Know Your Enemy

Back tracking slightly I had to nix Sundays planned 14 mile long run,to use a cricket analogy "rain stopped play".
Don't get it twisted I'm not the type to shy away from running in the rain......I am English afterall.......however  the words long run and freezing rain tend NOT to fit well in a sentence period muchless the week of a race,so I had to settle for a 5 day 26 mile week #heyho

So onto this week,having wrestled w/ several options to accomodate Saturdays Hartshorne Memorial Masters Mile I came up w/  4 times 9 miles plus the warm up,race.cool down for 4 miles and a 5 day 40mpw.....albeit at the expense of a repeat session.....a decision I did not take lightly but between calls for possible snow Wednesday into Thursday it could be another week I get screwed over by the weather to begin w/,on top the fact I  will probably need ALL my fast twitch muscles for Saturdays race!
While speaking to race organiser Tom Hartshorne via email yesterday he mentioned the following names had signed up for Saturdays M50 race:Paul Osland,Bill Zink,Mike Nier,Bill Bonthius,Joe Mora and Mike Mooney.
Obviously the two names that jump off that list are Paul Osland and Bill Zink while Mike Nier,Bill Bonthius,Joe Mora and Mike Mooney all provide an X factor as I know very little about them..

Easy 9 miler out and back along the Schuylkill Bank and Kelly Drive out towards Columbia Bridge,42 degrees and daylight till about 5.15pm by which time I was closing in on South St bridge on the inbound leg of the run.
It goes w/out saying I'm already mentally running Saturdays race over and over in my mind,while it's early in the season and names and reputations may not be as pronounced as say the summer the fact is if I have any designs of ending a six year drought at Barton Hall and finally winning a Hartshorne Memorial Masters Mile I may well have to dig deeper than I was prepared at this early stage of the new season to make that happen.....not the worst thing in the world when the bigger picture includes Worlds in Lyon in August truth be told but I wasn't expecting to potentially having to dig this deep this early into my season......time to bandy about that well worn Nietzsche quote....."what doesn't kill me make me stronger" note to self pack "big boy pants" when getting my running bag together Thursday nite............