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MOUNT WASHINGTON, N.H. (AP) — The 54th annual Run to the Clouds race on New Hampshire's Mount Washington is being held Saturday, pitting 1,300 runners against one another and against the tallest peak in the Northeastern United States.

Here's what you need to know about the race:

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STEP-BY-STEP

The race starts at the bottom of the Mount Washington Auto Road and finishes 7.6 miles later near the summit of the 6,288-foot mountain, part of the Presidential Range in the White Mountains. Runners climb a lung-searing 4,650 feet.

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HOW TOUGH?

To measure just how tough this race is, let's look at pace. Last year's winner in the men's division, Eric Blake of New Britain, Connecticut, covered the course in 59 minutes, 57 seconds, a 7:54 per mile pace. Compare that to the world record mile of 3:43.13 by Hicham El Guerrouj in 1999 or the 4:54 that Meb Keflezighi averaged over 26.2 miles in winning this year's Boston Marathon.

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LOOKS LIKE IT HURTS

Dr. Kristine Karlson of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College says despite the daunting notion of running up a mountain, it's easier on the body, mostly on the quadriceps (thighs). They're being used the way they're supposed to, she says, contracting and getting shorter rather than contracting and stretching longer the way they do when running downhill. Racers won't burn any more calories going up since they'll be going at a slower pace. Once they hit a maximum heart rate, runners will burn the same amount of energy as they do in a flat race. One potential risk: hypothermia. Runners who feel warm at the bottom can get chilled in a hurry near the top even in the best weather conditions.

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WITHER THE WEATHER?

The mountain is home to some of the most extreme weather on earth and for a while held the record for the highest wind speed recorded: 231 mph in 1934. That's now No. 2 on the list. The mountain gets hurricane-force winds of at least 75 mph on more than 100 days each year. It gets an average of 256 inches of snow a year. In 2002, the race was shortened to 3.8 miles because of howling winds and pounding freezing rain — it's the only time the race was shortened by weather.

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WHOSE IDEA WAS THIS?

Medical student George Foster first timed a run up Mount Washington in 1904, just to impress his friends. He finished in 1 hour, 42 minutes.

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IT'S THE JOURNEY

Larisa Dannis, 26, of Manchester, New Hampshire, will tackle the course again this year after finishing seventh in the women's division last year. She trains the same as she would for a marathon — and she just ran a blazing 2:44 in Boston — or a 100-mile run. How does she get up that hill? "First, I always try to stay in the moment. Second, I really always try to maintain a positive outlook." And for those who say these runners are crazy, Dannis says: "I think things like this might seem crazy to some, but I'm the kind of person who really thrives on setting personal goals and meeting them."

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FAMILY AFFAIR

It's rubber-match time for the brothers Freeman. Justin, 36, of New Hampton, New Hampshire, and Kris, 32, of Thornton, New Hampshire, each has beaten the other once, so this year is for bragging rights. Both lean on their cross-country ski background and training (Kris is a four-time Olympian.) to prepare for the Mount Washington run. Let's not forget dad: Donavon Freeman will be chasing the boys up the hill.

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INTERNATIONAL APPEAL

Runners from across the globe test themselves here: New Zealand's Derek Froude in 1990 was the first to crack 1 hour while Daniel Kihara of Kenya wrecked the field with a course record 58:20 in 1996. Another New Zealander, Jonathan Wyatt, holds the men's course record of 56:41 set in 2004. On the women's side, Shewarge Amare of Ethiopia set the course record in 1:08:21 in 2010, the first time she ran it.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A preservative used to cure bacon is being tested as poison for the nation's estimated 5 million feral hogs.

Descendants of both escaped domestic pigs and imported Eurasian boars, the swine cost the U.S. about $1.5 billion a year — including $800 million in damage to farms nationwide.

Hunting and trapping won't do the trick for these big, wildly prolific animals. So, the U.S. Department of Agriculture kicked off a $20 million program this year to control feral swine, which have spread from 17 states in 1982 to 39 now.

Sodium nitrite is far more toxic to pigs than people and is used in Australia and New Zealand to kill feral swine. USDA scientists say it may be the best solution in the U.S., but they're not yet ready to ask for federal approval as pig poison.

Vance Taylor of Brooksville, Mississippi, has seen up to 50 hogs in a field at once. He estimates the animals cost him 40 to 60 acres of corn and soybeans a year. They once rooted up about 170 acres of sprouting corn; they trample ripe corn, taking a few bites from each ear.

"It looks like a bulldozer has been through your field," he said. To minimize damage, he hires a hunter and sometimes even heaps corn away from his fields so they'll eat there.

