Oklahoma City Adventure

Last weekend (April 24-25) a group from CIY traveled to Oklahoma City to participate in the OKC Memorial Marathon (and its associated events) to raise money for Active:Water and awareness about the water crisis around the world. CIY had 2 marathon relay teams (5 members each), 2 half-marathoners, 1 full-marathoner, and several participating in the 5k. In all about 30 people made the trip.

I decided to take on the half-marathon. I had competed in the OKC half in 2006, did a 2-man relay (where Sigars and I both ran a half) in 2004, and ran the full OKC marathon the first year they held it in 2001 - so I felt pretty comfortable with the race, the distance, and the course.

What I didn't know was that we would have to survive and urban adventure race just to get to compete in the races we'd signed up for.

Let me first say that OKC is a very well organized and executed marathon. I've run in lots of events and they do an outstanding job. Please keep that in mind as you read on.

We were staying out on Meridian - an area about 5 miles from downtown where several hotels are located and that the race folks had arranged to run shuttles to and from. Shuttling in and out of downtown made sense because it kept us from needing to drive and park - which can be difficult when 22,000 people descend on an area in a short amount of time.

Here's the timeline of my urban adventure / half-marathon:

4:33am - Wife: "Ryan, why don't you not let your alarm go off, it might wake Drake up."

4:38am - Disengage the alarm 2 minutes before it should have sounded and roll out of bed.

4:55am - Quietly out the door headed to the lobby to meet the crew.
Packing List:
- Active:Water shirt
- Long sleeve dry fit shirt - seemed like a good idea when it was 50-degrees out
- Dry fit shorts - not runners shorts!
- Well worn shoes
- Cheapest Ironman watch in existence
- Toaster Pastries - Great Value Strawberry
- 1 piece of gum - to deal with the wicked after taste of aforementioned toaster pastries.
- Notice I'm missing any reference to water? I realized after the race started that I had not had a single drop of water yet that morning unless I got some while brushing my teeth.

5:05am - CIY crew navigates across Meridian and locates runner pickup point.

5:25am - Shuttle bus pulls up and informs us that he is full (never mind those 10 empty seats) and another bus will come...was told later that some of the same people were still waiting there when my wife got to the pickup point at 6am. Shuttle Fail!

5:27am - CIY crew piles in CIY vans and rolls for downtown.

5:45am - Vans parked at meters, CIY crew navigates downtown OKC in the dark through sea of other runners.

5:50am - Pit stop at port-o-potties

5:55am - Group pre-race photo

6:10am - Entry into the runner's corral and navigate to the starting line

6:20am - Pre-race festivities and stretching while sizing up the field...He's going to kick my butt, he's going to kick my butt, she's probably going to kick my butt...

6:27am - Race starts slightly early according to my watch and 20,000 people barrel through downtown. At this point I can see the leaders and the CIY camera is not set up when I go by, guess I'll not be making the highlight reel on this trip.

6:40am - Mile 2 - Fast pace and leaders are disappearing. What happened to that tail-wind-aided-downhill at the start?

6:53am - Mile 4 - Still fast pace and I realize that the lady right behind me is a former Olympic marathon champion - Joan Benoit Samuelson (got the clue when people kept calling her by name, I first thought they were cheering for me).



7:37am - Mile 10 - Maybe I should start backing off now, never intended to run this pace and I'm pretty sure my legs are going to lock up if I don't watch it.



7:52am - Mile 13 - So much for slowing down, now on Broadway and there are too many people watching to stop, must keep moving...hey, that guy is wearing an OSU shirt, try to say "GO POKES", can't, no oxygen, show pistols hand signal, he has no idea, never mind.



7:55am - Finish line - Whew, glad that's over. Where's the shuttle back to the hotel?



8:10am - Find Alex Gandy at the shuttle location, he informs me that they aren't running until 10am, asks if I want to catch a cab? YES!

8:25am - Get bellhop at the Hilton to call a cab

8:35am - Arrive back at the Ramada

From that point I was pretty much just hanging out with Drake and waiting on Brittany to make it back. She actually had many more adventures with the shuttle system than I did - since I never actually got on one and she rode 4 different ones.

All in all it was a successful experience. I ran better than I expected, though not that much different than I had run 4 years ago in the same race. Brittany did well on her leg of the relay. Everyone in our group finished well and made it home in one piece.

Now I've got to finish my fund-raising. Unfortunately I have only raised $25 of my $100 goal to date. So if you feel like helping me out with a few dollars please feel free to do so (go here to donate to my effort on Active:Water's website).