INDIANAPOLIS - A new single race selection format will be used to select the men's and women's open USA Mountain Running Team this weekend at the USA Mountain Running Championships. Six men and four women will be selected at the championships, hosted by the Mt. Washington Road Race on Saturday, June 19, starting at 10:00 a.m.
Among the top U.S. competitors on Saturday will be men's and women's defending champions, Coloradoans Rickey Gates of Boulder, and Brandy Erholtz, of Bailey. Gates is only the fifth man ever to break the one-hour barrier on Mt. Washington, having won last year in 59 minutes 58 seconds. Erholtz is looking for her third straight victory and has her sights set on chasing down the women's course record, 1:10:08, set in 1998 by Magdalena Thorsell of Sweden.
Gates, a four-time mountain running team member, will see fierce competition from several contenders, including two-time Mt. Washington champion Eric Blake (New Britain, Conn.), who has also been on the mountain team four times; last weekend's USA Half Marathon Trail champion Max King, (Bend, Ore.); Jeffrey Eggleston, (Flagstaff, Ariz.), who ran a 2:14:32 in his debut marathon this year in Phoenix; and Luke Watson (State College, Pa.), a 2:15 marathoner who is making his mountain running debut. Another newcomer attracting special attention is two-time USA Mountain Running junior team member, 19-year-old Zach Rivers (Victor, N.Y.), who will attempt to break the oldest mark in the Mt. Washington books - the course record for runners 19 and under, 1:09:18, set by Sean Livingston in 1987.
Joining Erholtz in the women's field will be four-time mountain team members Laura Haefeli (Del Norte, Colo.), who finished third at Mt. Washington in 2008 while setting the women's masters course record, and reigning U.S. Mountain Champion Christine Lundy (Sausalito, Calif.); two-time USA Mountain Running team member Megan Kimmel (Silverton, Colo.); Nicole Hunt (Deer Lodge, Mont.), who placed second in her last Mt. Washington appearance (2007 to win the U.S. Championships and earn a spot on the mountain running team); Kristin Price (Raleigh, N.C.), who won the 2009 USA Women's Trail 10 km Championship; and Megan Lund (Basalt, Colo.), the women's course record-holder in the Aspen Mountain Uphill.
The course will run 7.6 miles from the base of the Auto Road with an unrelenting 12 percent grade to the 6,288-foot summit of Mount Washington, the highest peak in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
The 2010 U.S. Mountain Running Team will travel to Kamnik, Slovenia, to compete in the 26th World Mountain Running Championships on Sunday, September 5.
For more information on the 2010 USA Mountain Running Championships visit www.usatf.org.
About USA Track & Field
USA Track & Field (USATF) is the National Governing Body for track and field, long-distance running and race walking in the United States. USATF encompasses the world's oldest organized sports, some of the most-watched events of Olympic broadcasts, the #1 high school and junior high school participatory sport and more than 30 million adult runners in the United States.
For more information on USATF, visit www.usatf.org
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