Bangor mailman fast on the road> Lack of experience fails to slow Hosmer as he preps for Maine Marathon

The question before Sunday’s Maine Marathon is not how race favorites Byrne Decker or Dave Dunham will do, or how defending champion Pat Sullivan will fare. Rather, what does Scott Hosmer eat for breakfast?

You’ll want to know when Hosmer finishes because his is an unlikely success story. The 29-year-old Bangor native is primed to continue his remarkable tale in Sunday’s marathon.

The race starts at 8 a.m. at the corner of Forest Avenue and Baxter Boulevard in Portland.

Hosmer, a rural mail carrier for the Bangor Post Office, only started competing in road races in the summer of ’95. Yet, in his first marathon in June, Hosmer placed second in the Sugarloaf Marathon with a time of 2 hours, 38 minutes, 3 seconds.

Though Hosmer isn’t favored to win Sunday’s race, he’ll go into it as Bangor’s unknown underdog and could run away with a reputation.

Decker (2:26, personal record) of Yarmouth and Dunham (2:21) of Bradford, Mass., will likely be the front runners, but Hosmer could be close. Sullivan won in 2:34:31.

“There is a lot more competition this year,” said Sullivan, Bangor High’s cross country coach. “The guys coming up from Mass. are 2:20 marathoners. They’ll be the favorites. Scott Hosmer is up here doing well. He should run really well.”

After a summer of improvement on the road, Hosmer is poised to drop his time. Forget that he hasn’t trained for a marathon. Hosmer spent one month training for Sugarloaf after some shin splints sidelined him four months this winter. And nothing he does on the roads makes any sense anyway.

Hosmer started running a little more than a year ago. The only sport he ever competed in was high school baseball. Up until last summer, he kept in shape by biking and lifting.

Yet, in September, he won the Bangor Labor Day 5-mile race i Yet, in September, he won the Bangor Labor Day 5-mile race in 26:53 and the 5K Terry Fox Run at Hampden in 15:55. In July, he won the 10-mile Hancock Lobster Classic in 55:55.

Hosmer’s success this summer is so sudden, so surprising and so unmatched by any road racer in the Bangor area, he has become a bit of a mystery.

“Scott is under 30, I never knew who he was,” said Erin Semba, a member of the Sub 5 Track Club. “The last two races of the series will prove interesting. Scott is really tough. He runs that Drummond Street hill up to the Standpipe. It’s kind of his habit.”

Hosmer started running when he joined the Bangor Y running group. In his first road race, the Grant’s Dairy Run in 1995, he finished fifth in 29:14. Hosmer wasn’t hooked, but he was intrigued enough to continue laboring on the roads at his 6:40 pace.

Then when he ran the Brewer Turkey Trot 5K last fall, he took third in 16:32 and came away a convert. He loved the competition.

“When I passed Pat Sullivan in the Turkey Trot, he was a gauge of were I was getting close to,” Hosmer said. “I knew he put a lot of time into training. In each race, I kept getting closer. Finally, I passed him on the last hill. I had to do it.”

But it was with Hosmer’s unexpected success at Sugarloaf that everything changed. He started training on the track once a week. And it has showed.

“I knew he was working hard. I’ve seen him training,” Sullivan said. “I know he works on the track with the Sub 5 people. You hear through the grapevine.”

The only uncertainty now in Hosmer’s mind is how well he’ll do in the marathon Sunday.

“It’s almost time for Pat to beat me,” said Hosmer, whose beaten Sullivan in four races this summer. “He’s trained for the marathon running 80 miles a week. After Sugarloaf, I was doing 50 then I cut it down to 35. I’m doing a lot of work on the track.”

Then again, with Hosmer, a lack of training doesn’t seem to mean a thing.

“Before Sugarloaf? I probably was running 30 miles a week for a month,” Hosmer said. “Before that I wasn’t doing anything.”

Makes you wonder what he eats for breakfast.