FORT WORTH, Texas — The Cowtown announced that it will be offering more than $30,000 in cash prizes for the fastest runners in the 2014 Marathon this year, introducing a new program called Cowtown Elite. All told, The Cowtown plans to give away $31,000 as part of its new program – a $25,000 purse to be split between all of the men and women bettering the existing course and event records and the remainder to the top finishers.
“As the largest multi-event race in Texas, we feel that the timing is right to join other world class distance events and offer prize money. We are thrilled to be able to offer our runners the opportunity to challenge themselves and be a part of this new award,” said Heidi Swartz, executive director of The Cowtown.
Marathon organizers teamed up with MarathonGuide.com to offer prize money to encourage elite and development athletes to participate in the marathon. The marathon organizers created the prizes to encourage elite and developmental athletes to participate in the marathon. MarathonGuide.com is partially funding the prize purses.
$25,000 will be split among the men and women who run under the current course records (for the course introduced in 2012). For the men, that means turning in times under 2:36:22 – the course record set in 2013 by Craig Ottman.
Women will need to run the course in under 2:46:09, the record set in 2013 by Elizabeth Eder.
An additional $5,000 will be split among anyone beating the all-time event records for the men, a time of 2:17:35 – set in 2000 bySantos Ortega, or for the women, running under 2:45:51 – set in 2000 by Linda Zeman.
The Cowtown also will give $2,000 to the first man and woman and $1,000 to the second overall runner in both the male and female categories along with the share of the other awards. Complimentary entry and hotel will be offered to those athletes who have run sub-2:30 (men) or sub-2:45 (women) times in the prior two years and would like to accept the challenge to run better than the prior records.
The Cowtown is scheduled for Friday, February 21 thru Sunday, February 23, 2014 at Will Rogers Memorial Center, Fort Worth, Texas; with the Marathon taking place on Sunday. In 2013, The Cowtown set a record for the most participants in the history of the event with just under 27,000 runners. The Cowtown is expecting another record year as it celebrates its 36th year of running.
The Cowtown is a non-profit organization, founded in 1979 to promote good physical fitness in the community and as part of that mission; The Cowtown works to make a difference with children through The Cowtown C.A.L.F. (Children’s Activities for Life & Fitness) Program. The Cowtown races are presented by the University of North Texas Health Science Center, Chase, HCA North Texas, MillerCoors, Star-Telegram, NBC 5, and RadioShack.
MarathonGuide.com works tirelessly to support events and athletes. Since 2000, the eponymous website has been one of the largest sources of running information and has served to connect runners and events. The company operates one of the largest and most respected online registration services in America. And across the years MarathonGuide.com has shown its commitment to running through the direct support of athletes and training groups across the USA.
For more information, visit http://cowtownmarathon.org/
(c) 2014 RunningUSA, all rights reserved, used with permission
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