A Friday night meet, especially this late in the season, can have its drawbacks, as well as its advantages. No doubt having the entire weekend to train--or rest, as the case may be--just prior to the various conference championships will win its share of supporters (explaining why this was one of two such events in the Orlando area alone). It might be considered the last regular season workout, both for varsity and non-varsity athletes, so times would be weighed more as a level of preparation for the championship “season,” than strictly as a performance.

       Spruce Creek is a full-service school.  For the two buck entry, you not only get to watch the meet dujour, but also audit both football and baseball practice, listen to the marching band, and observe The Gator 4X2 dirt track races. It was all so entertaining--and distracting--that if you didn't pay attention to where you were standing (and what you were watching), it could easily become an interactive experience: "Ralph, move! You're standing in the middle of the finish line!" 

       The campus of Seminole State College was as dark as death. Because of the torrid temperatures of the unseasonable, un-autumn-like weather, and the start of Daylight Standard Time still several weeks away, the participants of the Hagerty Invitational were caught between the clock and a hot place.  So the runners were forced to wait, camped out on tarps; trapped in the tenebrous moment, while dawn seemed to take its own celestial time to arrive.  When the first streams of slanting sunlight finally streaked through the trees, a movement of the multitude signaled that the meet was about to commence.

A description of the course had the generality of a quarterback calling a play in a seaside touch football game: “Go long to the right, turn around, go past the line, then deep to the left, turn around and come back.  Finish up where you started and I’ll hit you with a finish time.”  Unfortunately, when Kristin Hanson, who ran the first pattern—I mean race—didn’t get back from the first 1.1 mile until something like 9:30, there was some grumbling in the boys’ huddle.

When did it suddenly become an X?  I finally got used to its being called a (lower case, no space) flrunners.com Invitational. Although, I will be the first to admit that adding the X holds great promise. Look what it did for the NFL.

Some like it hot. For the rest of the 600, the short, flat turf seemed like a grass-green layer of metal, re-radiating the early morning, early fall sunlight like one huge parabolic reflector. No sooner had the blood-red sun risen above the distant trees than it melted through the ground-hugging fog and turned Sperling Sports Complex into a giant solarium.

Having never covered the meet, I have to admit the name--Astronaut Classic--had my mind working overtime.  Would there be a bunch of our rocket men toeing the starting line?  No actual astronauts, but I did find a large meet of 37 teams added up to 216 Varsity Boys, 230 Varsity Girls, 262 JV Boys, 226 JV Girls, and four really wide starting lines. 

Meet Summary Article |  Photo Album (172 Photos)  |  Coverage & Results

 With 35 different high school track meets to choose from, the weekend of March 18 to 21 shuffled the deck better than a dealer in Vegas, and when Deltona was done, Deland carried away all the chips.  

It was choice day in Mr. B’s gym class. You could either run a 5K (3.1 miles), or a 5K + 10 (half marathon).  The vote was pretty much split down the middle, which made for an interesting first mile and a half. Of course, the big question on everyone‘s mind was “Who’s running which one?”  Because all runners look pretty much the same from the rear, it wasn’t until the 5K turnaround that the front runners were able to determine which race they were actually winning. 

In a field top-heavy with some of the area’s best young male runners, and including a large turnout of elementary-aged female runners (aka, Girls on the Run), Embry Riddle’s Stuart Patterson emerged first.

You’ve trained hard, had pasta for dinner the night before, drunk lots of milk and gone to bed at 9:00 reminiscing about your recent, random acts of kindness. This race is your reward. With racing flats that seem to have sprouted little wings, you’re way out in front of 699 other runners, including a few that certainly had you worried on the starting line. Flying past the mile in 5:25, you even lengthen your commanding lead by the (mile and a half) turnaround and like the prodigal son, start your journey home--to the finish line, your family and friends, the applause, the overall trophy, and some well-deserved turkey. You imagine yourself on the bow of the Titanic.

Well, it’s November--that time of year when you pack a change of clothes, pick up a coffee cake from Thelma’s Bakery, and take that long, long drive to visit those distant cousins that you’ve been reading about in Fl-runners. The District of Death meets the District of Distance.  Take Niceville, for example.  Look for it on a map, and you’ll find it in the lower left corner of the page, in a little box, about halfway between the corners of Alabama and Georgia. (One has to wonder how often they cross the state line on their long training runs.) According to available Plate Tectonics models, that part of the panhandle will some day swivel around, roughly parallel to the Chattahoochee, and end up as a suburb of Dothan, Alabama. So how is it that Niceville and DeLand are in the same district, anyway?

Although cross country is a sport that is defined on statistics, it is, nonetheless, one that defies statistical analysis. There is something less subjective, and more mortal, that (pardon the double entendre) runs deeper than the times and trophies. It is the human heart.

