VIVID POSTCARDS
Postcard from New Mexico

by Toby Smith
May 2004

The other morning I'm walking my dog, heading for a high school about a half-mile from my house. When I get there, I do as I often do: leash up the mutt and jog escargot-like around a running track. The track this morning is deserted save for a slight, blonde woman who is moving swiftly and economically. Barely breathing noticeably, she passes me, striding with a grace uncharacteristic for the neighbourhood slugs I typically see here. After ten minutes of exercising, I notice two older men in street clothes shuffling across the track. They signal the woman runner and the three huddle on the infield. Loping by, I catch some strange but vaguely familiar words. Curious, next time I go around I head over toward the men.

ìExcuse me?î I ask. ìWhere are you from?î

Tersely, distractedly, one of the men answers, ìRomania.î

My jaw descends. Turning, I study the woman runner, who has returned to the track. My God, I think, could that be her? Finally: ìIs that Szabo?î I inquire. ìGabi Szabo?î

The older of the two men is a stereotypical, old-school Romanian: unshaven, suspicious, chain smoking. ìYes, yes, yes,î he says in an annoyed tone that suggests everyone in northern New Mexico should instantly recognise an Eastern European icon.

After introducing myself, I explain that I lived in Bucharest for two years in the late Nineties. The man, glancing about nervously, as if Securitate might be lurking among the tumbleweeds, nods, not terribly interested. When the coast appears clear, he mumbles that he is Gabriela Szabo's husband and coach, and that they came to New Mexico about a month before to train.

To discover a defending Olympic gold medallist, a three-time world champion, on an out-of-the-way high school track in Albuquerque, New Mexico, does not happen every day. Though my hometown periodically attracts world-class runners, Kenyans chiefly, because of its mile-high altitude and mild winters, those athletes usually are seen training on the wide boulevards here. To bump into one working out in this remote schoolyard is almost like spotting Sir Ian McKellen playing a bit role in a community theatre production in Skunk Hollow, Georgia.

ìHow on earth did you wind up here?î I ask.

Inspecting me for a moment, and then perhaps deciding that I am not the secret police, Szabo's husband says they had looked around Albuquerque and found this high school's rubberised track had the softest surface, the best for spikes, which his wife preferred using for practice. Lighting another cigarette, he goes on, still in the furtive mode, and indicates they would be returning soon to Bucharest.

Gabi the Great eventually pulls off the track. When her husband introduces me, she smiles brightly and delivers a measured ìHow do you do?î I want to tell her that we have met before, in May 1998, in Bucharest, but decide not to. We didn't actually meet, but rather competed - along with hundreds of others - in a ëfun run' that began in front of the Intercontinental Hotel and ended at Herastrau, one of the first such contests ever held in the capital. Back then the idea of a public foot race was so new to Romania that several entrants stood at the starting line that morning wearing black dress shoes and puffing Carpatis. When the gun went off, a few competitors were shoved onto the pavement by stampeding athletes, and then inadvertently trampled by others following close behind. The last I saw of Szabo, until now in New Mexico, she was blazing a path through Piata Romana.

That day six years ago was a crazy one. But no more crazy, I suppose, than seeing Szabo once more, 5,000 miles from home.

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