2008 Barkley Book Fair Trail Run

Saturday June 21, 2008 Turkey Mtn Parking Lot

6:30 pm for the day run. Dark thirty for the night run.

Presented by TATUR (Tulsa Area Trail & Ultra Runners)

Mike Snyder & Alex Eaton before the notorious "Night Run"

Race directors Ken and Dana Childress have done a fabulous job designing coordinating and enabling this very low key and challenging race to become one of the most challenging events this side of the Mississippi!! RD Ken states:

"If you dare, if you have the courage, if you want to do something that you will remember the rest of your lives.........then come visit lovely Turkey Mountain Saturday evening May 3rd, 2008 at 6:30. We will have a nice little 4-6 mile run through the woods, over a hill or two, and collect a few pages from a few books".

Here's the deal: You show up, pay a small entry fee, hang out with friends, get assigned a race number, and then head off on the trails with a crude map in hand. The trail to be taken will be marked on your map, and there will be a few ribbons and signs along the way to help with your journey. We will place books along the way that you will need to find. When you find them, you must tear out the page in the books that corresponds with your race number. You must turn in all of your pages at the end of the race to have an official finish. If you are worried about getting lost, and you should be, either hang with someone who knows the trails, or carry a cell phone so we can send out a rescue team. Refreshments and celebrations await you at the finish line. There will be time for telling stories and lies.

The infamous Barkley Fart Detector

There will also be a night run.. It will be restricted to TATUR members only and you must be an experienced trail runner . The night run will be very difficult and you WILL get lost!! The trails are purposely marked very poorly so that you have to really work at staying on the course. You may find the books in any order that you wish. You just have to find them all to finish.

The race, as last year, will consist of a day loop of 4-6 miles, and a night loop that will seem like 26.95 to 27.12, but actually will be more in the 7-8 mile range.

This year's Barkley Book Fair will include but is not limited to: skills in running, navigating, trekking, rappelling, climbing, butt-sliding, first aid, caving, snake killing, water-jogging, noodling, more first aid, search and rescue, and last but not least, beer drinking, or gatorade drinking. Sound fun? If I get soft, I may install a couple of bunny trails for the faint of heart..............NOT!!!" Every year holds many surprises!!!

We will have a donation jar set up to help our club put on more great events like this and we encourage you to donate only what you can afford.

Here are some comments about the Barkley Book Fair

Oh I am ever so hopeful that the Barkley Book Fair returns to Tulsa this year! We did have a most splendid time last July with all the running, and falling, and sweating, and dirt, and snakes, and the oh-so-colorful language! I’m positively giddy in anticipation!

In order to properly train I’ve been:

•Reading more books

• Taking seconds for dessert in order to carb-load

• Wearing extra thick socks on alternating Tuesdays in order to help build up my leg strength. It’s amazing how much extra weight those socks add. Tough but worth it!

• Looking in the mirror each Saturday morning and thinking many “Running” thoughts.

• Having my trail running shoes detailed every other week, but never taking them outside when it’s too cold, to hot, too wet, too dry or in any other weather conditions which might cause them too look less than pristine.

I have also been paying very close attention to books in the used book stores I frequent so that I can easily spot a book at any time. Even if I’m not looking for one! I bet this year the Book Fair will be the most ghee whiz terrific one of them all!
_________________
Mike
If you're looking up, you're going down.
If you're looking down, you're getting lost...

2006 Barkley Book Fair Results

.............................DayRun................................................................Night Run............................

Place	Name	Time
1st	Alex Eaton	42:25
2nd	Kathy Sager	46:30
3rd	Lisa Wei-Haas	46:31
4th (t)	Kirk Van Vleet	50:30
4th (t)	Parker Farrell	50:30
6th	Brian Hoover	52:40
7th	Mark Plate	55:35
8th (t)	Mike Snyder	1:04:50
8th (t)	Diana Snyder	1:04:50
10th	Sue Mallon	1:34:20
11th	Jeff Henderson	1:34:22

Place	Name	Time
1st	Mike Snyder	1:55:54
2nd	Alex Eaton	1:56:34
3rd (t)	Mandy McCollum	2:53:42
3rd (t)	Mark Plate	2:53:42
5th (t)	Kathy Sager	2:54:02
5th (t)	Brian Hoover	2:54:02