Long before Disney, Benjamin Franklin White, the “Dean of Colt Trainers,” drew crowds of tourists to what was once the largest facility of its kind in the United States. Three tracks, a stable complex, and Pearce’s Dining Room formed the nucleus of a 120 acre trotter park that became the winter home for harness racing and their fans from 1946 until 1978.  This winner of four Hamiltonians (harness racing’s highest honor) even managed to parlay a NASCAR Grand National event on the main oval, further showing that he was a man of vision. Although Ben White died in 1958, his spirit still hovers over Orlando Trotters Park and Ledesma Equestrian Center, as is evidenced by the 1100 human athletes who lined up for the start of the six races that made up this year’s Edgewater Invitational. There is, however, no substantiation of the rumor that old Ben is entombed under the finish line.  

You have to take your hat off to John Boyle and Joe Guthrie, co-conspirators in this annual and much appreciated college invitational. Just make sure that the hat you tip is a Stetson, since it is John B’s University that gets the credit for all the hard work that went into this well-planned event.

Home field advantage?  Thats supposed to be true in football, or basketball, but cross country?  Naw.  Well, yeah!  Just ask a smiling coach Stephon Gallon of Spruce Creekbut not until the celebration ends.  At the conclusion of the meet, his ear to ear grin prevented him from conversing much.

Meet Summary | Photo Album | Results

Ralph Epifanio's never dull take on the events as they went down at day one of flrunners.com Invitational 9.

Matt Mizereck won the boys race with a 15:06, with Atkinson and Stanford just behind. In the girls race it was the two freshmen from Chiles, Lily Williams and Carly Thomas with times of 18:12 and 18:31. Ralph Epifanio was there for flrunners.com with this great article and photos.

Race Summary | Photo Album

Followed by their footsteps, outlined in the predawn dew, slow-moving, blanket-shrouded forms began the day by swishing, slow-motion, in sweats and blankets around Sperlings zig-zaggy course. When, finally, they became energized after the slow rise of the autumn sun, they seemed to be transformed into bunches of charged atoms that vibrated in unpredictable paths, barely contained by boundaries of vegetation, fences, and (to some degree) miles of yellow plastic streamers. Finally, at precisely 8:00, they were lined up, motionless, ready to explode.

Another fantastic piece of journalism by Ralph Epifanio!   You can almost feel the enthusiasm of being at the race!

At some point in your life, someone in your family, or someone you know, will need hospice.  That simple statement, made by Ed Springer of Merritt Island, is why on this particular September Sunday hundreds of fast moving feet filled the streets of Port Orange in support of Halifax Hospice.

A race application is a contract between its organizers and the entrant.  As such, when signed and paid for by the runner--or his coach--he is justified in expecting certain things in return.  In the very least, the race should start on time, the course he selects should have been accurately measured and reflect the description advertised, results should be prompt and accurate, and some form of refreshment, such as water and fruit, be provided.

This past weekend I witnessed a race that, for the most part, failed to keep its end of the bargain.  It started late, was--and Im guessing here--somewhere around a quarter of a mile long (.20144, according to a GPS), and the final results not only inconclusive, but delivered rather tardy.  It was a big disappointment.

While cross country courses vary, it is important that meet directors take the extra step to be careful and ensure the course is as accurate as possible.

With Brighthouse Football Stadium standing sentinel like a giant, gleaming, concrete and steel metaphor for the paradox that is the Golden Knights cross country program, the five mens and six womens teams that accepted UCFs invitation to run its Black and Gold Meet toured the undeveloped back lots of the campus.

Tucked in on the north side of Highway 60, just a wee bit south of Plant City, is a tidy rectangle of trees, trails, hills and lakes called Sydney-Dover Trail Park.  Rarely noticed by the tens of thousands of drivers hurrying to and from Tampa (or to the stores that have besieged it), this runners Eden has been adopted by the University of Tampa cross country team for their annual early season event.  It has subsequently been claimed by UT's Jessica Forrester as her own little corner of the universe.

Delandite Mike Mott knew beforehand that he had his work cut out for him in the triathlon portion of the 2nd Annual YMCA Fitfest.  No, it’s not what you’re thinking.  There was nary a discernable temper tantrum among the 131 participants split almost evenly between the 5K and triathlon ( 300 yard pool swim, 12 mile bike and 5K run).
 
Mike’s target was 34 year old Kevin Grogan, of Mineola, Florida.  Grogan is one of those athletes that you don’t want to look in the eye.  He has that serious, determined look that leads you to think, “Okay, so he’s got first, maybe I can pull it all together and finish second.” And his lean, muscular frame backs that up 100%.
 
Grogan did the 300 yard swim in 4:44 (part of which was about a quarter mile jaunt to the bike corral), and followed up with a smooth 18 second transition.  Mott was 20 seconds  back in the swim and nine in transition.  That 29 seconds may not sound like it would make much of a difference, but it did....

Full Story | Photos

It may not have been extensively planned or fancy, but our dedicated road race correspondent Ralph Epifanio finds joy in the simplicity of the Coming Home 5K at Stetson University. This is definitely a good read of reflecting on how things have changed in road racing over the years!