TORONTO - Keystone Heights High School's best ever track and cross country guy, now arguably best ever out of Clay County, Enoch Nadler, put another gigantic notch on his Olympic dream belt with a scintillating ninth place overall; top American finish, at the Toronto Marathon on Sun., Oct. 20.

Nadler's time, a two hour, 13.04 second split, put Nadler at the finish line in ninth place with the winner, Kenya's Chelismo Rono in at 2:05.00, but more importantly, set up Nadler in his training to visit Atlanta in February with a shot at a top three spot at the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon in Atlanta on February 29. Rono was sixth at the April Boston Marathon in 2:08.57 where Nadler finished 22nd in 2:17.06.

"For sure, this race has me pumped up for the Trials," said an elated Nadler by phone in Toronto. "I ran the latter part of this race in a negative split and by myself most of the waynoch ."

The race, which featured nearly 5,000 runners and had the top four finishing times in the mens' race, all non-Americans; Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya; all under 2:06, ever run on Canadian soil, was the final racing segment of Nadler's training for the Trials race.

"I kind of have to trust that running slightly under marathon race pace in the Florida heat and humidity is going to give me an advantage on a course not in Florida," said Nadler, now 34. "This course was fairly flat, had cool weather and a fast pace of frontrunners. The pacer was set to go 1:06 for the first half, but he fell off the pace a bit and I had to make a decision."

As he does in most of his training in Gainesville, where he coaches the Florida Track Club Elite Racing team that has flourished into one of the more dynamic and competitive set of racers of all ages, Nadler has put together weeks of long runs and speed work in the Florida heat and, most times, by himself and maybe his wife, Angela, on her bike with him.

"We both know that the miles have to be put in and she's my inspiration," said Nadler. "Those miles are important physically and sometime more mentally because it's such a grind. I think if I have someone on my shoulder at the Trials, I can get to that 2:10-2:11."

For Nadler, the buildup to February is to stay healthy, continue the miles and fine tune the machine for a fast Trials race.

"Past winners have not been much faster than 2:10-2:11 and this race was my test to see if that was a possibility," said Nadler, who noted his 2:13 put him in the top 30 of American marathoners.. "We are there. Now, it's just a matter of getting to the start line in Atlanta in the best possible shape and mental toughness."

Nadler's splits in Toronto were 31:31 for 10K, 1:06.48 for 13.1, 1:34.33 for 30K and 2:13.04 for finish.