An annual race up the highest peak in the Northeast United States is taking place without last year’s winning runner.
Last year, 24-year-old Cesare Maestri, of Italy, became the first European to win the 7.6-mile (12-kilometer) all-uphill race to the 6,288-foot (1,917-meter) summit of Mount Washington. He finished with a time of 1 hour, 53 seconds. Maestri is not competing in the race Saturday.
Also not running is Joe Gray, a four-time winner.
In the women’s race, last year’s winner, 35-year-old Kim Dobson, of Eagle, Colorado, is vying for a sixth victory. Her time last June was 1:11:43, the seventh-fastest overall.
The women’s second-place winner, 27-year-old Heidi Caldwell, of Craftsbury Common, Vermont, also is running again.