Males average 130 to 150 pounds but can range up to 250, and hogs snarf down just about anything: peanuts, potatoes, piles of just-harvested almonds. Rooting for grubs and worms leaves lawns, levees, wetlands and prairies looking like they've been attacked by packs of rototillers gone wild. Swine compete with turkey and deer for acorns, and also eat eggs and fawns.

Nor is damage limited to their eating habits. Feral pigs' feces were among likely sources of E. coli that tainted fresh California spinach in 2006, killing three people and sickening 200.

To stay even, at least 70 percent of an area's feral pigs must be killed each year, said Fred Cunningham, a biologist at the USDA's National Wildlife Research Center field station in Starkville, Mississippi. Texas alone has an estimated 2 million feral swine.

"The problem will never, ever end until they find a way to poison them," said Cy Brown of Carencro, Louisiana, a weekend hunter who estimates he has shot 300 to 400 a year for farmers.

The USDA program that began in April includes $1.5 million for the research center headquartered in Fort Collins, Colorado. Its scientists have made sodium nitrite studies a top priority.

Sodium nitrite, used as a salt to preserve meat, can keep red blood cells from grabbing oxygen in live animals. Unlike people and tested domestic animals, pigs make very low levels of an enzyme that counteracts the chemical. Swine that eat enough sodium nitrite at once show symptoms akin to carbon dioxide poisoning: They become uncoordinated, lose consciousness and die.

But baits so far haven't hit the 90 percent kill rate on penned pigs (feral or domestic, they're all the same species) needed for EPA consideration. Once it does, approval could take up to five years, Cunningham said.

One problem is creating baits in which pigs will eat a lethal dose. Sodium nitrite tastes nasty and breaks down quickly in the presence of air or water, making it easier for pigs to smell and avoid, said Fred Vercauteren, project leader in Fort Collins.

Microencapsulating the powder masks its smell and keeps it stable longer.

"We'll work on that throughout the summer," Vercauteren said.

However, there's another big hurdle: making a bait dispenser other animals can't break into.

Raccoons have pilfered one being tested. "And we'll probably have a hard time keeping a motivated bear out," Vercauteren said.

A solar-powered machine designed to open only when pigs grunt and snuffle is being tested at the Kerr Wildlife Management Area in Hunt, Texas. The HAM (Hog Annihilation Machine) delivers a 15,000-volt shock to animals that touch it when its hoppers are closed — not enough to faze a pig or injure other wildlife but enough to send a bear or raccoon running, said inventor Harold Monk of Denham Springs, Louisiana.

He said it can also be programmed to ignore sounds. When a wildlife camera showed it opening to an alligator's bellow, he took the camera's recording and fed it to HAM's sound card.

"I said, 'That sound is not a hog.' Thereafter, it never opened again on that sound," Monk said.

SALEM, N.H. (AP) — Police in New Hampshire say an unruly driver zapped with a stun gun during a traffic stop yanked out the barbs and fled, prompting a two-state pursuit.

The fracas began after midnight Saturday in Salem when an officer pulled over 52-year-old Robert Zygarowski of Ellwood City, Pennsylvania. Police say he was uncooperative, and the officer shocked him.

Police say Zygarowski pulled out the barbs, jumped in his car and sped away, beginning a chase that ended when his tire blew in Massachusetts. Police say Zygarowski climbed out of his car, charged at the officer and fled in the marked cruiser.

Police say he later entered a gas station and announced he planned to shoot officers. The clerk called police, and Zygarowski was arrested.

Zygarowski is jailed awaiting a Monday arraignment.

You know, it is the 21st century, and it is possible to acknowledge that and make both the World Cup and the Olympics more affordable. The current waste and opulence simply aren't defensible anymore.

For the soccer pooh-bahs to demand that Brazil build new stadiums, costing billions of dollars, is unconscionable. How much more logical to utilize existing stadiums in neighboring countries, in large cities like Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Santiago.

As for the Olympics, rather than going through the notoriously rigorous process of voting for a new host city every few years, it would be sensible to pick three permanent sites, rotating them every Olympiad from Asia to Europe to the Americas — let's say, Tokyo to London to Los Angeles.

And even then, certain events could be allotted to nearby cities. For the LA Games, give San Francisco gymnastics, say, and San Diego the equestrian competitions.

The idea that such things as large cycling and swimming facilities have to be constructed every four years as, basically, a matter of planned obsolescence, is simply economically criminal.

Click on the audio link above to hear Deford's take on the issue.