OK, so mountain running isn’t an Olympic sport. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a trials race. And St. Louisan Zac Freudenburg of the 180 Energy Runners will join the best Saturday at the Mount Washington Road Race in New Hampshire.

The top four finishers become the U.S. Mountain Running Team, which will compete in the World Mountain Trophy race in the Sierre Crans-Montana region of Switzerland on September 14.

“He’s ready,” team captain Jeff Bockhorn said in an e-mail. Freudenburg is coming off a disappointing showing in the World Mountain Running Championships two months ago in England. He had pulled a muscle the week before.

“He thought he could run through it but had to drop out,” Bockhorn said. “But he’s ready now. His spirit is high - when he’s like this in the past, that means he is ready.”

Freudenburg, a Ph.D. student in computer science at Washington University, finished third in the 2006 World Mountain Running Championships and is a fixture at the front of local races, ranging from five miles to a half-marathon.

The run will be a real test. The course is the Mt. Washington Auto Road, just 7.6 miles. But it has an average grade of 11.5 percent, extended sections at 18 percent and a final 50-yard wall at 22 percent.

The race’s oh-so-clever slogal: Relax, it’s only one hill.

If that’s a hill, then Alpe d’Huez, which does in many a cyclist come Tour de France time, is a bunny slope.