By Nancy Hobbs and Tim Bergsten
Seven runners from the Pikes Peak Region will travel to New Hampshire this week to compete in Saturday's U.S. Mountain Running Championships at Mt. Washington.
They'll be racing for national titles as well as a spot on the U.S. National team that will compete in the World Mountain Running Championships, Sept. 5 in Kamnik, Slovenia.
The top six men and top four women will quallify for the national team.
Pikes Peak-area runners inclue Peter Maksimow, Manitou Springs; Tommy Manning (right), Colorado Springs; Ryan Hafer, Colorado Springs; Alex Nichols (below left), Colorado Springs; Sean O'Day (below right), Colorado Springs; Nancy Hobbs (below left) Manitou Springs; and Kelli Lusk, Manitou Springs.
The course will test runners’ strength and endurance for the entire 7.6 miles from the base of the Auto Road with an unrelenting 12-percent grade to the 6,288-foot summit of Mount Washington, the highest peak in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
The course provides elevation gains which closely mirror those found in Slovenia’s uphill-only route.  Slovenia, the men will run 12 kilometers with more than 4,300 feet of elevation gain, while the women will run 8.5 kilometers with 3,370 feet of elevation gain.
Among the top U.S. competitors on Saturday will be men's and women's defending champions, Coloradoans Rickey Gates of Boulder, and Brandy Erholtz, of Bailey. Gates is only the fifth man ever to break the one-hour barrier on Mt. Washington, having won last year in 59 minutes 58 seconds. Erholtz is looking for her third-straight victory and has her sights set on chasing down the women's course record, 1:10:08, set in 1998 by Magdalena Thorsell of Sweden.
The field is loaded and Colorado runners make up much of the talent. Timmy Parr of Gunnison, last year's Pikes Peak Ascent champion, will compete. The women's race will feature Del Norte's Laura Haefeli, who finished third at Mt. Washington in 2008 while setting the women's masters course record, Basalt's Megan Lund, the women's course record-holder in the Aspen (CO) Mountain Uphill, a 2008 U.S. Olympic marathon trials qualifier, and a member of last year’s mountain running team, and two-time U.S. Mountain Running team member Megan Kimmel of Silverton.
And former Colorado Springs resident Gina Lucrezi, who now lives in Southborough, Mass., is also in the field.
For a complete list of entrants, sortable by name, by state, or by hometown, visit the Mt. Washington Road Race web
site,