With the Aug. 6 TD Bank Beach to Beacon 10K race fast approaching, all of Cape Elizabeth is preparing for the national spotlight to shine its way once again. And at home, a lucky few Cape residents are making their own preparations – not to run, but to put up some of the world’s most talented distance runners.

“They come from all over,” said Host Family Coordinator Kathy Tarpo. “This year we have an excellent and large group from the U.S., but we also have guests from Japan, New Zealand, and Australia, in addition to the many African nations represented like Burundi and Kenya.”

“These athletes are assigned a host family when they arrive,” Tarpo added. “Who they are assigned to isn’t entirely random – we have some longtime hosts who have always hosted African runners, and the majority tend to be put with the same families. Other families say ‘surprise me’ and don’t care who they get. Most athletes speak at least a little English, but some do not.”

One of those longtime hosts is Bob Harrison, who has been involved with the host program since the Beach to Beacon kicked off in 1998. With the exception of a single female Russian runner, Harrison has always hosted African athletes, and one of these – Joseph Kimani – was a Beach to Beacon champion. After two years of competing with some close calls, Kimani won the 2000 Beach to Beacon with a time of 28:07.

“I knew the woman who was doing the host family coordination the first year, so I asked her ‘if we do this, can we get a couple of Kenyan runners?’” Harrison said, knowing the Kenyans’ reputation as superb distance athletes. “So we ended up getting a couple of Kenyan men, and it went well.”

“We have a family history in Kenya – I have a second cousin who worked there in the Peace Corps in the 1960s – so we knew they were very good people,” Harrison continued. “Plus, we like the advantage of having people visit who are skilled in English. A lot of Kenyans have gone to college for English, learned it as a second or third language, or gone to English schools as children, and that makes it easier on all of us.”

Host families are responsible for ferrying the athletes to and from the race and taking them around the area. Many athletes want to walk the length of the course prior to race day so they know how they need to pace themselves come race time.

“We usually only have Cape Elizabeth or South Portland families host, because it is kind of important for them to be close to the course so they can fulfill their obligations,” Tarpo said. “They have to get them to the starting line, and get them to the press conference, and if the athletes come in on Thursday, they really only have one day to familiarize themselves with the Cape Elizabeth roads. Getting into town and around it on race day is a little challenging.”

Harrison goes a step further, actually joining his athletes on the course when they walk it, and trying to assist as much as he can in their strategy. After a couple of near-misses on victories for athletes he was hosting in the first two years of the race – including watching Kimani fade after the halfway point in 1999 – Harrison realized that the challenges of the course might not be instantaneously obvious to athletes he was hosting, particularly the final half-mile or so before the finish line.

“(In 2000, Kimani won), and he won by hitting the downhill portion hard,” Harrison said. “He blew everybody away with a burst of speed, and he built such a big lead that he coasted in. Over the years we have learned that (walking the course) is a good opportunity to talk strategy. The year after Kimani got beat, we spent a lot of time standing there talking about the course, and talking about strategy. Joseph realized what he needed to do.”

Another necessity for host families is to feed their athletes, and this can actually turn into something of an adventure, given the different cultural backgrounds at work.

“We found across the board that both our Kenyan and Ethiopian runners do not enjoy ice cream,” said Kerri Berman, who has also hosted runners. “They seem to chuckle at our American need for dessert. We always have a big barbecue here after the race with other runners staying in the neighborhood, and it is fun to get the runners in the pool. Many of them have never been swimming. One year they were especially timid and wore life jackets in the hot tub.”

“We always have the white corn meal on hand, which is appropriate for making ugali, their preferred ‘fuel,’” Harrison added. “They are not big beef eaters, and we learned early in the process that they like vegetables. When they eat meat, they tend to eat fish and chicken. We cater to them after a fashion, but we are historically a family of athletes, so we know how food affects performance. We want them to do well – it’s a good reflection on us if they do – and we try to do them the favor by providing them with a living situation that allows them to perform well.”

With numbers of racers up, the number of host families has increased over last year. That means more work for Tarpo, but it also presents a window of opportunity for would-be hosts to get into the mix in the next couple of years.

“I have athletes in 27 homes right now,” she said. “The last couple years it’s been about 24. How many athletes per home really depends on the host. (In our house), we have space for three and we like having three, but we also know people who have one extra bedroom, and can only take one. Accommodations vary from home to home.”

In the meantime, hosts like Harrison will continue stepping up to the plate and inviting athletes into his house.

“I am astounded at how the town has gotten into the race over the years,” he said. “(Back when I first started hosting), I was in a position of raising my kids in one town and one school system, and I wanted to give them exposure to travel and culture. Well, this got them that exposure without the travel.”