B.A.A. Half Marathon Fact Sheet

October 12, 2008, 8:00 a.m.

COURSE RECORDS
Men's CR
1:02:20 (Tom Nyariki, KEN, 2007)

Women's CR
1:10:57 (Marie Davenport, IRL, 2003)

Men's Wheelchair CR
53:07 (Anthony Nogueira, 2004)

Women's Wheelchair CR
1:09:44 (Laurie Stephens, MA, 2004)

PRIZE MONEY
Athletes in the elite, wheelchair, and masters division fields will be competing for a total of $30,000 in prize money, to be awarded equally to men and women. The complete prize purse is as follows:

Place Overall Masters (40+) Wheelchair
1st $5,000 $500 $750
2nd $3,000 $300 $500
3rd $1,500 $100 $250
4th $1,000
5th $600
6th $500
7th $400
8th $300
9th $200
10th $100

PAST CHAMPIONS
Men
2001 Wayne Levy (JAM/MA) 1:10:57
2002 David Hinga (KEN/MA) 1:09:47
2003 Laban Kipkemboi (KEN) 1:03:04
2004 Luke Metto (KEN) 1:02:57
2005 Celedonio Rodriguez (CO) 1:04:09
2006 Samuel Ndereba (KEN) 1:03:03
2007 Tom Nyariki (KEN) 1:02:20 (course record)

Women
2001 Sarah Nixon (MA) 1:21:16
2002 Sarah Nixon (MA) 1:22:34
2003 Marie Davenport (IRL/CT) 1:10:57 (course record)
2004 Lornah Kiplagat (NED) 1:12:05
2005 Nataliya Berkut (UKR) 1:12:21
2006 Marie Davenport (IRL/CT) 1:12:10
2007 Edna Kiplagat (KEN) 1:13:36

Men's Wheelchair
2001 Tim Kelly (MA) 1:06:46
2002 Tim Kelly (MA) 1:06:51
2003 Tony Nogueira (NJ) 57:43
2004 Tony Nogueira (NJ) 53:07 (course record)
2005 Mark Ledo (CAN) 57:18
2006 Mark Ledo (CAN) 56:48
2007 Tony Nogueira (NJ) 54:19

Women's Wheelchair
2001 Jane Raymond Hall (MA) 1:31:06
2002 Nanci Cahalane (MA) 1:30:13
2003 Laurie Stephens (MA) 1:10:43
2004 Laurie Stephens (MA) 1:09:44 (course record)
2005 April Coughlin (NY) 1:22:50
2006 April Coughlin (NY) 1:15:17
2007 Jacqui Kapinowski (NJ) 1:22:17

BY THE NUMBERS
1 Presenting sponsors: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund.

5,111 Entrants in 2008, an event record. (As of October 9.)

3,591 Number of finishers in 2007, an event record.

21,873 Cumulative number of finishers in event history, an average of 3,125 per year.

51 Entrants who have completed all seven previous editions of the B.A.A. Half Marathon.

31 Number of consecutive Boston Marathons finished by Hal Goforth (El Cajon, CA), who has also completed all seven B.A.A. Half Marathons.

3 Number of different titles won at the B.A.A. Half Marathon by Wayne Levy of the B.A.A. Running Club (Open Men, Masters Men, Men's Open Team), an event record.

7 Consecutive men's and women's Open Team titles won by the B.A.A. Running Club.

1:02:20 Men's course record, an average of 4:46 per mile (Tom Nyariki, 2007).

1:10:57 Women's course record, an average of 5:24 per mile (Marie Davenport, 2003).

15 Age of both Gina Christo (Quincy, MA), this year's youngest entrant.

76 & 70 Ages of Anthony Cellucci (Needham, MA), this year's oldest entrant, and Valerie Palmer (Newport Beach, CA), this year's oldest female entrant.

42 & 49 Number of states and countries of citizenship from which this year's entrants come.

6 & 11 Number of past B.A.A. Half Marathon champions competing in 2008, and number of titles won by them: Men's champion: Wayne Levy (2001); Women's champion: Sarah Nixon (2001 & 2002); Men's Push Rim Wheelchair champions: Tim Kelly (2001 & 2002) and Tony Nogueira (2003, 2004 & 2007); Women's Push Rim Wheelchair champion: Laurie Mathews (2003 & 2004) and Jacqui Kapinowski (2008).

59:44 Half marathon time run by Charles Munyeki (KEN), the 10th-fastest time in the world for 2008.

1,000 Number of acres in the historic park system that is preserved and maintained by the Emerald Necklace Conservancy. Since the inception of the B.A.A. Half Marathon, a portion of the entry fees has been directed toward the Conservancy to help with this cause. The B.A.A. Half Marathon is run entirely around and within the Emerald Necklace in Boston and Brookline.

30,000 Total prize purse, in dollars, to be awarded to the top male and female finishers in the open, masters, and push rim wheelchair divisions.

$143,000 Total money awarded since a prize purse was introduced at the 2003 B.A.A. Half Marathon.

190 Days until the 113th Boston Marathon, scheduled for April 20, 2009.

THE EMERALD NECKLACE
Since the event's inception, a portion of the entry fees has been directed towards the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, a non-profit organization working to restore, preserve, maintain and promote this historic park system.

"We want a ground to which people may easily go when the day's work is done, and where they may stroll for an hour, seeing hearing and feeling nothing of the bustle and jar of the streets, where they shall, in effect, find the city put far away from them."
—Frederick Law Olmsted (1870)

It took civic visionary Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. (1822-1903) almost twenty years (1878-1896) to create the six parks now known as the Emerald Necklace. The Back Bay Fens, Riverway, Olmsted Park, Jamaica Park, Arnold Arboretum and Franklin Park stretch five miles from the Charles River to Dorchester and make up over 1,000 acres of parkland.

The Necklace comprises half of the City of Boston's park acreage, parkland in the Town of Brookline, and parkways and park edges under the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. More than 300,000 people live within its watershed area.

The Emerald Necklace is the only remaining intact linear park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., America's first landscape architect. As such, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Green and open spaces, rivers and ponds, and a wealth and diversity of trees, shrubs, flowers, wildlife habitat, riparian life, bridges and other structures make up this urban jewel.

The Emerald Necklace Conservancy (emeraldnecklace.org) was created to protect, restore, maintain and promote the landscape, waterways and parkways of the Emerald Necklace park system as special places for people to visit and enjoy.