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2006 Barkley Book Fair Report & Pictures

Presented by TATUR and Ken and Dana Childress

July 15th, 2006

Scroll to bottom for Final Results

Some of the Taturs and friends before the start of the Barkley Book Fair Day Race.
L-R (Mark Plate, Kathy Sager, Kirk Van Vleet, Parker Farrell, Whitney Brown, Alex Eaton, Dana Childress, Lisa Wei-Haas)

Wow, what a great time we had at TATUR's first club run. Ken and Dana Childress worked hard buying all the Gatorade, water, beer, ice chests, signs, tables, used books, six high quality California Innovations Insulated Water Bottles and other supplies needed to put on event like this. After marking the Turkey Mountain course, setting out all the paperback books in various locations, and lugging four 25 lb. ice chests all over the mountain in 102° heat, we were ready to get the show on the road. I think setting up the course was almost as much of a workout as running in the races.

The races were set up like this, at 6:30 pm was the "Day Race". During this race the runners were sent off to run one loop during daylight hours and find four books that were left on or near the trail. If you wore bib #36 then you had to rip out page number 36 out of the book. Before and after you collected all four of the pages you had to follow the pink markers back to the start/finish line.The Night Run was set up for more experienced trail runners and was much, much more difficult. The concept was the same except we had to find six books instead of four, there were many more climbs, difficult terrain, run in complete darkness, and surprises in store for the night runners.

Taturs Lounging

The following people showed up for the race: Ken and Dana Childress (RD's and organizers), Mark Plate, Lisa Wei-Haas, Alex Eaton, Larry the Dog, Jeff Henderson, Whitney Brown, Kathy Sager, Brian Hoover, Parker Farrell, Mike and Diana Snyder, Kirk Van Vleet, Sue Mallon, Mandy McCollum, Charlie Willsey, and Robin Almendares.

More Taturs doing what they do best....Lounging!!

While poor Ken was still out on the course putting up the last of the pink (day run) and orange (night run) ribbons and setting out the paperback books, we were lounging in the shade and yakking. Most of us waited till later in the evening to drink beer but Kathy slammed down two and declared she wanted to run! About 6:30 p.m. Ken told me he had everything in place and to send off the runners. With an official "GO" from Brian, we were off.

Alex, Lisa and Kathy set a blistering pace while the rest of were just trying to keep from falling down. Parker Farrell, who none of us knew before the race, happened to be running up at Turkey mountain and was conned into running with us at the last minute. Parker can easily run a 17 minute 5K, but chose to hang back with us mere mortals and run at a leisurely pace. About a mile into the course we came up on, "I Want My Mommy Hill". This monstrosity is only about 120 ft high but it is extremely steep steep and the footing is slick and treacherous. If you fall down on this one, you will tumble long enough to say your ABC's all the way to Z. Luckily none of us was unfortunate enough to recite the alphabet, but I think the majority took full advantage of a nice flat rock near the top to take a load off and catch our breath.

A mild casualty on Turkey Mountains slippery slopes

Alex was still in the lead, followed closely by Lisa then Kathy. Kirk, Parker, Brian and Mark were running together mid-pack, while Mike and Diana followed closely behind. Sue Mallon is an amazing individual who can be talked into any type of running endeavor was sticking with Jeff who brought all of his military training gear. I picked up the backpack, waist belt, canteen, and other apparel and swear it must have weighed close to 60 pounds. Did I mention it was close to 102°.

We soon stumbled onto the first book and tore out the page that corresponded to our bib numbers. We stuck the page into our shorts or fanny packs and headed off to find the remaining three books. Ken had found some great titles for our Book Fair, such as Eight Tales of Horror, Twilight Eyes, Caves in the Dark, and Copperhead. We soon found out that thin paper from old paperback books and copious quantities of sweat make for paper that resembles rice pudding. Ken and Dana had done a fine job marking the course. Most of the course was in the shade but if there was any breeze, the heavy tree cover blocked all of it. It was stifling and it was hot. Did I mention that it was about 102°? The second book was found and we knew we were on the homestretch. The Day Run was estimated to be only four miles but the footing and the sweltering conditions made it seem much longer.

