"The windy city is mighty pretty..."

Team A had to get out early this morning because we stay about 30 miles away from our starting point.

We made several new friends along the way.

Michelle, Beaver and Larry, all from Wellston, OK warmly greeted us at one of our roadside layovers.

Team C started their morning by saying "thank-you" to Pat, the manager, and Susan, from the front desk, at the Super 8 hotel in Sapulpa. we met Susan two years ago when the World Harmony Run came through last time, and Pat has been very generous in supporting us for many years with accommodation for the whole team.

Next we went to "Steak and Eggs" diner where we had been invited for breakfast. The owners, Jerry and David Mortizavi, couldn't be there themselves, but State Senator Brian Bingman dropped by as he was finishing his Saturday morning 3-miles. He had heard about the Run from our new friend of yesterday, Karl Ahlgren. Sapulpa seems to have a thriving running community so hopefully next time some of the local residents, including Senator Bingman, will join us for a mile or few.

Today Team B started running in Wellston, OK heading west toward Edmond, a municipality that is now pretty much part of Oklahoma City urban sprawl. The first part of our section of the run was rolling hills and farmland. It was a beautiful morning, sunny for the first time in what seems like a week.

At the Edmond City limit we met Tim Taft, President of the Edmond Running Club, who had already run 3 miles to meet us. Tim promptly turned around and ran another 3 miles back into Edmond.

Tim’s son Caleb also ran with us into the awards ceremony of a Youth Triathlon organized by Chris Berry, Sports Director, of the Edmond YMCA that happened to be finishing just in time as we arrived.

We gave a very brief introduction about the run...

... and invited these young athletes to come and hold the torch after they had received their awards.

We then continued on another 5 miles accompanied by Tim who was invaluable in providing local knowledge and kept us on the right roads. Thank vey much Tim and family for your encouragement and participation.

Senator Bingman also recommended one or two sites of interest along this stretch of Route 66 - often referred to as the Mother Road. Later on in the day we stopped for gas, and realised that we were at one of them - Pops.

This was a great experience for our overseas team members - a classic American diner which is famous for its milkshakes.

A big thank-you to general manager Tabitha Hayden for treating us!

Our afternoon running proved Oklahoma City to live up to its reputation as "the windy city". To run 2 miles uphill into such a strong headwind is really something (especially after a great big milkshake...).

The wind was so strong that all of us felt at times we were bieng blown backwards as much as we were moving forwards. It was quite tricky to keep the torch alight - I found the best thing was to hold it higher up the handle than usual and tilt it backwards slightly so that the rim of the torch head could shelter the flame from the wind a bit.

Nevertheless, the sky was beautiful and the scenery inspiring, and adversity always generates a good team spirit.

So although the wind slowed us down considerably so that it took us longer to run our miles, we still had a good experience running today.

After running comes eating of course, and the staff of the pizza take-away got really enthusiastic about our run and all came out to hold the torch and have a photo taken.

This evening we were offered complementary meals by Mike, the General Manager at Chilli’s Restaurant in Oklahoma City. Lisa, the night Manager welcomed us along with some of her very kind and friendly staff.

Courtney, our waitress, served the delicious food quickly and with a smile. She seemed quite enthused about our event as were other employees there.

Three different hotels offered us rooms tonight. My team stayed in the Best Western Broadway Inn & Suites...

The women stayed at the Crowne Plaza Hotel...

...and the other guys at the Hampton Inn Northwest. Thank you so much to you all for being so generous and providing a much needed rest!

– Arpan, Salil and Kokila

Distance: 100 miles

Team Members:
Arpan DeAngelo (New York), Atulya Lee Berube (San Diego), Mark Collinson (England), Kshetragna Ulanova (Russia), Surya Smolennikova (Russia), Vladimir Salnicov (Moldova), Kokila Chamberlin (England), Salil Wilson (Australia), Vajra Henderson (New York), Drsalu Gruenstaeudl (Austria), Becky Xerri (Wales), Maria Manecke (Germany)

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