What's happening?

Winter struck this morning. It was 38F outside when I went for the paper. It didn't top 60 all day. The heat kicked on too. Cry me a river.

On the flip side of the torrential front that brought the cold snap through Saturday night I ran 17 miles earlier that morning with my new running friends C. and A. who work in the district office. They are both working their way up to longer distance races. C has only done halfs while A did one marathon and swore she'd never do it again. We'll see.

Their plan was to only do 13. As I said, mine was 17, so I drove over and parked at the midpoint of the Cady Way trail which is 6.5 miles from end to end. I headed towards the trail head where the girls parked expecting to meet them at mile 1.5 or 2.0. C. was late so I got as far as the .75 marker before they appeared. Both were still fresh and running at a strong pace. I asked if they planned to do that all morning - in the 75F sweltering heat - because it was going to be a short run if that was the case (we started at 8 a.m.).

I slowed them down a little and we fell into a groove. The girls had music playing in their ear buds but with the heat I wasn't too worried about conversation. I did develop an interest in A's stories about running the "Bacon Strip" in Gainesville, FL, a renowned running route with elevations that resemble a strip of frying bacon. They're both training for a half marathon up there the week before my A1A Marathon.

When we got to my car at the mid-point I stripped off my shirt. It was that hot.

C. had arranged for another friend to leave two water bottles at the far end of the trail which we shared. Likewise, I shared some of my Clif Blok Shots which neither C nor A had ever tried before. This morning C came by my office and left me a whole new bag of Bloks to thank me. She had gone right out Saturday afternoon and bought a few bags; she liked them that much.

On the way back to the other head of the trail we stopped at every water fountain and again at my car where I served up some ice cold Gatorade. Notice how much of this report is about drinking? It was god-awful hot.

We sloshed along back where we met up at the .75 pole, the point I had figured I needed to reach before turning around to drag my carcass back to the car. C and A went on their way. I admit I did a lot of pathetic walking over the last three miles. I was ashamed. I blame the girls for going out too fast. Yeah, that's my story.

... but I enjoyed some new young running friends who may take me up on an offer to run the Sunday morning 10-mile Winter Park route sometime soon.