While one Bowdoin College alumnus is making her first Olympic Marathon Trials appearance, another will be going out in grand fashion in the city where she jumpstarted her legendary running career.

Emily LeVan of Wiscasset and Joan Benoit Samuelson of Freeport, both of whom graduated from the Brunswick institution, will join fellow Maine runners Kristin Pierce-Barry of Scarborough and Sheri Piers of Falmouth in Boston Sunday for the Women’s Olympic Marathon Trials.

The race, which will feature a unique course throughout Boston, starts at 8 a.m.

The course will consist of a 2.2-mile loop, starting on Boylston Street near the traditional Boston Marathon finish line, then a 6-mile “Core Loop,” which runs into Cambridge before going through the start/finish line on Boylston, which runners will complete four times.

“The course is pretty favorable for getting into a rhythm,” said LeVan.

This will mark the first, and likely the only, time LeVan and Samuelson will compete in a marathon together, as the 50-year-old Samuelson has stated that this will be her final competitive marathon.

“We’ve never actually run in the same marathon. I think that’ll be a lot of fun,” said LeVan.

With thousands of runners and even more spectators descending on the Hub for what should be a memorable weekend of marathoning, the atmosphere should be at an all-time high, which is something off which LeVan feeds.

“I’ve run [the] Boston [Marathon] five times. I consider Boston my absolute favorite race, hands down,” she said. “I love the energy in that city of the weekend, it creates an experience unlike any other.”

LeVan, who has won the Maine division of the Beach to Beacon 10K the last three years, earned the “A” qualifying standard for the trials at the 2006 Boston Marathon in a personal-best time of 2 hours, 37 minutes, 1 second, is aiming for a solid, consistent run.

“I really just want to go out and have a good race, meaning I just want to go out and feel good,” she said. “I don’t have a lot of time or place expectations.”

LeVan has had to deal with some adversity over the last several months. Last November, her daughter, Maddie, who was 3 at the time, was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL).

On January 18, which was her daughter’s fourth birthday, LeVan decided to start a fundraiser called “Two Trials,” in hopes of raising $52,400 prior to the trials (26.2 multiplied by two equals 52.4).

For LeVan, balancing Maddie’s care, along with her training and her position as a nurse at Miles Memorial Hospital in Damariscotta, has been a challenge.

“It’s certainly a juggling act unlike any other thing I’ve done before. Some days it works really well, some days it doesn’t work quite as well,” she said. “[Maddie’s] illness has put my running in a whole different perspective.”

As of press time Wednesday, more than $47,000 had been raised for the cause.

Fundraising will wrap up on Sunday.

Like many marathon runners, LeVan has been tapering in these final few weeks leading up to race day while squeezing in a couple of hard workouts each week.

“I’m keeping a couple of high intensity workouts each week, a little bit of marathon-pace stuff, and speed stuff like intervals,” she said.

Samuelson, who first ran in Boston in 1979, winning that year, qualified with a 2:46:27 effort at the Twin Cities Marathon in Minnesota in 2006.

The Beach to Beacon 10K founder’s achievements in 1984 will likely forever remain in running lore.

After winning the inaugural women’s Olympic Marathon Trials in 1984 a few weeks after undergoing knee surgery, she blitzed the field at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

Her all-time personal best is a winning 2:21:21 at the America’s Marathon in Chicago in 1985.

Piers, a cross country coach at Westbrook High School, qualified for the trials at the Philadelphia Marathon with a 2:45:37, a personal best. Barry qualified at the same marathon, as the former Ivy League champion in the 10,000 meters finished alongside Piers in 2:45:37.

rmclaughlin@bangordailynews.net

990-8193