A Little MSG Never Hurts.....

Nice easy 8 miler this evening to keep me on schedule for the week,tomorrow will be a rest day as it's also my travel day to Ithaca for this weekends Hartshorne Memorial Masters Mile,I'll bring you all up to speed on that Sunday.
While I try never to look beyond the race in front of me it's be remiss of me not to mention next Saturday as yours truly once again gets to tread the boards of Madison Square Garden.

For those not familiar w/ my love affair w/ Madison Square Garden here's a quick refresher course,my track career began in the summer of 1976 as a freshman in high school later that summer I watched my first Olympics the 76 games from Montreal where I saw Eamonn Coghlan run for the first time in the 1,500m from then on I followed his career w/ a fervered passion and saw many of his races at Madison Square Garden in the Wannamaker Mile courtesy of ITV's "World Of Sport" on Saturday afternoons and dreamt of one day also running at MSG.......

Fast forwarding 30 years in January of 2006 I did run on those famed boards even though it wasn't a race my club GPTC had just missed the cut for the masters 4x400m relay but made the short trip from Philly to NYC on the off chance one of the 6 teams failed to show and we could replace them it wasn't to be but I did get to run a few laps on those hallowed boards......
There was a sense of "unfinished business" w/ the Millrose Games and 2 years later we finally made the cut of the 6 teams lucky enough to compete.....however I suffered a stress fracture on my left foot in December and would be in a cast for three weeks,there was no way I could run now???????
After convincing my team mates I'd be ready I did anchor the team only to have bronze snatched away from us coming off the final turn as a lack of conditioning proved to be my undoing.

4th again in 09 it was looking like a Millrose Games medal was not in my future and when I failed to make the 2010 team it looked like that dream was over......a lack of entries that year meant Greater Philly Track Club fielding two teams and while the A team won the gold I anchored the B team to a bronze,not only had I lived the dream of running at Madison Square Garden in the Millrose Games but I also had a Millrose Games medal in my collection,I could close the chapter on that book.
In recent years the Millrose Games has declined in it's once proud popularity so when the decision was made last summer to move the Millrose Games from MSG to The Armory it seemed like that was it I had 4 races there between 08-11 and one medal I had little to complain about.

In November it was announced that the USATF would be hosting a meet at Madison Square Garden in January called the US Open at the time details were slow in regards what events would be held,I knew a masters mile would be too much to hope for and when it was tentatively announced there would be a relay I figured that was that........
Out of left field on Tuesday the club received an invitation to compete in the Sprint Medley Relay next Saturday,I jumped at the opportunity to run on that track again and threw my bandanna into the ring for consideration.
As of today we're entered myself Nick D,Bruce and Lamar will contest this seldom ran relay after Hartshorne I can start to focus on it but once again yours truly is heading to the bright lights of Broadway