Mother Road 1 2006 Part 1

Well, I decided today to put in an old post on an ultra I ran a few years back.  The Mother Road 100 is an ultra in Oklahoma.  This story is about the first Mother Road run back in 2006.  The race would end up being a 3 part series that was run in 2006, 2008 and 2010 respectively.  Eventually if you ran all three you would have spanned the entire state on foot along route 66.  This was a fantastic low key run and I really enjoyed every minute of it and was happy that I was able enough to participate in some fashion in all three runs.  My buddy Otis and I crewed and paced this race for several of our friends who started running east from Arcadia Oklahoma about 9 AM in the morning. 

Otis picked me up at my house about 3:30 PM on a beautiful sunny November afternoon and we headed out to meet up with the guys on the course.  They were making unbelievable time, on pace for a sub 24 hour finish, pretty sure they will not hold the pace, but an awesome effort none the less.  We arrived and immediately saw two of our three runners, Bill and Stan, they were running with another man Allan, a Pharmacist from Edmond, OK they met only a few weeks before and since it turned out he was running his first hundred, they decided to stick with him.

We were told that our third runner was well ahead of these guys so we went ahead to find him.  Dave was running along with another familiar face and someone I had turned laps around the lake with on many a morning, Dan.  Both of these guys are incredible athletes and were moving fast along this relatively flat (by ultra standards anyhow) route.  Dave had some pretty bad blistering on his feet, but in true ultra fashion, he doctored them up with duct tape and got underway.  Dan was on pace for a sub 20 hr pr.  All I can say is unbelievable.

Since Dan had a crew car, Dan and Dave were running pretty much together and the other guys were way behind we decided to shift Dave's gear to Dan's crew car.  We were hoping they would pretty much stay in sync the rest of the run as the gap was widening between our two groups of runners.  We then headed back to start pacing the rest of the guys.

Image of a training run on the mother road course
Courtesy of the Tatur website (Article Here)

Otis dropped me into the race at about mile 42 and I paced the guys to the 50 mile aid station.  Everyone was running strong, I could not help but think how impressed I was with the way they were running after 40 some odd miles on concrete.  It was a short, easy 7 mile stretch when we arrived at the 50 mile aid station.

This is the point in a hundred where the little things start to happen, and believe me over time the little things add up.  I helped Bill tape his feet, blisters it seemed would be the status quo today.  Stan and Allen started out on the road while I was finishing up the tape job on Bill's feet.  They mentioned as they left that we should all meet at the Rock Cafe in Stroud just a mile or two up the road where Allan had a crew car (his wife Debbie).  After we finished taping Bill's feet however we hit a little snag.  Bill lost his timing chip while changing shoes.  Turns out after a frantic search, it had rolled under the aid station trash box.  I rushed Bill back out onto the road and thankfully everyone regrouped in Stroud as planned.  But now Stan and Allen had some equipment change issues.  Otis was all decked out in his running gear and ready to roll.  He handed me the car keys and he and Bill started out on the road opening about a 10 min lead on Stan and Allan.  I was worried everyone would get strung out on the course, helped Stan with some Gatorade and pushed the two of them out onto the road.

Image of a training run on the mother road course
Courtesy of the Tatur website (Article Here)

Break time, I needed diner, hit Sonic for a grilled chicken sandwich and switched on the game Tech was up over OU!  Boy was Bill going to be pissed if that held.  Two more OU losses and he owed a guy at work a really nice Pink Floyd box set!

I Finished eating while driving out onto the course in Otis's Jetta.  Damn lights don't work (turns out, I just did not know how to use them. Dohhhhhhhhhh)  I crewed and guided them along the course which had several uncharted turns off of the mother road and onto old route 66.  Boy was that a pain in the you know what.  Otis was getting disenfranchised with my navigational skills as I had to stop and consult the map frequently over this section because, to spite living within 20 minutes of the start, I had not driven the entire route.  Fortunately for me he was getting tired of pacing and knew far more about the course than I did.  The temp was dropping fast and I could not wait to get running again so I could warm up.  I guided the guys into Depew mile 61 or was it 63 who knows.    Because this was the first Mother Road 100 ever run there were logistics issues that forced the race organizers to move the finish line, as a result the course markings were off all night.

Depew had an awesome aid station with hot soup, one of only 3 all night that had warm liquid.  I gathered my running stuff and met the guys inside the city hall.  The temperature drop was getting to people here and the doctor at the aid station was bandaging feet and treating hypothermia like it was a common cold.  I began to get concerned we had stayed in the heat too long and everyone would freeze when we got going again. Fortunately though we were okay.

Image of a training run on the mother road course
Courtesy of the Tatur website (Article Here)

I paced the guys out of Depew feeling strong.  Otis said this leg was tricky and that he would drive it and park at the first turn.  We made the first turn, but never saw Otis.  Luckily, we had two things going for us, we ran for a while with a guy from Minnesota who knew the course and Allen had driven it the day before and was all over the twists and turns.

The guy from Minnesota was a Desiel mechanic and had driven down for the race.  He had to be back in St. Paul by Monday  afternoon!!! That is one of the best thing about ultra's the people are always just a little off.  We ran on, eventually turning off the main road and onto old route 66 again.  By now it was dark and with the exception of the lights thrown by our headlamps and what moonlight was available it was difficult to see beyond the confines of our immediate vicinity.  Now the stretch of road we turned onto was heavily wooded and the trees overhung the road in places almost forming a sort of tunnel of branches over our heads.  It reminded me of the headless horseman or perhaps a bombed out road in Iraq.  We were all freezing at this point, when we last checked it was 27 damn degrees out with a wind chill of 15.  As we ran we began to notice trailer houses burned to the ground on both sided and woods all around, it was a long stretch of road I would not have wanted to run alone in the dark.  I was waiting for the crazy backwards freakin Okie to jump out and start hacking people.  We picked it up a little over this stretch of road.  At this point we had not seen Otis in several hours and the speculation was abound as to his location and the bad news is that everyone was getting colder.

To Be Continued...