Mark Plate Finds Barkley Book #1

Parker and Kirk, who stars in the movie "White Men Can't Leap" stretched out their lead over Mark and Brian, but otherwise the positions did not change much. We found the other two books and struggled toward the finish. At the finish line we wrote down our times, sat down and enjoyed some cold beverages and told lies for about an hour. We wanted it to be close to dark before we started the night run. Being the dedicated, and well conditioned athletes that we are, we did some serious carb loading between races and was in serious danger of running out of our special carbohydrate rich beer!!! Amanda McCollum, Charlie Willsey, and Robin Almendares showed up and joined the festivities. We tried to talk everyone into running the night loops (eight miles) with us, but only six were crazy enough to embark on such an adventure.

Alex, Mike, Brian, Kathy, Mandy, and Mark all strapped on our headlamps and gathered our flashlights and were ready to face the great unknown in the dark with no moon to be found. Ken had warned us that the night loops would be much harder, longer, and steeper climbs, and contested over more technical terrain. He even said we may run across some surprises. He was right on all accounts.

An eerie light pervades the race day evening

At about 9 p.m. we all set out and quickly broke off into two groups. Mike and Alex flew out of the starting area and kept up that pace for the rest the race. Kathy, Brian Mark and Mandy ran together and enjoyed the cooling temperatures. Running in the dark is...well......it's interesting. First you have to pause at every intersection and Y to peep and shine your lights down each path in an attempt to find the orange flagging that indicates which path to take. It is a great excuse to walk. Sometimes we would spot the orange blaze immediately, other times we would have to walk fifty feet before we would spot it.

We all had different lights. Some of us had expensive headlamps, some had powerful flashlights, and some of us, namely Mark, ran with a $5 regular ole' flashlight with a single incandescent bulb.It was amazing how well Mark navigated with such little light. No matter what type of lighting was used we all stumbled many times but surprisingly none of us fell.

The night sounds in the wilderness are strange and diverse. We heard frogs that sounded like hillbillies on crack! We heard cicadas that cackled louder than my ex in-laws. Once, from a mile away, we even heard Alex and Mike arguing over what toilet paper provided the most padding and quilting. The darkness is soothing but at the same time can get frightening. Turkey Mountain is a small area, square mileage wise, but has hundreds of trail that branch off in every direction and never continues in one heading for long. It is a spider web of trails and it is very easy to get turned around. I think we all were following the same strategy, if we were going to get lost we wanted to be lost with someone else.

Sue Mallon finds some snakes

Whereas in the Day Run we had to run up "I Want My Mommy Hill" We had to descend it on the Night Run. Slowly we inched our way down. Ken had many more hidden adventure for us to stumble upon. After navigating down the treacherous hill, we ran on easy trails for about a mile.

We were starting to get cocky and thinking that we could pick up the pace and start pounding this course. We were wrong! Next we came upon an almost straight up and down wall that we had to scale. Alex, and Mike had covered almost every trail on Turkey Mountain, but had never discovered this secret area. Ken provided three signs left on the dirt for us to ponder. One said, Bunny Hill, and was an extremely steep but navigable dirt trail that switchbacks a bit up the cliff. The next sign said, Tatur Route, This was a ladder that was made up of about 28 4"x4" round logs that led you to the top. Finally there was one sign that said "Route For the Totally Insane" This was another ladder, but it had only about 15 round logs that were rickety and much steeper than the Tatur route ladder. After tossing our water bottles so that we could use both hands we took the "Insane Route". I later heard that Alex and Mike wimped out and took the Bunny Hill!

The Arkansas River viewed from the Ridge trail on Turkey Mtn.

