Big Changes for Independence Day 5K at Gillette

Popular Harvard
Pilgrim
Road Race at Patriot Place Introduces 5K as
well as New
Name, New Date and Time, and Adds Fireworks to the Event

 

Online
registration
now open at www.harvardpilgrimfinishatthe50.com

 

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (March 27,
2012)
‰ÛÓ The popular Harvard Pilgrim road race at Patriot Place will
now be called the
Harvard Pilgrim Finish at the 50 – 5K & 10K at Patriot
Place and take place
at 6 p.m. on the evening of July 3, race organizers announced
today.

 

In addition to
changing
the date and time, a new 5K race has been added to the event,
featuring a
3.1-mile course within Gillette Stadium and Patriot Place with
a thrilling
finish at the 50-yard line. A fireworks display is also
planned for July 3.

 

“We’re
excited about these changes and are
confident they will open the event to even more people while
enhancing the
upbeat nature of this road race,” said Mike St. Laurent of
PRE, who organizes
the race with B.A.A Boston Marathon Race Director Dave
McGillivray of DMSE
Sports.

 

A Kid’s Fun Run on
the same field as many of the children’s sports heroes will
also take place on
Tuesday July 3. Parents and families will have the opportunity
to cheer on the
children from the stands in Gillette Stadium.

 

Online registration
for all three races ‰ÛÓ the 5K, the 10K and the Kid’s Fun Run —
is now open at www.harvardpilgrimfinishatthe50.com. This year marks
the
third year for the event, which was held in the morning on
July 4 the first two
years.

   

Families
are again encouraged to run as
teams, St. Laurent said. Last year, several hundred families
participated and
prizes were given to families with the most participants and
those from
Foxborough.

 

Festivities
are planned for the event
as in years past with a health and fitness expo scheduled at
Patriot Place on
July 3. Parking for the event at Patriot Place is plentiful.

 

Both the Harvard
Pilgrim Health Care 5K and 10K events begin together inside
Patriot Place. The
10K travels a loop through historic Foxborough and ends inside
Gillette
Stadium. The new 5K route will take a unique approach within
the Patriot Place
grounds and Gillette Stadium with runners and walkers
experiencing a course
that includes the stadium ramps.

 

Runners from both
races can watch themselves on the stadium’s two giant HD video
screens as they
pass under a large inflatable football helmet and run to the
finish at the 50-yard
line. In 2011, more than 3,000 walkers and runners crossed the
finish line,
while thousands of family and friends cheered them on from the
stands.

 

Registration
and additional information is
available by visiting www.harvardpilgrimfinishatthe50.com. Find race updates
and information on Facebook at www.facebook.com/HarvardPilgrim10k.
 

 

The race is owned
and
managed by Professional Race Events, LLC, a collaboration
between Mike St.
Laurent of Loco Running (www.locorunning.com),
and Dave McGillivray of DMSE Sports
(www.dmsesports.com),
who also directs the B.A.A. Boston
Marathon, the TD Bank Beach to Beacon 10K in Maine, the New
Balance Falmouth
Road Race and the Run Gloucester! 7-Mile Road Race in Mass. 

 

About Harvard
Pilgrim
Harvard Pilgrim is a not-for-profit health plan that provides
a variety of insurance
plan options and self-funding arrangements to more than one
million members in
Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine., For the eighth
consecutive year*,
Harvard Pilgrim was named the #1 private health plan in
America, according to
an annual ranking of the nation’s best health plans by the
National Committee
for Quality Assurance (NCQA)**. For more information, please
visit www.harvardpilgrim.org.

 

 * NCQA’s Health Insurance Plan Rankings 2011-12 ‰ÛÓ
Private ** U.S. News/NCQA
America’s Best Health
Insurance Plans 2005-2009 (annual). America’s Best
Health Insurance
Plans is a trademark of U.S. News & World Report. NCQA The
State of Health
Care Quality 2004.

 

About Patriot
Place

Adjacent
to Gillette Stadium, Patriot Place
features more than 1.3 million square feet of shopping,
dining, and
entertainment. Visitors have access to major fashion
retailers, live and
interactive entertainment, eateries, a four-star hotel,
state-of-the-art
theatre and much more. For more information, visit www.patriot-place.com.

 

About DMSE
Sports, Inc.

Founded
by McGillivray in 1981, DMSE, Inc. is
a leader in sports event management, specializing in creating,
marketing and
producing mass participatory athletic events throughout the
U.S. and abroad.
McGillivray and his team at DMSE Sports have produced or
consulted on more than
900 mass-participatory athletic events, including the B.A.A.
Boston Marathon,
the TD Beach to Beacon 10K in Maine, Run for the Dream in
Williamsburg, Va.,
the Women’s Half Marathon and was recently named race director
of the famed New
Balance Falmouth Road Race in Cape Cod. For more information,
visit www.dmsesports.com.