However, due to warm weather, the winning times were slower than expected with Nicholas Kemboi (Qatar) running 2:08:51 and Caroline Rotich (Kenya) clocking 2:27:00. But overall Czech’s premier running event, which was staged little more than one month after the Hervis Prague Half Marathon, was another success. And with the Prague Grand Prix – a 10K race and adidas Women’s Race on 7^th September – there is a third major road running event coming up in the Czech capital. But Prague is by no means the end of the road for the organisers.

Just two weeks after the Volkswagen Prague Marathon the busy team led by chairman Carlo Capalbo stage their next event, a half marathon in Karlovy Vary. In total there are now seven races organised across the Czech Republic by Capalbo’s team. Five of them already have an IAAF gold or silver label. The RunCzech Running League’, as the series is officially called, has become a notable success with events usually sold-out weeks before the start. And this year a record total of 48,000 runners are expected to take part in these races.

It all started back in 1994, when Italians Carlo Capalbo and Olympic Marathon Champion Gelindo Bordin were having a beer in a Prague Restaurant. After the idea of staging a marathon in the Czech capital came up, they called Emil Zátopek. The all-time great later became a race patron together with Gelindo Bordin. When the first marathon was staged on 4^th June 1995 there were 985 runners but adding other events the total was around 15,000.

”I would never have expected us creating something as big and as successful as we have today,” said Carlo Capalbo, who admits that “at the beginning we were not so professional. But in 18 years we have built high standards. And I was always thinking big.” Major marathon races in New York, London and Berlin were inspirational for developing the Prague Marathon and later the RunCzech series. Carlo Capalbo often travelled to the London or Berlin Marathons where Race Directors Dave Bedford and Horst Milde set international standards. “I always watched my friends and still today I try to learn from other events. There were a lot of good ideas and I implemented some of them into our race.”

The aim for Carlo Capalbo and his team was to become a major player in the global running community. “But for obvious reasons we knew it is impossible to get 40,000 marathon runners in Prague. The CzechRepublic only has a population of around 10 million people. So we are a small country and our marathon theoretically is already too big compared to the population of our nation. But we get a lot of foreign runners,” said Carlo Capalbo, who had an amazing foreign entry of 48 percent in the Volkswagen Prague Marathon 2013.

“We wanted to create one platform so that in total we would be as big as the races of the World Marathon Majors. We have now succeeded with this by creating the RunCzech Running League,” explained the 55 year-old chairman. “We make sure that all events have got the same high standards in all aspects. There are the same sponsors and the same suppliers. The organising team is the same as well as the whole set-up, for example the construction of the start and finish areas.” The elite fields are also very strong and all races are shown live on Czech TV.

While the Grand Prix and the half marathon in the capital were established as long ago as 1996 and 1999, the Olomouc Half Marathon became the first race outside Prague in 2010. A year later another half marathon followed: this time in the northern city of Usti nad Labem, while the Ceske Budejovice Half Marathon was added in 2012. The event in Karlovy Vary will be staged for the first time on May 25.

”Geographically it is simple to organise various events in different regions of the Czech Republic,” said Carlo Capalbo. What made it easier to implement major races into other cities was the fact that no other big road running events existed in these cities. To avoid possible conflicts with other organisers RunCzech cooperates and helps other smaller races in the Republic. “We all benefit from this. The more people start running the better for all of us.” RunCzech has seen a strong increase of entries in recent years. “Within five years we more than doubled our total number of participants,” explained Carlo Capalbo.

RunCzech also introduced a new competition format, where runners are ranked according to their profession and age group. For example teachers compete against each other on an annual basis within the RunCzech Running League. They can collect points at each of their races. Their three best performances are added together at the end of the season. Each age category also has a winner. Next year participants will even be able to collect points in eight races. Because RunCzech will introduce a new half marathon in Ostrava.

RunCzech is an achievement which surely would have made Emil Zátopek glow with pride at the continuing passion for running in his country.