We had found four of the six books and felt like we had run about ten miles. Actually we had barely covered six miles. We were still a group of four, Kathy Mandy, Mark and myself. After our ladder climb we still wondered what surprises lay in store for us. We did not have to go far before Ken's twisted sense of humor led us down the mountain and onto a railroad track that parallels Turkey Mountain. We still do not know if these tracks are still in use but we ran about a half mile on the railroad ties before we came to some ribbon that we thought would lead us back up the mountain to higher ground. We were very tired, hot, and mentally we were exhausted. It was now 11 p.m. and although we were having fun we were ready for this outing to be over. We followed the orange blazes into the coolest cave that I have seen in a while. We walk into this natural wonder and was greeted by tiki torches, our fifth book, and even better a cooler full of cold beer. Wow!! Talk about our spirits being lifted. We sat down drank our beers and decided we better get up before we got tempted to spend the night in this amazing cave.

Back out into the night we went. Thinking that we had only an easy one mile jaunt left proved to be erroneous. After getting turned around we ended up climbing "I Want My Mommy Hill" again only to find out that we were not supposed to. Now we had to go back down again. Whew!!! We were really starting to fantasize about a cold shower, clean clothes and getting our soaked with sweat shoes off about now. We now were finally on an easily runnable trail now. however Mark's legs were shot, Brian's stamina was gone and Kathy and Mandy were kind enough of walk the last mile with us. We were too tired to talk and around this time the birds cicadas, and frogs even seemed to shut-up for once. We rounded a turn in the trail only to be frightened by the sound of someone yelling, "FART ALERT FART ALERT!! A FART HAS BEEN DETECTED IN THE AREA!" Ken had dust taped this round plastic battery operated device to a tree that had a motion detector that screamed "FART ALERT" when someone passed by. We laughed for a good minute on that one!

This damn thing scared the crap out of us!!!!

The homestretch was upon us. We could hear voices laughing and we knew we were near the start/finish. Suddenly out from the bushes sprang Alex and Mike trying to scare us. Kathy had seen Larry the Dog and knew what was going on. However I had no idea that the large snake that was warming himself on a rock was a cheap gag gift, planted by Ken and Dana. Several people said that I screamed like a twelve year old girl. I maintain that I sounded like I was at least 15.

After the race we sat down drank beer, relaxed, let everyone else smell our unsheathed feet. Mike Snyder edged out Alex Eaton for the Night Race Title. Both of these guys have some serious talent. Sue, Alex, Whitney, Larry the Dog. Mike, Diana, Mark, Mandy, Ken, Dana, Kathy and myself lounged till a sheriff drove up and informed us that we were breaking park curfew and that we needed to pack it up.

We left with a feeling that we had experienced something special. Ken and Dana really went all out putting on this event and we hope to not only repeat it for next year but to grow it and let other people in on this wonderful adventure. If anyone wants to help, Ken and Dana spent a good chunk of change putting this event together. It would be nice help them out with some spare change. I had meant to set up a donation bucket but it got lost in the shuffle.

I hope everyone had a good time. If you did not make it to this event we hope you could make it to the next one. Special thanks go out to Charlie, Robin, and Whitney who did not participate in the races but still came out to lend some moral support.

L-R (Back row, Jeff Henderson, Sue Mallon, Dana Childress, Diana Snyder, Mike Snyder, Alex Eaton, Whitney Brown, Ken Childress, Robin Almendares, Mark Plate, Kathy Sager, Kirk Van Vleet. (Kneeling, Brian Hoover)

Thank you all, results at the bottom of this page

Brian Hoover

Disclaimer:

All writing is meant solely as a source of fiction. please do not take this as an accurate account of the events that happened. I was slightly delirious and drunk after the running of this race.

Day Race

Place	Name	Time
1st	Alex Eaton	42:25
2nd	Kathy Sager	46:30
3rd	Lisa Wei-Haas	46:31
4th (t)	Kirk Van Vleet	50:30
4th (t)	Parker Farrell	50:30
6th	Brian Hoover	52:40
7th	Mark Plate	55:35
8th (t)	Mike Snyder	1:04:50
8th (t)	Diana Snyder	1:04:50
10th	Sue Mallon	1:34:20
11th	Jeff Henderson	1:34:22

Place	Name	Time
1st	Mike Snyder	1:55:54
2nd	Alex Eaton	1:56:34
3rd (t)	Mandy McCollum	2:53:42
3rd (t)	Mark Plate	2:53:42
5th (t)	Kathy Sager	2:54:02
5th (t)	Brian Hoover	2:54:02

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Night Race