Los Cabos Adds Inline Skating to Its Marathon

The Los Cabos Inline Marathon: a Planet Preview ...
Is This the Start of Inline Marathoning in Mexico?

Promoters Say Los Cabos Event Will Be First Skating Marathon in Latin America

By Robert "Keeps Lime and Salt Handy" Burnson

As if there weren't enough reasons already to wander down the Baja coastline ... the prickly desert rubbing its flanks into the cobalt blue seas, the dusty towns abundant with Coronas, the shrimp tamales from the aprons of street vendors, the 800 miles of solitude before the 30 miles of luxury resorts ... as if there weren't enough reasons already, now there's an inline marathon.

It's a new inline skating event, which the promoters are billing as the first and only skating marathon in Mexico and Latin America.

Part of Larger Running Marathon

The skating marathon (along with a 5 K skate) will be held on Sunday, Dec. 5, as part of the third annual Los Cabos International Marathon. The Los Cabos marathon has been modestly successful; it attracts about 400 runners a year to the resort town of Cabo San Lucas, at the southern tip of the Baja peninsula.

If successful, the race promoter hopes to make the inline marathon an annual event. As it stands now, it appears to be one of the few inline skating events of any kind in Mexico, which seems remarkable given the country's respectable 17th place finish (39 countries competed) in this year's Inline World Championships in Italy.

Remember Rodolfo?

The race promoter is the famed Mexican long distance runner Rodolfo Gomez (and his racing club). In case you don't remember, Gomez was involved in one of the most memorable marathons in modern history: the 1982 New York City Marathon.

Most of the world's greatest marathoners competed in the race. But almost from the start, the marathon turned into an epic battle between Gomez and the Cuban-American Alberto Salazar. The two runners ran side by side, matching strides for mile after mile -- until Salazar edged out Gomez in the sprint.

Several years later, after some triumphs and some defeats, Gomez gave up racing and became one of the world's most successful running coaches. His protégés include Andres Espinosa and German Silva, both winners of the New York Marathon.

Gomez still trains his runners at his old stomping grounds: the 15,000-foot volcano Xinantecatl, where he developed his revolutionary ideas about high-altitude training in the 1970s.

For our preview of the Los Cabos International Marathon, we sent a list of questions to Rodolfo Gomez.

Here's what he had to say ...

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