How to Increase Mileage Running. Southwest Airlines, the movie "A Few Good Men," the U.S. Marine Corps and the Ironman Triathlon are just a few of those sudsy success stories.
Add Prague's Running Mall, a first-of-its-kind running facility, to that list.
"Everything started in 1995," says Carlo Capalbo, director of RunCzech events, a popular race series in the Czech Republic. "The idea to organize the first international marathon in Prague was born when my friend, Gelindo Bordin [the Italian runner who won the 1988 Olympic marathon], and I were having a beer in a Prague pub. By the next year we had 958 runners at the start."
In subsequent years, Capalbo had grown the Czech races, reaching 60,000 participants in 2013. But running life in the city centered on those brief events. "Until now, we've only ever had a chance to meet up with the runners for a few days during the year, always around race time," he says.
That's when he said the idea of opening the Running Mall occurred to him. "We wanted to be able to interact with runners here every day and to become more than just a race organizer," he says. "We wanted to create a complete running center with a variety of services for the community."
In the spring of 2013, a three-story corner building in Letna, one of Prague's most beautiful districts, was transformed into a unique meeting point for runners.
The ground floor houses a main reception area, a cafe and water bar, an adidas store, the Emil and Dana Zatopek Conference Hall, which will be used for running lectures and instruction, and dressing rooms and showers that serve as a launch pad for runs in nearby Stromovak or Letna parks, two of the city's leading running spots. A sport lounge equipped with treadmills and fitness machines, as well as table soccer and table tennis, occupies the lower level. The top floor is the main base for the Prague International Marathon team, which heads the RunCzech Running League and the new RunCzech Racing Team, an international project consisting of young elite athletes of different nations and origins, training and racing together.
New York Road Runners president and CEO Mary Wittenberg, who attended a ribbon cutting ceremony in May, was blown away by the facility, saying, "The idea of creating a place for people to meet, which all runners can draw inspiration from, is absolutely great."
Capalbo cites the enduring appeal of Czech hero Emil Zatopek, who won three gold medals in the 1952 Olympics, as further inspiration for the project to bring runners together in Prague. "He was one of the best long-distance runners ever, a legend, but also a great personality who relished new challenges, and emulating him we have been encouraged to do the same," Capalbo says. "He once said, 'Great is the victory, but the friendship of all is greater.'"
