Livingston Top Rhode Islander at Mt. Washington Race
10:17 PM Mon, Jun 19, 2006 | Permalink
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Barrington's Sean Livingston led a contingent of more than 50 Rhode Islanders at last Saturday's Mt. Washington Road Race at Pinkham Notch, N.H. The 37-year-old placed 19th overall and second in his age group with a time of 1:10:56. Click here to see a list of the other local finishers, along with a report from the Mt. Washington Road Race organizers about Eric Blake and Anna Pichrtova's overall victories at the 46th annual race to the highest peak in the northeastern United States. The organizers of the Mt. Washington Road Race provided this account of last Saturdays' race: Blake, 27, outdueled Paul Low, 32, of Belchertown, Mass., to win the 7.6-mile race up the Mt. Washington Auto Road in one hour one minute and 9 seconds. Pichrtova, 33, who won this race in each of her first four attempts (2001-2004) and then was a close second last year, reasserted her dominance today to lead the women’s field from start to finish, crossing the line at the 6,288-foot summit in 1:11:18. “It was a good day, but I had no one to push me,” said Pichrtova afterward. Last year, she had fought an elbow-to-elbow battle with World Mountain Champion Melissa Moon of New Zealand before being outkicked in the final ultra-steep 300 yards of the race. Her time this year was half a minute slower, despite the nearly ideal weather and a rare windless day, with temperatures in the low-50s at the summit. Her closest competition was Nicole Hunt, 36, of Deer Lodge, Montana, who tried to stay with Pichrtova but gave way by the end of the second mile and finished more than a minute behind, in 1:12:30. Hunt, however, was delighted with her performance, since, as the first U.S. woman to finish, she won the women’s U.S. Mountain Running Championship. “I loved it!” said Hunt of this race, which drew a field of some 900 entrants. “It was a challenge, and I love challenges.” Blake, the newly crowned men’s national mountain running champion, finished a close second here last year to three-time Mt. Washington champion Simon Gutierrez of Alamosa, Colorado. Today, Blake shared the lead with Low and newcomer Ricky Gates, 25, of Boulder, Colorado, until Gates dropped off the pace, and then at halfway Blake made the move that would put him in front the rest of the way. “I knew I had a good chance of winning if I concentrated,” said Blake, who also finished 4th here in 2004. “I said to myself, ‘I can keep this pace, keep pushing, just run.’ With a mile to go, I looked back and Paul was still there, but if you hold your pace you won’t get passed.” Since this year’s race served as the United States Mountain Running Championship, the first three U.S. male finishers and first two U.S. female finishers automatically qualified to compete as members of the 2006 U.S. Mountain Running Team that will compete in the World Mountain Trophy race in Turkey in September. The race attracted a field of 900 entrants, most selected by lottery from more than 1,700 applicants. TOP WOMEN FINISHERS TOP MEN FINISHERS RHODE ISLAND FINISHERS 
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And I thought hiking up Mt. Washington was strenuous enough. I can't imagine running up it.
Then again, I can't compare hiking up a path like Tuckerman's Ravine to racing up the auto path.
The trails have rougher terrain and are slightly longer. It only takes a few hours to get up going at a decent hiking pace, so an equivalent run up the auto path might be a couple hours.
Maybe I'll have to try that race some day.
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