STEEPLECHASERS DICRESCENZO, HIGGINSON LEAD MIDNIGHT RUN ENTRY LIST

By David Monti.
(c) 2011 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved

December 21, 2012

Steeplechasers Delilah DiCrescenzo and Ashley Higginson lead the entry list for the 34th annual Emerald Nuts Midnight Run in New York's Central Park on New Year's Eve.  Both women are part of a group of seven athletes from the NJ-NY Track Club who will be competing at the four-mile race held at the stroke of midnight.  The New York Road Runners, the race founders and organizers, expect about 5000 runners for the event held every year since 1979.

"The Emerald Nuts Midnight Run is the most invigorating way anyone can spend New YearÂ’s Eve," said the Road Runners president and CEO Mary Wittenberg in a press release.  "The music and dancing, outrageous costumes, and amazing fireworks display over Central Park in conjunction with the start of the race are so unique and fun--not to mention that you wake up feeling great! It is a wonderful event."

DiCrescenzo, 29, and Higginson, 23, are both coached by Frank "Gags" Gagliano, and finished 7th and 4th, respectively in the steeplechase at the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials.  Both women will be running the race for the first time.

"I'm very excited to participate in the NYRR Emerald Nuts Midnight Run," said DiCrescenzo through a statement. "I've wanted to do this for a couple of years, but I've always been out of town. I'm glad I'll be able to race, because it looks like a blast and Central Park is a course I know well."

Other top women entered include Allie Kieffer, third at the 2012 Midnight Run; Heather Wilson, part of the NJ-NY Track Club and the 2012 ECAC 1500m champion; Esther Erb, the 2012 Broad Street Run champion; Nicol Traynor, a member of the NJ-NY Track Club and 2012 Atlantic 10 Conference steeplechase champion; Maegan Krifchin, the top U.S. finisher at the 2012 IAAF World Half-Marathon Championships; and Renee Tomlin, another member of the NJ-NY Track Club and the 4th place finisher at the 2011 NCAA Championships in the 1500m.

Christian Thompson, Liam Boylan-Pett, and Dustin Emrani, also of the NJ-NY Track Club, will try for the men's title, but will have to beat the Boston Athletic Association's Tim Ritchie, recently 6th at the Manchester Road Race and the fourth place finisher at last year's Midnight Run.  Other top men entered include Demesse Tefera, most recently 2nd at Brian's Run in West Chester, Pa.; Landon Peacock, the 2012 Midnight Run champion; and Mulugeta Wendimu, a two-time Olympian for Ethiopia.

The race winners will receive $500 in prize money, and have a chance to earn up to $200 each in course record and time bonuses.  The course records for men and women were both set in 2010: 18:11 by Stephen Furst and 20:51 by Desiree Davila.

Entries for the race are still available at http://www.nyrr.org.

   NOTE: Race Results Weekly Inc. provides professional athletes consulting for the New York Road Runners and the Emerald Nuts Midnight Run --Ed.

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