I follow the ambulance down the paved city roads onto older cobblestone streets. I brace myself so as not to turn my ankles. Bystanders line the streets at every corner. There are all types: farmers, men in business suits, women in traditional Mayan clothing, kids. And animals: cows, sheep, and plenty of dogs. Most people seem to pause and wonder what they are seeing. After all, it is not every day in this city that a big gringo comes running down the street behind an ambulance. There is often delayed applause after they realize what is happening.

I struggle with the hills. The baseball-field running didn’t help with conquering hills. I remain alone at the front. Even though I know I am not supposed to look back, I do, and I see I have a few hundred meters on the teenage girl. The ambulance swerves into the town center. Several times, the ambulance gets stuck behind a car at a red light and cannot move. I am at a loss about what to do. I jog back and forth next to the ambulance. At one light, they yell, “Al hospital!” (To the hospital.) But I have no idea where the hospital is so I must wait.

Finally the ambulance finds a clear path, and I follow it back to the hospital. I enter the parking lot relatively relaxed, to cheers of nurses, doctors, and patients dressed in gowns, some in wheelchairs. The TV news is there, although it will soon leave to cover an armed robbery at the gas station down the street: station that I had just run by. Instinctively, I look at my watch: 17:01. “Three kilometers or four kilometers,” I think. “A three-kilometer or four-kilometer great marathon.”

A minute or so later, the teenage girl crosses the finish line. She makes the sign of the cross and thanks God as she finishes.

In a makeshift awards ceremony, I receive a big red and gold trophy. I feel very lucky to receive it, as nothing is of small expense at a national hospital.

My glory is short lived. After the race, I am quickly recruited to play papifutbol, a small concrete version of soccer. I volunteer to be goalie, figuring this is a position I can play well, because of my size and the relatively smaller goals. However, balls fly past me at extremely slow speeds. It is very ugly.

That night, sitting around dinner with my host family, I am introduced to an older uncle. “Es Paul, de Boston. Paul es el campeén del marat6n hoy,” says my host mom.

“Paul. Boston, eh,” responds the uncle. Usually this is followed by a comment about the Boston Red Sox, who, at the time, were playing the Yankees in the playoffs. But the uncle does not ask about the Red Sox.

“Boston. Boston Maratén. Proximo, el Boston Maratén,” he says with a

a gas

smile. I laugh to myself and smile back. “Maybe,” I think. “Maybe.” A little i longer and a little faster, but maybe.

(And What I Learned From It)

OSICE, SLOVAKIA, October 2, 2005—Selecting the starting pace for a

marathon should not be a difficult calculation. A formula such as 1.25 times your half-marathon pace (in minutes per kilometer) plus or minus 0.5 (minutes per kilometer), depending upon the level of preparation, appears in most training guides. But in my experience, it is as difficult to calculate (and stick to) the proper starting pace as it is—anytime after 20 miles—to determine the finishing pace needed to meet an often steadily receding finishing time. Problems late in a race are well documented, but their genesis is frequently in prerace planning, which in my case is not very good.

Having run more marathons than I can count on my fingers and blistered toes, I need only one thumb to count the number of races where I got the pace right (Chicago 2003, a 1:50/1:48 negative split). Despite this dismal record of prognostication, I yet again took leave of good running sense in the 2005 KoSice Peace Marathon (KPM). However, before I describe and try to rationalize my latest lapse in logical thinking (and sound running practice), let me first give some background about the KPM, for I suspect that most runners have not heard much about this historic race (one exception being Hal Higdon, who, when I mentioned to him at the expo for the 2005 Grandma’s Marathon that I had signed up, quickly said something like, “Oh yeah, ran that twice in the ’60s!”).

Few marathons can offer a runner more tradition, in a country of great beauty, than the KPM. Set in eastern Slovakia, approximately equal distance from Krakow and Budapest, on a rough north-south line, KoSice is a thousand-year-old city (first written record is from 1230) that annually hosts the world’s second-oldest marathon (established in 1924). While the KPM is relatively unknown today in the United States, the race, the city, and the region have much to offer a runner seeking a fast, flat course for a fall marathon. KoSice’s location in the mountains of eastern Slovakia invites the visitor to travel from the country’s capital of Bratislava by train on a cross-country trip (Trnava, Trenéin, Zilina, Liptovsky

A The start of the 2005 Kosice Peace Marathon, with the Cathedral of St. Elizabeth (1508) in the distance.

