Picture the scene.
It is 1897, the first Olympic marathon champion of the modern era, Greece's Spiridon Louis, is only 12 months into his reign; in England, Queen Victoria is celebrating her 60th year on the throne; and in America, The Wright Brothers are still a long way from their first successful airplane flight.
Just over eight miles outside of Prague, the municipal district of Bechovice is preparing for an athletics event which this weekend, 119 years later, creates its own piece of history.
As the competitors set off on their way, the 120th staging of the Bechovice-Prague 10km will become Europe's longest consecutive running road race and as has become the tradition, it is taking place on the final Sunday of September.
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It begins in the eastern part of the city, and follows an undulating point-to-point course as it takes in the national 10km championships of the Czech Republic, with the finish line to the east of the old town.
Limited to 3,333 runners, a year ago victory in the men's race went to Jakub Zemanik in 30:50 and in the women's to Eva Vrabcova-Nyvltova, who doubles up as a marathoner and Olympic cross country skier, in 33:27. Last month in Rio, she was 26th in the Olympic marathon in 2:33:51.
Turning the clock back to 1897, winner was Jakub Wolf who earned the first of three successive triumphs in 39:03.0.
Robert Stefko, between 1991 and 2008, has the most men's wins with seven, while Petra Kaminkova, between 1999 and 2009, became the event's greatest woman champion with 11 successive victories.
But it is the race's place in history which is so fascinating.
As the website arrs.net says, this weekend will take it one in front of the Kungsbackaloppet Half Marathon in Gothenburg and move it level with the Boston Marathon, which celebrated its 120th race this year, in joint-seventh on the list of all time longest running road races.
It has a fair way to go to match the overall leader, though, which is the Palio del Drappo Verde Half Marathon in Verona, which has now been staged 599 times, having been run between 1208-1798 and then started again in 2008.