Sold Out BAA Half is this Sunday

Women’s CR
1:10:57 (Marie Davenport, IRL, 2003)

Men’s Wheelchair CR
53:07 (Anthony Nogueira, 2004 and 2008)

5,355 Entrants in 2009, an event
record. (As of 10-06-09)

3,702 Number of finishers in 2008,
an event record.

25,575 Cumulative number of
finishers in event history, an average of 3,197 per year.

50 Entrants who have completed all
eight previous editions of the B.A.A. Half Marathon.

32 Number of consecutive Boston
Marathons finished by Hal Goforth (El
Cajon, CA), who has
also completed all eight previous B.A.A. Half Marathons and is entered again
this year.

3 Number of different titles won
at the B.A.A. Half Marathon by Wayne Levy of the B.A.A. Running Club (Open Men,
Masters Men, Men’s Open Team), an event record.

8 Consecutive men’s and women’s
Open Team titles won by the B.A.A. Running Club.

1:02:20 Men’s course record, an
average of 4:46 per mile (Tom Nyariki, 2007).

1:10:57 Women’s course record, an
average of 5:24 per mile (Marie Davenport, 2003).

14 Age of both Tess Anderson (Brookline, MA), and
Nicholas Young (Carthage, ME), the youngest entrants this year.

80 & 67 Ages of Hart Anway
(Clinton, NY), this year’s oldest entrant, and Ute Collischan (West Newton,
MA), this year’s oldest female entrant.

39 & 47 Number of states and
countries of citizenship from which this year’s entrants come.

1,000 Number of acres in the
historic park system that is preserved and maintained by the Emerald Necklace
Conservancy. Since the inception of the B.A.A. Half Marathon,
a portion of the entry fees has been directed toward the Conservancy to help
with this cause. The B.A.A. Half Marathon is run entirely around and within the
Emerald Necklace in Boston and Brookline.

$30,000 Total prize purse, in
dollars, to be awarded to the top male and female finishers in the open,
masters, and push rim wheelchair divisions.

$173,000 Total money awarded since
a prize purse was introduced at the 2003 B.A.A. Half Marathon.

191 Days until the 114th Boston
Marathon, scheduled for April 19, 2010 ‰ÛÓ entry for this event opened on
September 9, 2009.

THE EMERALD NECKLACE
Since the event’s inception, a portion of the entry fees has been directed
towards the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, a non-profit organization working to
restore, preserve, maintain and promote this historic park system.

“We want a ground to which people may
easily go when the day’s work is done, and where they may stroll for an hour,
seeing hearing and feeling nothing of the bustle and jar of the streets, where
they shall, in effect, find the city put far away from them.”
‰ÛÓFrederick Law Olmsted (1870)

It took civic visionary Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. (1822-1903) almost twenty
years (1878-1896) to create the six parks now known as the Emerald Necklace.
The Back Bay Fens, Riverway, Olmsted Park, Jamaica Park, Arnold Arboretum and Franklin Park
stretch five miles from the Charles River to Dorchester
and make up over 1,000 acres of parkland.

The Necklace comprises half of the City of Boston’s
park acreage, parkland in the Town of Brookline,
and parkways and park edges under the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
More than 300,000 people live within its watershed area.

The Emerald Necklace is the only remaining intact linear park designed by
Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr.,
America’s first
landscape architect. As such, it is listed on the National Register of Historic
Places. Green and open spaces, rivers and ponds, and a wealth and diversity of
trees, shrubs, flowers, wildlife habitat, riparian life, bridges and other structures
make up this urban jewel.