From race press release.

7.6 Miles up the Mt. Washington Auto Road (summit 6288)
(Pinkham Notch, N.H.)---The field for this year's Mount Washington Road Race was already looking very strong yesterday. Today it is significantly stronger, thanks to Joan Benoit Samuelson's decision to return to the race where she already holds the women's masters course record, and to the addition of rising Kenyan road starts Zablon Mokaya and Simon Wangai.

Sponsored by NORTHEAST DELTA DENTAL, this year's Run To The Clouds brings 1000 runners to the White Mountains of New Hampshire for the 7.6-mile ascent of the Mount Washington Auto Road, which climbs 4650 in altitude at an average grade of 11.5 percent. The summit, 6288 feet above sea level, is often beset by the windiest and most unpredictable weather in the world.

The favorites may still be the two defending champions: Kenyan Daniel Kihara, who has won this race in each of the four years he has run it previously (1996, 1999-2001), and Anna Pichrtova of the Czech Republic, who won in her debut here last year. Kihara set the Mount Washington course record in 1996, a time of 58 minutes 21 seconds. Pichrtova won comfortably last year in 1:13:48, two and a half minutes off the course record (1:10:09) set by Magdalena Thorsell in 1998. Thorsell is not entered this year.

Kihara is likely to face plenty of competition. The 23-year-old Wangai last month ran a spectacular 45:12 for the Broad Street Ten-Mile Road Race in Philadelphia, ripping a minute and a half off the previous course record. Mokaya, 28, who lives in Atlanta, won the James Joyce Ramble in Medford, Massachusetts, this year with a time of 29:29 for the 10-kilometer race.

Samuelson, the 1984 Olympic gold medalist in the women's marathon, holds the Mount Washington women's masters' record of 1:16:03, which she set in 1997. Last year she won the mastersitrophy again in a time of 1:16:47. NEW ENGLAND RUNNER magazine is offering a $2000 bonus for anyone who breaks the male or female masters record this year.

The men's masters race pits Craig Fram of Plaistow, N.H., against Richard Shelley of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Last year Fram made history by finishing in 1:04:29, thereby breaking the master's record that had stood since 1962, when 40-year-old Fred Norris won the race outright in 1:04:57. This year Fram is looking even stronger; he recently won the Pack Monadnock mountain race, beating longtime friend and rival Eric Morse (who is also in the Mount Washington field) and becoming the first master to win a USATF New England mountain circuit race. Shelley, who just turned 40, has raced extensively on the European mountain circuit and at one point last year was ranked eighth in the world in mountain running.

Pichrtova appears to be in shape to beat her time from last year. Two weeks ago she finished second in the Wheeling, West Virginia, 20K, in a time of one hour 11 minutes. (Many elite runners can finish Mount Washington in time resembling their 20K times.) But she will have to contend not only with Kenyan Alice Muriithi, who won this race in 2000, but also with Anna Ortiz.

Last weekend Ortiz, who lives and trains in Eagle, Colorado, devastated the field at the Wolverine Mountain hill climb in Anchorage, Alaska. The first three men in that race will also compete Saturday on Mount Washington: 1. Morse, of Berlin, Vermont; 2. three-time Mount Washington winner Dave Dunham of Bradford, Massachusetts; and 3. Scott Elliott of Boulder, Colorado.

Another factor in the women's race - both the open race and the masters division - is JulieAnne White of San Diego. White, 40 and a native of Birmingham, England, is a high-profile triathlete with remarkable stamina and determination. In 1993 in the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii, she suffered a ruptured large intestine and required major surgery. A year later, she returned to the same triathlon and placed seventh. Her long career as an athlete includes having to cope with asthma as well - a fact that makes her a conspicuous spokesperson for the American Lung Association. She also has won the very hilly Big Sur Marathon in California.

Others: Simon Gutierrez, husband of womenis course record-holder Magdalena Thorsell, will return from his home in Albuquerque to try this year to break the one-hour barrier at Mount Washington. Gutierrez placed third here in 1:03:23 in 1998 and fifth in 1:01:38 in 1999.

Louise Rosetti, of Saugus, Massachusetts, can become the first woman over 80 years of age to complete the Mount Washington Road Race.

For more information, including a list of entrant's check out , www.gsrs.com