It's Snow Joke

So for the fourth time in six years I made the journey up to Ithaca for the Hartshorne Memorial Masters Mile,and for the third time in four races I made it to the podium......seriously I should invest in an "I Love Ithaca" t shirt!!!!
Kudos to my team mate and friend Sean Harbison for the ride up and back it would've been a much harder trip to undertake w/out him but I think I made a convert out of him that he'll want to go back next year and become a regular here.

I figured something was up when I couldn't find a starting line for any of the elite races all week,in fact I didn't know who my competition was until yesterday morning......and even then that took a twist......but I'm getting ahead of myself!!
As is Hartshorne tradition Friday nite is dinner at Antlers,I missed out on that on my last trip it's always fun to sit and brake bread w/ our wonderful host Tom Hartshorne and relax b4 the race,I had the pleasure of sitting w/ Pete Taylor,Conor O Driscoll,Tom Cawley,Fred Robbins,Bill Zink and Dave Hoch and enjoy some good grub and some light hearted conversation,there would be plenty of time for "game face" come race day.

I was awoken at 5.35am by the sound of a snow plough outside my window,would it be Ithaca w/out snow in January??
After a lite breakfast it was back to my room to kill a little time b4 the short drive over to Barton Hall,I'm big on omens{no Damien jokes please!!} so when I was flicking through the tv channels and stumbled upon VH1's Top Twenty Countdown and caught the video for "Shake It Out" by Florence & The Machine it was hard not to feel this was going to be a good day for yours truly!!!
Arriving at Barton Hall to check in I discovered the elite M40 race only had 6 entries,myself,Kent Lemme,Charlie Kern,Mike Egle,Dave Cannon and Javier Martinez.

As a rule the elite M40 gets at least 9 entries but several would be runners were unable to make it this year,in fact Mike Egle and Dave Cannon dropped down from the elite m50 race to swell the numbers.
Out of the 6 of us I felt third was doable Charlie was defending champ and Kent Lemme is a solid runner,Javier Martinez was a dark horse as I knew nothing about him.....but I knew plenty about Dave Cannon to know he could not be overlooked and Mike Egle won this event in 2004 so he couldn't be overlooked either.........

News broke that Charlie was enduring the travel day from hell and had missed his connecting flight from Philly due to his plane from Chicago taking off an hour and 40 mins late and when he arrived at the gate in Philly w/ 5 mins to spare he was told his seat on the plane had been sold!!!!
Remarkably Charlie continued his journey to Ithaca the plan was to allow him to run in the open mile in the college meet that follows the Hartshorne Miles and take his time from that and patch it into the elite m40 race.....and subsequently Mike Egle's time in the m40 race would count towards the m50 race.......there's a rather amusing anecdote to all this bare w/ me!!.

So now I knew in order to make the podium I had to finish 2nd in the actual race to clam third it meant throwing the original race plan out the window but in running as is in life"always carry a plan B!!!"
From the gun Kent latched onto Scott Weeks the rabbit I tucked in between Mike Egle and Dave Cannon and came thro 200m in 35 seconds,down the back straight b4 the turn I passed Mike Egle for 2nd and came through 400m in 69 seconds a 34 second split....after that I forget my splits maybe when I see the dvd of the race I'll be able to get a few more.
W/ hindsight I wish I'd gone w/ Kent and tried to hang on instead I played safe and went for the "podium finish" as it was I wound up 7 seconds behind Kent but 6 seconds ahead of Mike at the end of the day I'd finished 2nd a far cry from where I thought I'd wind up a week earlier.

Post race it was off to the Ithaca Country Club for the awards banquet another Hartshorne Memorial Masters Mile tradition.
It's always fun to watch the dvd of the days races as the runners get to relive them,arguably the best finish of the day was Conor O Driscoll holding off a late charging Peter Bottomley in the m50 elite.
And so to the awards as I said I've been fortunate enough to have made the podium three times in four races,2nd in 07,3rd in 09 and technically 2nd today in the race but third in the awards.
It's always an honour to be asked to say a few words when picking up my award and I'm always on my best behaviour when at the microphone,I couldn't resist a Ricky Gervais Golden Globes comment{always open w/ a joke!!!} but in seriousness thanked Tom Hartshorne for not only hosting such a wonderful event but also for inviting me back after my woeful 2010 performance and for declining my invite last year in order to run a 5,000m at The Armory 2 nites earlier.

Kent Lemme made a great comment in his speech about winning the race but finishing second while Charlie not to be outdone said he actually finished second in his college mile race but ended up winning the elite m40 title thanks to a 4.28.1. time next to Kent's 4.32.7.
Hopefully I'll be back next year to compete,I may have to wait until my 50's b4 I claim a Hartshorne Memorial Masters Mile victory......somethings are worth waiting for!!!