Joe Gray Runs 2nd Fastest Time at Mt. Washington

55^th Northeast Delta Dental Mount Washington Road Race         

·        Joe Gray doubles up with 2^nd fastest time at Mt. Washington

·        Kim Dobson returns to the mountain with a bang

·        Colorado runners shine again

·        Freeman, Sandahl repeat as first New Hampshire finishers 

Pinkham Notch, N.H. ‰ÛÓ June 20, 2015

Joe Gray did it again ‰ÛÓ and he did it in dominating fashion. 

The mountain-running standout from Colorado Springs crushed it in the 55^th
Northeast Delta Dental Mount Washington Road Race on Saturday, setting
an American record for the race on the way to a repeat title. His time
of 58 minutes and 15 seconds was the second fastest in the history of
the race.

Gray
and Kim Dobson, who made a triumphant return to the mountain, led
another Colorado assault on New Hampshire and the grueling 7.6-mile,
all-uphill Mt. Washington Auto Road course.

Both
runners are 31 and both cruised to triumphs on a glorious, sun-splashed
day on the highest peak in the Northeast. Temperatures were in the low
40s and climbing and there was not a lot of wind when the first runners
reached the peak and finish line at about 10 a.m.

Gray,
of Colorado Springs, Colo., finished nearly three minutes ahead of his
nearest competitor, fellow Coloradan Andy Wacker, and had no one to
push him for most of the race. 

Dobson was almost four minutes in front of Brandy Erholtz, a two-time winner of the race. 

“Joe
left me at about the two-mile mark and after that it was almost like a
time trial for both of us,” said Wacker, who was running his first
Mount Washington Road Race. “It was incredible he was able to do that
time running by himself.” 

Jonathan Wyatt of New Zealand owns the course record of 56:41, set in 2004.  

Gray was excited about his win and his time, but was hoping to take a shot at Wyatt’s mark, too. 

“I
wasn’t focused on my pace well enough to get the overall mark,” he
said. “But I’m definitely very, very happy with the day. I’ve had an up
and down season so far. I came back and wanted to defend my title and
run a better time than last year.” 

He did both ‰ÛÓ convincingly. 

He’s
the first repeat winner of the race since Simon Gutierrez, who was
sixth Saturday at age 49 in 1:04:02, won in 2002 and 2003. 

After
a series of runnerup and third-place finishes, Gray won his first
Northeast Delta Dental Mount Washington Road Race last year in a time
of 59:09. Gray is one of eight runners who has completed the race in
under an hour, and the only one to do it twice. 

Wacker,
26 of Boulder, finished second in 1:00:59 and was well in front of Zach
Miller, 26, of Manitou Springs, Colo., in 1:03:15. Luca Cagnati, 25, of
Italy was fourth in 1:03:40.  

Dobson
won this race in 2011 and 2012. She was entered for the first time
since then. Dobson broke away early as well and finished in 1:11:39.
Erholtz, who won the race in 2008 and 2009, finished in 1:15:34. 

Dobson’s time fit between her winning times of 1:09:25 in 2009 and 1:12:11 in 2011. 

“Some
days you hit it right,” she said. “I remember in 2009 getting to the
first mile and thinking it didn’t feel like a hill. Some days you feel
spunky and some days you feel average. Today it felt like a hill. I
guess it should.” 

Laura Haefeli,
47 of Del Norte, Colo., who won the 2013 race, was third in 1:17. Katie
Misuraca, 34, of Gloucester, Mass., was fourth in 1:17:37. 

For
the second year in a row and fourth time in the last five years,
Colorado runners won both the men’s and women’s races. In addition,
runners from Colorado swept the top three positions for both men and
women Saturday. Colorado men grabbed six of the seven top spots in the
race. 

George Etzweiler of State
College, Pa., was the final of 1,052 finishers in the race in 3:28:41.
He’s 95 years old and was making a comeback. Etzweiler was unable to
compete last year because of illness. 

Justin
Freeman, 38, of New Hampton was eighth overall in 1:05:55 and was the
first finisher from New Hampshire for the third straight year and
fourth time in the last five. 

Freeman took nearly 30 seconds off his personal best mark in the race. 

“It
was a perfect day,” Freeman said. “I decided to run with no shirt. It
was fairly warm at the bottom. There was a bit of a headwind near the
top, but it was certainly not as windy as some years.” 

Denise
Sandahl, 34, of Bow was fifth overall in 1:18:42 in the women’s race
for the second consecutive year and also repeated as the top New
Hampshire woman. Sandahl was hoping to better her 1:17:21 of a year
ago. 

“My time was a little
disappointing,” she said. “But I’ll take the fifth place and being the
first from New Hampshire. I had fun. But it was painful fun.” 

                                            ————— 

As
part of the day’s festivities, four runners ‰ÛÓ Eric Blake, Eleonora
Mendonca of Massachusetts, Eric Morse of Vermont and the late Peter
Watson of Massachusetts ‰ÛÓ were inducted into the Mount Washington Road
Race Hall of Fame during the post-race celebration. 

Blake
of West Hartford, Conn., is the head men’s and women’s track &
field/cross country coach at Central Connecticut State University and
won the race in 2006, 2008 and 2013. He was excited about a chance to
challenge Gray and the field again Saturday, but was a late scratch
because of injury. 

Mendonca, who
is retired and living on Cape Cod, won the race three straight times
from 1976-78; Morse has been among the Top 10 finishers in the race 14
times and three times has been the runnerup; and Watson, who died in
2012, ran Mount Washington 23 times from 1988-2011. He was the
organizer of Team Gloucester, which regularly sends an impressive
number of runners to the race. 

                                                   —————-

 The
Northeast Delta Dental Mount Washington Road Race begins at the Auto
Road base on Route 16 north of Pinkham Notch and climbs to the
6288-foot summit at an average grade of 12 percent and a net altitude
gain of 4650 feet.  The runners battle not only each other but the
sheer force of gravity and Mt. Washington’s famously severe winds.

Former
six-time World Mountain Champion Jonathan Wyatt of New Zealand holds
the men’s course record at Mount Washington: 56 minutes 41 seconds, set
in 2004.  The women’s record was set in 2010 by the 23-year-old
Ethiopian runner Shewarge Amare, who made the ascent in one hour eight
minutes 21 seconds.

Northeast Delta Dental has sponsored the
race up the historic Mt. Washington Auto Road since 2001.  The dental
insurance company, headquartered in Concord, N.H., with sales offices
in Saco, Maine, and Burlington, Vt., provides dental benefits to more
than 800,000 people in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, including
individuals and families, and organizations of all sizes.  Northeast
Delta Dental’s President & CEO, Tom Raffio, has run the race in a
personal best of 1:50:51. In 2012, Northeast Delta Dental increased its
already strong support for the event, making it officially the
Northeast Delta Dental Mount Washington Road Race.