Places first in 80-84 age division
* Event website
* Facebook photo album (by event photographers)
NEW HAMPSHIRE, June 15, 2013 — Potomac Highlands Distance Club member Don Taylor, 82, of Hedgesville, W.Va., shaved nearly nine minutes off his time at the 53rd annual Run to the Clouds Mount Washington Road Race, an event “with only one hill” — one, that is, that climbs continuously over the 7.6-mile course for a net elevation gain of 4,727 feet.
Don Taylor, 82, of Hedgesville, W.Va., conquered the Mount Washington Road Race in New Jersey last weekend. He’s seen in this photo at the Catch the Spirit 5K in Capon Bridge, W.Va., in December 2012.
Taylor said the most difficult part of the weekend was getting there. He drove through five states “in torrential rain, high winds and unending spray in the dark from a few vehicles still on the road,” but “come Friday morning, as the sun broke through the clouds over the White Mountains I knew it was all worthwhile.”
Taylor, who has entered the Run for Gold Metric Marathon (pres. by HPDM) on Aug. 11, stopped the clock in 2 hours, 23 minutes and 34 seconds, an average of 18:52 per mile. He placed 903rd among 1,086 finishers and 702nd out of 758 males.
The youngest finisher was 10; the oldest, 93. George Etzweiler, of State College, Pa., who holds the 85-89 and 90-plus age division course records, finished in 3:15 and took first in his age group.
Taylor said he first entered the race in 1994 with his climbing coach. He simply enjoys logging the miles, he said. 
“My addition is to distance running and climbing on rough trail, but I’ll go for anything from a half (marathon) down to 5K on paved roads,” Taylor wrote in an email to the club. “Even ran the Loudon (Va.) Street Mile last month. Sprinting a mile at my age? What agony. Why do I do it? Masochism, my wife says.”
Interest skyrocketed in the event this year and the field was expanded to 1,300 participants. The lottery system for the 2014 race opens in February.
June 19, 2013
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