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Friday, May 03, 2002

By Lori Shontz, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

The limit was one suitcase because anything else would have raised suspicions. Magdalena Lewy, her mother and her brother had tourist visas to leave Poland, and if anyone had an inkling that the Lewys were leaving for good, they would be forced to stay.

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Lewy was 15 years old, and she hadn't seen her father in three years, since he had left for Germany, a better job and eventually a better life for his family. Her mother continually applied for visas but was denied until 1988, when the Lewy family was finally reunited in Kiel, a city north of Hamburg.

Then the family decided to move again. A relative lived in Long Beach, Calif., and Lewy's parents decided the opportunities were better there. In 1991, for the second time in three years, Lewy moved to a country where she didn't know the language -- this time, the United States.

Lewy, who will compete Sunday in the UPMC Health System/City of Pittsburgh Marathon, relates such stories matter-of-factly, as if they are no big deal.

"I admire my parents for taking the initiative," she said. "They did it for us so we could come to a place where we could make choices for ourselves -- and set our own goals and reach our own goals without any problems."

For Lewy, who became an American citizen in an abbreviated ceremony Sept. 11, coming to the United States has given her an opportunity to excel in areas she had never considered trying. A swimmer when she lived in Jastrzebie, Poland, she started running track with a friend her senior year of high school in Long Beach.

She was an All-American at 5,000 meters as a senior at the University of California-Berkeley. After a few years of post-collegiate frustration, she turned to marathons.

Although she hasn't been thrilled with either of her efforts -- stomach problems hindered her last year at the Cleveland Marathon, her debut, and last fall's California International marathon was plagued by bad weather -- Lewy remains enthusiastic about the event.

Which is characteristic.

"She doesn't really take anything for granted," said Lewy's fiance, Richie Boulet, who ran with her at Cal-Berkeley. "She's always so happy when things go well -- she's always just so thankful for it. And it's not quite as hard to deal with things when they go wrong because she's been through a lot."

Lewy had only one year of American high school, before she went to Long Beach City College, partly to work on her English. While there, she also improved her running times enough that her junior-college coach contacted Cal-Berkeley coach Tony Sandoval.

He wasn't particularly impressed with her times -- 2:20 for the 800 meters, 4:42.7 for the 1,500, 17:23 for the 5,000 -- but he was impressed with her.

"I didn't know what she was going to be," Sandoval said, "but I knew she was going to be something."

Since then, Lewy and Sandoval have become so close that he calls her his adopted daughter.

"I've traveled to a lot of countries, and I've met a lot of athletes," Sandoval said. "I think the people I've met who have come from the Iron Curtain countries, they've become pretty beaten down. They've had to work so hard, and there's so much industry -- there's a gloom. But she's different. She's bright and adaptable and she sees the glass half-filled."

After college, she struggled with injuries before deciding to concentrate on the marathon, an event that Sandoval and Boulet believe fits her personality.

"She's the kind of person, when she's injured she could run in the pool for an hour then do the exercise bike for an hour," Boulet said. "She's just kind of a training beast, and you have to be to run the marathon."