Mountain Washington’s 50th Offers Upped Prize $$$

50th Mt. Washington Road Race
Mt.
Washington Auto Road
June 19, 2010 ‰ÛÓ 10 a.m.

 

Northeast Delta Dental doubles top
prizes for the Run to the Clouds

·         50th
Mt. Washington race will recognize more individual performances

May 12, 2010 — Pinkham Notch, N.H.

As the
Mt. Washington Auto Road celebrates the 50th running of the
Mt. Washington Road Race, the event’s major sponsor, Northeast
Delta Dental, has doubled the prizes for the top male and female
finishers. This year, the men’s and women’s winners will each receive a
check for $2000, while each runner-up will win $1000 ‰ÛÓ the same amount
that in previous years has been the winner’s share. 

Preparing
to celebrate its own 50th anniversary, Northeast Delta
Dental will also award cash prizes to the rest of the top ten men and
women to cross the line at the 6288-foot Mt. Washington summit. The
third male and female finishers will win $800, while fourth through
tenth place prizes will be $700-$600-$500-$400-$300-$200-$100. Before
this year, cash prizes were awarded to the top five men and women.

Northeast
Delta Dental President & CEO Tom Raffio comments in this month’s New England Runner magazine, “With our sponsorship of Mt.
Washington we realized a great opportunity to support and reward an
active, vibrant cross-section of the community that’s extremely
interested in preserving an active lifestyle through proper health
maintenance.” Raffio himself will run the race this year.

With
the help of associate sponsors La Sportiva, makers of
high-performance trail and mountain running shoes, and New England
Runner magazine, the race also offers bonuses for course records: $5000
to anyone setting a new men’s or women’s course record, and $2000 to any
man or woman who breaks the existing masters record (age 40 or older).  The current course records:

Men’s open record: 56:41.0, set by
Jonathan Wyatt of New Zealand in 2004.
Women’s
open record: 1:10:08.2, set by Magdalena Thorsell of Sweden in 1998.
Men’s
masters record: 1:01:33.7, set by Simon Gutierrez of Colorado in 2008.
Women’s
masters record: 1:13:33.6, set by Laura Haefeli of Colorado in 2008.

The
race also awards $500 bonus to any man who runs the 7.6-mile all-uphill
course in under one hour without breaking Wyatt’s record, and to any
woman who runs faster than 72 minutes without breaking Thorsell’s.

The
regular masters prizes are $300 apiece for the men’s and women’s
masters, with $200 and $100 for second and third place. These cash
prizes are awarded on the basis of finishing times adjusted by the World
Association of Veteran Athletes (WAVA) handicapping system.  Thus, for example, a runner 51 years old might have a
time a few seconds slower than a runner who is 44, yet place ahead of
the younger runner in the prize structure.

Other
prizes include $100 apiece to the first male and female finishers from
New Hampshire and special prizes of $500, $250 and $100 to men’s or
women’s open, masters and seniors (over age 50) teams if they break the
existing team records. 

This
year’s race will also serve as the USA Mountain Running
Championships, marking the fourth time USATF has selected the Mt.
Washington race as a national championship event.  The
top six American male and top four American female finishers will
become members of the U.S. Mountain Running Team, which will compete in
the World Mountain Running Championships later this year. To qualify for the team, Americans must be members of USA Track
and Field.

The
2010 Mt. Washington Road Race will take place on Saturday, June 19.
Starting time is 10 a.m.

For New England
Runner: www.nerunner.com     For
La Sportiva: www.sportiva.com.

For
other information about the race, visit www.mountwashingtonroadrace.com.