Gargasz Goes Solo to Win Marathon : San Diego Marathon: Maureen Roben outruns Gail Kingma to finish first in the women(s race.

The solitude he could stand. The waiting he couldn’t, so he didn’t.

Work and weather often make running outdoors a shaky proposition for Gary Gargasz of Volant, Pa. As a result, he does as much as 75% of his running on a treadmill, the loneliest training apparatus known to man.

The discipline paid off handsomely for Gargasz on Sunday at the San Diego Marathon.

Gargasz, a 35-year-old nurse who started running six years ago so he would quit smoking, ran away with the men’s title. Gargasz covered the 26.2-mile rolling course in a respectable 2 hours 18 minutes 50 seconds.

Poland’s Miroslaw Bugaj, 31, finished 11 seconds behind Gargasz, although that’s a poor indicator of how close the race was.

It wasn’t. Unlike the women’s race, where best friends Maureen Roben and Gail Kingma raced side-by-side until Roben proved the stronger and faster of the two in the last few miles, Gargasz raced alone.

“The first two miles were slow,” Gargasz said of the pace before he pulled away. “No one wanted to push it. I thought someone would come with me, but no one did.”

So went the thinking of the six-pack of runners who at Mile 18 were a minute and 27 seconds behind Gargasz.

“I thought someone would make a move, but no one did,” said San Diego’s Steve McCormack, who finished fourth.

Gargasz said the pack in pursuit of him probably presumed he would eventually blow up.

“After Mile 6, I think they were planning on me dying,” he said. “But they were awry in their thinking.”

Denver’s Roben, the 1986 San Diego Marathon champion, won the women’s race in 2:42.25, ahead of Seattle’s Kingma, a two-time winner of this race and a close confidant of the new champion. Kingma covered the course in 2:43.19.

Roben’s only misguided thinking was believing she could stay away from marathons as long as she did. Her last race was the Houston Marathon two years ago. Shortly afterward, she took time off start a family--daughter Kelsey is 11 months old.

Had it not been for the gentle persuasion of Kingma, Roben, 36, may not have made it to this race.

“I went to a wedding in Denver about four months ago and I saw Maureen,” Kingma said. “We went on a long training run, an 18-miler. I told her I was going to run San Diego and if I could do it, she could too.”

Said Roben: “I thought I’d wait a couple of years, but . . . I love long runs and I’ve run in San Diego before and I liked it. I thought, why not?”

Kingma, 30, ran in a Cleveland marathon in May.

“I’ve run against her before,” Kingma said. “I know what she can do. Her body-type is really well suited for marathoning.”

For more than the first half of the women’s race, Roben and Kingma held a slight lead over Karen Gall of Billings, Mont., and Suzi Morris of Leucadia.

At the 18-mile mark, Roben stopped to use a restroom, but Kingma couldn’t take advantage of the opportunity.

“I kept gaining on her and caught her again,” said Roben, who never trailed after that.

“She was just stronger than me today,” Kingma said. “I struggled to stay with her. I tried not to panic, but she always seemed so fresh.”

As Gargasz did. Not once did he change stride or look uncomfortable.

“I don’t have a real high leg kick,” said Gargasz, who dedicated the victory to his father, who has cancer. “It’s ideal form. I can maintain a steady stride.”

Gargasz’s pace was 5:17, with Mile 15 (5:06) his fastest.

Third-place finisher Tomasz Gnabel (2:19.39), Bugaj’s training partner in Alamosa, Colo., said it wasn’t a blistering pace, but an impressive one considering he ran almost the entire race in solitude.

“The course was tough anyway,” said Gnabel, 24. “but when you run by yourself, it is entirely different. It’s very difficult. He did a great job.”

His training techniques made it easier.

“A lot of times, if your training runs are harder than the race, it makes the race easier,” Gargasz said. “That’s what this was.”

Gnabel, Bugaj, McCormack and Alfredo Rosas were the only pack members left in the closing miles of the chase. Finally, at Mile 25, Gnabel told Bugaj to go after Gargasz.

“I told him to go ahead and try to catch him,” Gnabel said. “I told him I was done for the day.”

As sewn up as his victory looked, Gargasz wasn’t convinced, until he crossed the finish line first.

“You never think you have it,” he said. “Not until you’ve finished. Too many things can happen.”

For their victories, Gargasz and Roben each receive a car and $2,000. Kingma and Bugaj earned $2,500 apiece.

The winning times bettered last year’s marks, run on a similar course, but with one especially tough hill taken out. In 1990, Kathy Smith of Costa Mesa ran a 2:43.05 and Benjamin Paredes Martinez of Mexico finished in 2:19.03.