Mikula’, Poprad, and KoSice), a sort of brief Orient Express through a changing vista of villages, thick woods, mountains, and river valleys guarded by medieval hilltop castles. A tempting option on this trip is a stop in the High Tatras (Vysoké Tatry), with 25 peaks over 2,500 meters, for some vigorous prerace mountain training or some postrace sight-seeing and relaxation. Another good choice is a visit to the nearby Slovensky Raj National Park, with miles of marked hiking trails and many waterfalls. Once in KoSice, a modern city of 250,000 people surrounding a charming historic center, the visiting runner and party will find excellent and reasonably priced accommodations (one option is a race-sponsored youth hostel), convenient public transportation, and a variety of musical, artistic, and culinary activities.

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE KPM

The KPM, after its first two races, was set up as an out-and-back course to the nearby village of Sena. This course was changed in 1989 to the current tight figure-eight or butterfly-wing course in and around the historic town center (staré mesto). Before the race, the visitor can get a sense of the race’s traditions from viewing the photographs of early races displayed in an exhibit at the State Scientific Library (10 Main Street, or as the Slovaks say Hlavna Ulica 10) or from reading the names of past winners inscribed on the base of the marathon runner

Courtesy of Richard Magin

statue located in a small park (Namestie Maratonu Mieru) just past the 1K mark on the course. The complete history of the race is described in the book Kosice Peace Marathon 1924-1999, which is available in English and is posted on the marathon’s Web site (www.kosicemarathon.com). Many well-known 20th-century marathon runners have participated in the KPM (two-time Olympic gold medalist Abebe Bikila, for example, won the KPM in 1961), but today the big names are more likely to be found at the big-city races in Europe and in the United States. In addition, a growing number of other Eastern European marathons (in Slovenia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and Russia, for example) also draw the attention of runners, with the 2005 Budapest Marathon being held on the same day as the KPM. Hence, the total field for the 2005 races was just over 1,000 runners, with 735 completing the half and 479 finishing the full marathon.

A feature of the KPM, in addition to its uncrowded field, is a course that uses the old city’s pedestrian-only main street (Hlavna) for both start and finish, so spectators can view runners at the start, 12K, 21K, 33K, and the finish without walking more than 100 meters. In between, the coffee shops, bookstores, and historic sights of the staré mesto will keep them busy. The current course is 21K long, so the half-marathon competitors run one lap while the full marathon runners go two laps (the start is combined). The 10:00 a.m. starting gun gives all runners ample time to get up and get ready for the race. Where else can a runner sit in a café within sight of the start/finish area until 15 minutes before the race? The temperature is typically cool in early October; this year it was 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) and partly cloudy at the start with a light breeze—great running weather.

Water, sports drinks, and snacks (cookies, banana sections, sugar cubes, and lemon slices) are spaced every 5K along the course, with additional water stops with sponges situated between each refreshment stop. Both types of stops are well maintained by volunteers, and the local police secure every connecting road to keep the course free of autos (note, however, that the course closes at five hours so that penguin-like runners have to fend for themselves after 3:00 P.M.).

The crowd is pretty dense in the old town but thins out on the wings of the course, which passes through shaded parks as well as urban neighborhoods. The spectators are vocal and supportive, shouting, “Hop, hop, hop,” or “Tem-po, tem-po, tem-po.” Some spectators use a published program to find the names of runners, thus providing a personalized form of encouragement, “Go USA!”). The race has a small expo on Friday and Saturday, located underground in the town’s archaeological excavation (Dolna Brana), also near the start, while the Saturday evening pasta dinner was held a couple of miles away at the Hotel Ferrocentrum, where lots of music, beer, and good food maintain other Slovak traditions. The overall winners (in 2005, David Maiyo, Kenya, 2:16:07; and Edyta Lewandowska, Poland, 2:37:48) are presented with their trophies and prizes at an award