Esteemed Newburyport High Street Mile offers largest purse ever
New England’s grand dame of road miles, the Newburyport High Street Mile, recently entered into major sponsorship agreements with Puma and the Institution for Savings for its 18th annual race. Race organizers are now offering over $3000 in prize money to the top athletes.

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Posted Friday, 20 June, 2008

This year’s race will offer incentives for the winner of the men’s open race to crack the elusive 4 minute mile. The men’s winner, if they break the course record and go under 4 minutes, will take home $1000 in prize money. The time for women to beat is 4:30. The prize money break-out for the top 3 in the Male and Female races is $400, $300, and $200 respectively.

“This is extremely exciting to have Puma and the Institution for Savings on board.” says race director Chris Kealey “It is the culmination of years of work by myself, co-director Mike Menesale and particularly race founder Ted Jones, to receive this level of sponsorship”

One of Kealey’s main goals since taking over the race in 2005 was to attract runners capable of running sub 4 minutes for men and sub 4:30 for women.

“The race has a storied history. We have had several Olympians run the race, including Americans Jen Toomey and Erik Nedeau, and Canadian Courtney Babcock. 2006 winner Patrick Tarpy is currently in Eugene OR vying for a spot on the 2008 Beijing Games team.” stated Kealey. “Additionally we have a number of outstanding international runners with incredible running resumes. Ethiopian National Abiyot Endale has run 13:35 in the 5K and ran 3:58 at last year’s 5th Avenue mile. Abiyot is already signed up to defend his title from the 2007 High Street Mile and is very fit.”

The race is a USATF certified mile. The 16 foot point to point elevation drop should aid runners in their pursuit of the sub 4 minute mile. However, that barrier has proved elusive over the race’s 18 year history.

“We have had many runners that have run at 4 minutes or better but the course, despite the slight drop, is tough” says Kealey, whose best HSM time is 4:23. “I believe it has to do with hitting the tangents correctly. The tendency is to hug the curb like a track. That adds many feet over the length of the course”

While the prize money is important Kealey admits the importance of the race has to do with community involvement and giving back to High School athletes.

“I love this race because it is put on by runners (Winners Circle Running Club), for runners of all ages, and benefits young runners. Local runners even offer up housing to out of town athletes.” says Kealey, who is currently the President of the WCRC. “Plus where can a local athlete be in the same race as runners who have run in the Olympics?”

This year’s event will be held Sunday August 3rd @ 10 AM on High Street in historic Newburyport MA. For more information contact race director Chris Kealey at 978.270.6854 or Chris.Kealey@thermofisher.com Race details: http://www.runthecircle.com/highstreetmile.htm

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