I will tell you about the race itself in another blog. I want to talk about the night before.

It is not at all unusual for me to not sleep well the night before the a race. Lat night was not much different. I didn't get to sleep until after 12:30. Everything was laid out and ready to go. the alarm was set for 6:00, but I was still not sleeping. I wanted to be at the venue by one hour before the gun. And that was going to work.

About that gun thing. every race I have been to has started with a horn. Not in Tulsa. The sheriff is at the start line with a shotgun. Welcome to Oklahoma, I suppose.

Anyway, back to the night before. I had a weird dream.

As a preface, I used to work for a government agency that required Top Secret clearances. Full lifestyle investigation, polygraph, etc. But that was about 20 years ago.

That didn't matter. A squirrel, I shall call him The Squirrel, somehow got to me and was demanding National Secrets. Yes, the Squirrel was an arboreal rodent. And he also had a US Senator and a Medal of Honor winner in his control.

I refused to cooperate with the Squirrel. So he tapped on the sliding glass door (which we don't have) which looks out on to the lake (don't have one of those either) and turned tail and ran down to the water. He jumped in and swam over to a mother duck and took out two of her ducklings. He brought them up and dropped them at my door, showing me his bloody mouth.

His meaning was clear. If I didn't cooperate, my family was at risk.

I went into work and got my boss and the security officer to come with me into the secure area. No signals in or out. Seriously sound proofed. I started to tell them I had a serious problem with a possible security breach that I was required to report. I began to tell my story and as soon as I got to the name, the Squirrel, they stopped me dead.

"Whatever you have to say, put it in writing," clearly they were aware of the Squirrel, "there are mice in here and if they will hear you and they will tell the him and your life will be in jeopardy."

I woke up at 5:00. Holy crap! How are we ever going to stop the Squirrel? It took me a little while to realize what a hilarious dream it was and to just get up and start my race day.

Beware the Squirrel.