Hard core runners show up

There were fleeting promises of showing up to run this morning by many among the Sunday Orlando Runners Club crowd; after yesterday's taxing signature half marathon for Central Florida.

I rolled onto Park Avenue at 6:56. Jurgen was there. He didn't race. Seth showed up. He hosted the ORC Christmas party the night before so he kinda had to show up. Chris showed up. Brian Jaeger, "Central Florida's greatest high school distance runner" showed up for the first time. End of show ups.

We immediately ushered Brian over to Kim B., who (a) is much faster than us and (b) is our default relief valve for too-fast runners who show up to run with Jack and friends. That left me, Seth, Jurgen and Chris to be the hard core Sunday runners bunch.

We presume John was still coping with race soreness he had never experienced before, especially in light of his inaugural 1:51 premier run. We presume Jack was en route to New York or LA for his Leno appearance (where do they shoot that show?); for winning his age group (70-74) yesterday and beating the mayor, 24 years his junior by 10 minutes.

Christy - ah Christy, the erstwhile NYC Marathon legend - is on short term medical leave, we hear, and is expected back next weekend. Ed must be licking his 10-mile wall wounds. Summer, Adrian, Bob and others were not hard core enough to be out after the half to run again this morning.

Run, is a loosely applied term in this case. We were moving forward and that's about as good as we will allow. Chris turned home after the 4-mile stop, lamenting that there weren't the same amenities on the race course (cool your heals and chat stops every four miles). Seth turned in when we got to his house around mile 5. He is running somewhere in Hawaii next weekend so he gets top props for hard core status. Both did warm up miles running to Park Ave. at 7:00 a.m.

Jurgen and I turned at Seth's house too, making a bee-line back to Park Avenue. For me it would be a 7-mile jaunt at 10:15 pace. For fresh-legged Jurgen, I gave him the challenge to do a chase run from Seth's house back to the Avenue. When I turned right he turned left and had an extra block to navigate before being on my heels again. Within two miles he caught me.

My seven miles restored weekly mileage to the 20 miles or more plateau. Now that the half is over I need to plot a new training plan. But for what? The Pig isn't until May. Gasparilla is March 1. I'll have to play with it to see if I am training for the 15K, half or full.