Tulsa Full Moon 5k

On a spur of the moment, I booked a quick trip to Tulsa for the weekend last week with 2 excuses in mind: the Tulsa Full Moon 5k and Mother's Day. I received an email from Fleet Feet sports about the Full Moon 5k and thought it would be a great event for the 4 of us because there was no minimum pace, an ideal first 5k for the kids to try before the Expedition Everest Challenge in September (where there will be a 15 minute/mile minimum pace).

I googled and googled and finally settled on an overnight stay at the Embassy Suites hotel off I-44. We had already missed the online registration for the 5k. After doing a little more googling, I came up with a plan by Friday evening: Amina's soccer game at 9 am, leave for Tulsa after the game, stop at Fuddrucker's for lunch, catch the 1:30 showing of the new Star Trek movie at a theater right across the street (tickets bought online), check-in at the Embassy Suites, change into our race/running clothes, get to Veteran's Park to register for the race, find something light for dinner, then run the race at 8pm. We also had Mother's Day brunch reservations at the Brasserie (10 am) but had to cancel because of Amina's soccer game at 1 pm.

Fortunately, our 9 am soccer game was cancelled due to rain so we headed for Tulsa at 9:30 am. We had plenty of time for lunch at Fuddrucker's then headed to the Cinemark movie theater across the street about 45 minutes before the movie was to start. We waited in line for the theater doors to open even though we had purchased tickets online. This seemed a bit silly to me - the only movie in the whole theater where we were made to wait outside the theater until about 15 minutes before the movie started.

The new Star Trek movie was excellent - even the kids, who begged us to be allowed to see a different movie, enjoyed it. Seth and I chuckled at the classic lines in the movie - along with the other true Trek geeks in the theater. I was particularly impressed with how cleverly the movie completely re-invented a show that's been around for 40+ years leaving the door wide open for further episodes or movies to start, literally, from scratch. I'm looking forward to more movies with the new cast.

After the movie, we checked into the Embassy Suites and thanked our lucky stars that the kids wouldn't have the time to swim in the hotel's pool - it was obscenely crowded with children - many were obviously attending other sporting events. We changed clothes and hung out for a bit before driving to Veterans Park. Race day registration was $30 but we were given vouchers for race t-shirts to be picked up after the middle of June or so at the Fleet Feet store in Tulsa. We pinned our race bibs on and attached the racing chips to our shoes then got back in the car and drove to Utica Square to do some shopping.

The kids did some last minute Mother's Day shopping at Williams-Sonoma and then we stopped at Petty's Fine Foods for some energy bars and sushi before driving back to find a parking spot near Veterans Park. We stretched before the race and watched the people who were doing the 1 mile fun run at 7:30 then made our way towards the back of the 5k crowd. We had decided that the kids' goal finish time would be under 45 minutes.

At the start of the race, the kids both did pretty well keeping a 10 to 10:30 pace but after not quite a mile, Rhys needed to stop and walk. Amina and Seth continued on without us. Rhys and I jogged and walked the rest of the way with a sprint in the last 1/10 of a mile or so. Amina and Seth's final time was 37:28 and our final time was 41:02. We should be in good shape for our race in September and now the kids have PRs to work on. We drank some water after the race then decided to go for dinner and stopped at the Cracker Barrel near the hotel. The following morning, Mother's Day, we went back to the Cracker Barrel for breakfast before heading back to Enid in time for Amina's 1 pm game. During breakfast, I received a mini-burger press and a cherry/olive pitter for Mother's Day.