Uta Pippig has a contagious condition. Her genuine, gleaming white smile spreads to everyone around her. I witnessed this a few weeks before this year's Boston Marathon, as she and her coach and companion Dieter Hogen addressed a group of runners in Boulder, Colorado. The crowd was restless when she arrived, having waited over a half-hour past the scheduled start time of the talk. Uta melted any edge to the group's temperament quickly with her soft, friendly voice and ready laugh.

If anyone had a right to be on edge, it was Uta. Unsure if she would be going back to Boston, her training not quite where she wanted it to be, a chance at another Boston victory was nonetheless dangling like a carrot before her nose.

Even without another Boston win, Uta has certainly made a place for herself in marathon history. A best of 2:21:45 makes her the third fastest marathoner of all time. She won the Boston and Berlin marathons three times each, and also managed a win at New York. As impressive as this list of accomplishments may be, many remember her best for the way she wins.

Uta normally blows kisses to the crowd as she approaches the finish. She celebrates her victory without the common, self-centered approach of so many athletes. Instead, she makes the crowd a part of the experience; she shares it with them and people love her as a result.

This evening in Boulder, the crowd clings to each word with the attention normally reserved for royalty.

As dramatic as her come-from-behind win was at Boston last year, the first question put to Uta was about her disappointing show at the Atlanta Olympic Games. Much had been made of the hardship she went through in Boston, and the media was certain she would never recover in time to run well at Atlanta. In fact, she did not run well, eventually dropping out of the race with a noticeable limp. But Uta put the record straight. She said her training had been going very well, she was quite fit, and there were no leftover problems from Boston.

"I hope you have a tissue," she told the crowd as she began her story of the Atlanta Olympics.

In great shape and ready to go for the gold medal, Uta decided early in the race to make a move. She pulled to a 30-second lead by the 5K mark.

"I didn't go out too fast, only 17:00 at five kilometers. That is slow," she claimed.

Uta recalled talking to Joan Benoit a few months before the race. Joan made a very similar move early in the 1984 Los Angeles games and won that race. Nonetheless, she warned Uta not to go out too fast in Atlanta. Uta laughed at the comment. "But Joanie," she said," what did you do at LA?"

Uta is no stranger to bold moves. She and Dieter left East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but she was technically a deserter since she was still officially a part of the old East German army. She and Dieter were on their own.

On her own at the front of the Olympic marathon, she clearly had no fear. The early move was not a desperate act as some in the media thought. It was a calculated approach to the race by a very confident, fit runner. In fact, 17:00 for five kilometers is about 2:23 marathon pace. This was a pace she felt confident she could maintain.

Uta's undoing was not a mistake in pace or pre-race training. It involved her racing flats. These were the same shoes she wore to victory in Boston, and they had been occasionally used in training. Unfortunately, these comfortable shoes had a worn outsole that made them a little slick on the rain wetted pavement at Atlanta. In addition, there was a little too much room in the shoes. Perhaps they had stretched with use. In any event, the slipping both on the pavement and inside the shoe cost her dearly. She got a severe pain in her midfoot first, her shin later. Sciatica shot up her leg. Uta continued until it was apparent there was no reason to go on. When she left the race she had slipped all the way to eighth place.

Uta handled the disappointment better than her parents, who couldn't stop crying when she visited them after the race. She told them this wasn't so bad.

"I can run, at least," she told them. "There are people out there who would like to run and can't." Such is Uta's outlook.

Dieter handled the disappointment in his usual, scientific manner. He had to dissect the problem. He made use of ultra high speed cameras to photograph Uta's foot inside the racing flats. He discovered a serious twisting of the metatarsals as a result of the slipping motion, which caused a stress fracture in her foot and in her tibia.

After twenty marathons, Uta said, "it was a stupid mistake. I should have known better." Neither she nor Dieter blamed bad luck.

Did luck have a part in her come-from-behind win at the 1996 Boston Marathon?

Late in the race Uta was well behind race leader Tegla Loroupe, who had taken the lead at the 18-mile mark. Uta had bad cramps from both intestinal problems and menstruation. She had visible diarrhea and bleeding associated with these problems, and yet she didn't stop. Behind by over 100 yards with a mile to go, she pressed on. Then Loroupe was hit hard by leg cramps. She was reduced to a shuffle which permitted the diligent Pippig to take the lead and win in dramatic fashion. It hardly seemed like luck at the time, it appeared to be destiny.

It has been said that people often create their destiny, and perhaps the extreme training Uta puts in had a lot to do with her ability to persevere. At times she logs as many as 180 miles in a week. She lifts weights, does specialized resistance exercises, and follows a strict diet. In the past Uta indicates she has been so involved in training that she doesn't even go shopping for months at a time. All of this is carefully prescribed by Dieter.

Hogen was a coach in the old East German sports system. If this brings to mind the injection of various banned substances, put your mind at ease. Dieter was a rebel in East German sports. He felt trapped by the political system. Before the fall of the wall, East German officials would not let Uta and Dieter leave the country. "They were afraid if we left the country, we wouldn't come back," Hogen relates. "They were right."

The very calculated, scientific approach of the East German sport system fit Dieter well however, and he takes a highly cerebral approach to Uta's training as a result. For example, training paces are still calculated in the old East German method of meters per second.

As precise as the training approach is, Uta let us in on a secret. Each day she takes note of how she feels and adjusts the training plan accordingly. Plans may even change mid-workout if need be. Uta and Dieter feel strongly that an athlete must learn to read their body.

Uta's diet includes plenty of vegetables and whole grains. Vitamin and mineral supplements are employed, as well as sports drinks before, during, and after workouts.

"Dieter is the cook," Uta says. He figures the number of calories that Uta burns each day and cooks just the right amount of food to replace those calories. There is no deficit and no overage. "Except on ice cream days," Uta laughs. "Dieter hates ice cream days."

It sounds as if no nutritional stone had been left unturned, yet Uta had been making a nutritional mistake that contributed to the colon problems that were so evident in the Boston race. She wasn't hydrating enough. It wasn't that she wasn't drinking water. She was making a real effort to drink water daily. It just wasn't enough.

The stress of training and the dry air in Boulder had taken its toll. Uta now drinks at least a gallon of water a day. This is in addition to sports drinks and other fluids she might consume.

Twenty marathons and still learning. Such is the life of a world-class athlete.

As the enchanted group that had listened to Uta filed out of the church meeting room, I wondered about the future.

We didn't know then that Uta would be running the 1997 Boston Marathon. There we saw the same Uta we have always seen. Granted, she did not win this time out, placing fourth. She wasn't in her best shape, which she and Dieter knew before the race. Nonetheless, her 2:28:50 proved to endear her even more to marathon aficionados. As she ran, she shrugged her shoulders as if to say "sorry I can't run faster for you today." She smiled, waved to the crowd and put a lump in every throat that watched her.

After she ran 2:21:45 at Boston in 1994, many wondered if Uta would be the first woman to break the 2:20 barrier. If she does, it is likely that sports statisticians will remember her primarily for that accomplishment. Most of us, though, will remember the kisses she blew to her fans, her dramatic 1996 Boston finish, and that infectious smile.