QUIZ # 2 (February, 2000)

FOREWORD: After torturing the Central Park Track Club community with that notoriously difficult Quiz # 1 in November 1999, Toby Tanser moved on to torture the rest of the world with this quiz that appeared in the April 2000 edition of Running Times magazine.

Think you know your stuff when it comes to running-related minutiae?  We received the following quiz from Toby Tanser, author of Train Hard, Win Easy: The Kenyan Way and member of New York's Central Park Track Club.  We admit we were stumped by most of them, although Tanser assures us that the questions were so "riddled with clues" that answering most of them requires just a bit of thought and perhaps some Internet sleuthing.  And if, not, you'll learn something when you sneak a peek at the answers, below.

(1) What is Catherina McKiernan's middle name? (Hint: She's Catholic)

(2) Benoit Zwierzchiewski, the course record holder for the Las Vegas Half Marathon, has a mythical animal emblazoned on his body.  What is the animal?

(3) A certain Kenyan middle distance star has several wives (as is legal in Kenya), the fourth of whom won Kenya's first ever medal at the World Track and Field Championships.  Name the happy couple.  (Hint: He's not a man to bet against in a tight finish.)

(4) Name the small Swedish town where Gelindo Bordin trained prior to his Olympic Marathon victory.

(5) Back in the early 80s, 1999 New York City Marathon champ Adriana Fernandez's coach twice was the runner-up in the Gotham 26-miler, finishing in 2:09 and 2:10.  What was the coach?  Too easy.  OK, then, in what year did he finish in 2:12?

(6) This ex-tank driver competed in the Atlanta Olympics by virtue of having run 2:11 in the London Marathon.  Now a U.S. citizen, he has run more than 80 marathons.  Name the athlete --- and his debut marathon time.

(7) A coach-athlete duo finished within five seconds of each other in the 1999 Emil Zatopek 10,000 Classic.  Name the pair.  (Hint: The athlete, who lost the contest to his mentor, is the Australian national record holder for the distance.)

(8) For New Yorkers only: Joe Kleinerman, registrar of the New York Road Runners Club, has a race named in his honor.  If you take the distance, in kilometers, and subtract the number of the floor where his office is situated at the NYRRC, what do you get?

(9) In what sport did former Japanese marathon star Toshihiko Seko compete before turning to running?  And what did Seko consider his only "vice" during hard training?  (Hint: The answers share the same first letter.)

(10) Tanzania had five running brothers, one of whom is deceased, and three of whom have recorded sub-2:11 marathon times.  The brothers have the same middle and last names.  What are their first names?

ANSWERS: (Sorry, you'll have to buy a copy of Running Times to find out ... gotcha!)