Zoom zoom

With an extra hour's sleep I was raring to run this morning. The race team reverted back to its usual men-dominant crowd with only Wendy and one other gal among eight guys. In official business at the pre-run meeting, Jack clarified that he is now director of recruitment for the Sunday bunch, since he answers all the e-mails that come in to the Orlando Runners Club site. He also announced Chris is director of membership retention. With titles being tossed around Ed decided he wanted director of entertainment. He mentioned having a party at his place this fall for all of us. I figured since I write about us on the blog I would be the secretary of blogging.

From the get-go of running I was at the front and pushing hard with Seth, John and Juergen. The overcast skies and 60s temps were very conducive. John was new and prepping for his first marathon (Disney). I gave him my take on the virtues of starting in the last corral. Seth waxed on about how to enjoy the runs and not get all tangled up in breaking any records.

At the four mile fluid stop we waited for the rest of the pack and I was summarily scolded by Jack for my blog explanation of last week's violation of the No Walk Zone. Apparently Jack had composed a ribald comment but managed to lose it without posting so he gave the verbal version to all assembled. What to make of it all? Well we walked through the No Run Zone today if that gives any indication.

We stopped again at the 5-mile water cooler in front of Seth's house. It was at that point that Cherlene appeared, running with the big boys, a/k/a fasties. I hadn't seen her in months so I jumped in to visit with her and run the next two miles at an 8:30-9:00 pace which took my breath away but not my legs. I kept up.

Near my house we all stopped for fluids again and my starter pack caught up to us. I let the big boys and Cherlene go on and ran with Juergen, Chris, John and Ed for the rest of the 10-mile route. I caught up on Ed's latest shenanigans in the bus transport business. Chris proved to have gone to remedial geography class last week as he was correctly able to place Bridgeport in Connecticut, not New Jersey today.

Juergen, who had never run more than seven miles (maybe a little more) was on his first ten miler and he had plenty of gas to push a pace and finish fresh. It annoyed me that every little uphill was his time to do a sprint. I hope he surprised himself. I knew he could run more miles.

My time was 1:37, a nice 9:30 pace.

Exotic cars. After the run I changed into some clean clothes and walked up the avenue. There was the annual exotic car show going on today. I recall writing about it once before. I stopped in to the Briar Patch to have breakfast. No. 1 son is now a server there and learning the ropes of that glorious business. He switched from car sales and you can probably guess why. No. 2 son showed up too and we had breakfast and left a big tip.

Then #2 son gave me the seminal tour of the cars on the street. He is very familiar with the specialty car world - which I would call one of my weak "man" suits - and so now I am marginally more informed. Hopefully there is not a quiz.