The Red Truck

Overall, it has been a really good week of running for me. I went out on Tuesday and did a nice 3 miles at a really easy going rate with Terrie. On Thursday, I went out and did a quicker than usual 3 miles with Roman. At the turn around we ran with Bobby and Tom as well. Saturday morning was a beautiful morning to run. The sun wasn't out, but it was nice and cool with a slight breeze. I decided to do 5 miles and ran with Bobby and Ken. It was a fun run Saturday as we were running part of the course of the Aquarium Run and were able to see some of our fellow Runners World friends running either the 5K or the 1/2 marathon. I was quite proud of the pace I kept during the 5 mile outing. I finished the 5.17 miles in 1:04:01, which I feel really good about. I owe a lot to Bobby, Ken, and Michael as it was so nice to have company will running along. Now comes the interesting part about "The Red Truck".

Where to start with my crazy running adventure...I will go to Thursday night's eating club meeting. Roman brought up that Ken and Kathy were planning a night run for Saturday night. This made some ears perk up. Bobby mentioned he might like to join in on that as did Lisa, Jason, and Ed. Kathy said they wanted to run from 21st & Riverside to Keystone Dam. Ken guessed that it would be about 14-15 miles out, so a total of around 30 miles. I, of course sat in complete silence thinking they are all nuts. Saturday morning rolled around and I showed up at Helmrich Park to do my miles, as did many of my fellow runners. Bobby and Ken were there. I asked Bobby if he was going to head out for the night run, he said he didn't know yet. I just laughed cuz off he was to do 5 miles with me. As stated above I had a really good run Saturday morning. I joined the eating club for breakfast at First Watch, which was very yummy. After I finished eating I headed home to shower and come up with a plan for the day.

About 10:30 my phone rings and it's Susan. Her question "What are you doing tonight?" I laugh and respond "Not running". She then throws out the idea of crewing for the crazies (no offense) who wanted to head out and run. I told her I would be up for it at least for a bit. The plan was to meet around 9 at Veteran's park. I took a nice hour and a half nap and then headed over to visit my grandmother and have dinner with my parents. The plan came together, with a few hitches here and there, I wound up taking my mom's minivan because it would be easier to haul people and stuff. I picked up Roman at his house and off we went to meet up with everyone at Veteran's park.

Everyone was in high spirits and at 9:23 PM off they went. There were 6 runners: Michael, Bobby, Ken, Kathy, Russell, and Roman. Then Susan, Christin and myself were the "crew". We took Christin's car back to her house and then meet up with the runners about 2 miles into their adventure. At the 2 mile mark, Christin thought she saw someone trip so I threw the car in gear and drove quickly up the street, of course it was just the group goofing around on a statute taking pictures. All was well, so they ventured on and we went and found our next point about a mile away. We honked the horn and cheered as the group came climbing up the super steep Gilcrease Road Hill. Everyone was still looking great! After this cheer session, we headed into QuikTrip, I really needed something to drink. We all picked up a few snacks and what nots and ventured onto our next stop off point. This is where the adventure began for the Crew Team.

We exited at 49th W. Ave and found a parking lot for the Dollar General that was very close to the path. As we waited the Crew Team talked about different authors and books and just passed the time. We were sitting about 5 minutes and this man on a bike rides past us, of course he has dark clothes. It wasn't too long before he passed by us again on his bike smoking a cigarette. We had a good laugh about exercising and smoking simultaneously. We saw the headlamps heading our way so we honked the horn, gave the crew some water and snacks. This was about the 4 mile point for the runners. They all seemed settled and then we ventured to our next cheering destination. We went down to 81st street. I found what looked like an abandoned building so we decided to park there. The car was parked in an awkward position, but we thought if a cop comes and asks us what's up we'll just tell them we are waiting for our running friends. As we get the car settled joking about police officers all of the sudden a car pulls out on the other side of the building and yup you guessed it was a police officer. Turned out and went the other way. As we watched the trail we notice a strange looking man dressed in all black walking down the trail in the direction of our running friends. Our friends came out of the path unscathed.

We left 81st street and headed towards 97 Hwy. We knew that at McDonald's at 97th Hwy we would take Michael to his truck. The group made it to the McDonald's and looked to be in great condition. Everyone was doing well and still in good spirits. Michael hopped in the van and we drove him to his truck. We then made a pit stop for the crew at QuikTrip to go potty and get some drink refills. Next thing we know we see a fire truck with its sirens going down the street the runners were on. This freaked us out a bit, but not as much as when we saw the ambulance going that way too. So off we went down the little access road by the highway. Our running friends were just at the point where the firetruck and ambulance were sitting with their lights going. The crew was so relieved when we knew that they it wasn't our running friends that caused the sirens and lights to come out. So we ventured up the little access road to 129th street. There was way more traffic than we thought there would be and there was very little shoulder for our friends to run on so we were feeling a little uncomfortable about their running situation. They made it without incident though, and we noticed that the water jug they had brought was running low. We knew that as we got closer and closer to keystone we would be further away from any stores. So the crew made the executive decision to drive back to WalMart and pick up some more bottles of water. We took the highway back out toward keystone and exited at 177th street. Since we had no idea how far our running members had made it, we decided to drive slowly down the road back towards Sand Springs until we found our friends. Let the story of "red truck" begin.

We met up with our runners on a curved hill in a very dark area. So I turned the van around and kinda pulled over..the road was very very narrow, but we figured it was around midnight and what traffic would there be. As the runners were getting their water and having some snacks a big Red Truck with what looked like the word Fox on the back window went passing by us. I laughed and joked that the Red Truck was already calling 911 about suspicious behavior as we were passing things in and out of the van. Well it got eerie because no more than 3 minutes later the red truck comes passing by from the other direction. We thought hmm maybe they are checking out what we are doing. At this point we were driving and our friends were running. We didn't think too much about the red truck at this point.

Ken had informed us that there was a bridge out ahead so we decided to drive down to see how far the bridge was. As we were driving down the road we noticed a church and decided that would be a good place to park and wait for our friends. No soon after we got the van parked in the church parking lot, the same red truck that had passed us 2 other times passed by where we were parked from the direction of the bridge that was closed. The three crew members found this to be very eerie!!! So the ongoing joke for the night for the crew with every car that passed was "Oh no it's The Red Truck". This joke became even funnier that as we picked up Roman at the dam and deliverd bikes to Bobby and Russell at mile 18.6, we headed down another eerie and narrow road. Well sure enough about 2 miles down this road...we have a Red Truck pass us...no it wasn't the same truck..no Fox on the back window. But it helped a good laugh and helped to keep me focused on having fun and not feeling tired or stressed out.

I am sure that TZ will post a great report for the runners point of view on the impromptu night run. I was thankful for 6:00 AM when I finally walked back through the doors of my home in preparation for an easy Sunday run with Terrie, and my first orientation meeting to begin training for my first 2 maybe 3 marathons...Dude...hanging out with these crazies is turning me into one of them. What fun.!