line, no matter what my time
may be. The Route 66 Marathon is certainly
no exception.
Upon crossing the finish line timing
mat of this magnificent marathon, I headed over to the Maniac Corner VIP tent
to partake in some adult beverages, eat some pork sandwiches, rehydrate, exchange
the finisher medal with a 50-states finisher medal, top off protein levels with
some Muscle Milk and most of all, relax and appreciate the feeling of finishing
my 35th marathon and 19th state. The flying goddess finisher medal with a
spinning center piece marking the tenth anniversary is unique to this event and
reminiscent of the nostalgic days of America’s Main Street. I will always look back at my experience at
Tulsa and will appreciate the unique finisher medal and the Center of the
Universe medallion in my collection. The
only criticism I have is, where was the pizza? Anyway, on to State Number 20!
After the conclusion of our finish line
merriments at Guthrie Green, we lumbered back to the hotel just a few blocks
away, showered, checked-out and boarded the airport shuttle. Again, a text came to my wife’s phone saying
our flight to Denver was delayed. Wow,
not again, I thought! With a tight
connection at DEN, the gate agent at TUL was kind enough to book us on the
first flight out in the morning along with a hotel voucher, while still
remaining booked on our original flight.
Lucky for us, our original flight home was delayed a few minutes,
allowing my wife to run to the gate to hold the plane while I waited in the jet
way for our bags to be unloaded. Once I
grabbed the bags, I ran through the airport, analogous to the 1978 Hertz
commercial for those old enough to remember.
We were the last two to board the MD-80 aircraft. It wasn’t long after we were seated to start
push-back. After a short taxi to Runway
25 for a straight-out departure, we were off and away. When all was said and done, we made it and
arrived home safe, but exhausted. At
least we had a short drive home instead of the long trek from LAX.
I enjoyed living on “Tulsa Time” during my weekend
stay in Oklahoma. “One day I’ll set my
watch back to it, ‘cause you know me, I’ve been through it.” – Don Williams
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