In Ulysess, James Joyce dipicted the mundane tasks and peregrinations of a day in the life of protagonist Leopold Bloom. Bloom wanders the streets of Dublin-doing erands, encountering friends and eneimies-before finally returning home and crawling into bed. Great literature, yes, but it was not an inspiring day.

For Martin Hanley, an actor and runner from Dedham, Mass., Bloom's day was a lot like humdrum roadraces in which participated during the early 1980s. "You would show up, get your number, run-usually to some trite theme music-and maybe get a tee shirt," Hanley says. "I wanted to do a race that that would be fun."

He has. On Sunday April 27, some 3000 runners from around the world will take part in the 14th James Joyce Ramble, a 10K race that is an ecletic mix of high art and hard running through the winding streets of Hanley's hometown.

Hanley who had previously completed the Boston Marathon, wanted a race with a literary tie-in (because he has always seen a connection between culture and sports) and an Irish theme(because he's a second generation Irish-American). At the time he was struggling through Finnegans Wake, and because he felt Joyce's works capture Irish culture so keenly he decided to name his race after the writer, who had poor eyesight, a bookworm's physique and no known athletic prowess. Joyce did write in the short story After the Race that "Rapid motion through Space elates one," perhaps signaling that he had once experienced a runners high. The connection nonetheless seems tenuous.

Still; the Ramble blend the seemingly disparate worlds of running and modernist literature. Each mile of the race's rolling course is named for a Joyce work; the route's final leg is called The Dead. At a postrace party the bibulous Joyce no doubt would have approved of, a trivia challenge is held so runners who are slow of foot can win prizes for their literary astuteness.

A bit of street theatre accentuates the Ramble's Joycean theme. Bagpipers serenede the runnerts along the way, and every year Hanley recruites a few dozen acting collegues to stand along the racecourse clad in period costumes and llegues to stand along the racecourse clad in period costumes and read aloud passages from Joyce's works as competitors pass by. "Running is inherently a silly activity" says actor Jim Cooke, who has performed at three Rambles and last year read from Dublinners in mile four. "It's great encouragment for the runners to see someone doing something even sillier than they are."

But the Ramble is also a serious race. In 1995 it was the site of USA Track and Field's New England 10K Championship. The men and women's course records are held, reespectively by Andy Ronan, a 1992 Irish Olympian, and Lorraine Moller, a New Zealander who was the marathon bronze medalist at the same Games. Last year's Ramble ended in heartbreak for Maria Servin, who won the women's race in 33:41 but fell short of the time she needed to qualify for the Mexican Olympic team.

Competition is not the only thing taken seriously at the Ramble. All proceeds from sponsors and entry fees are donated to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston; last year's race raised $22,000. In 1989 Hanley also began using the Ramble to draw attention to human right violations around the world. Runners and sprectators have been asked to sign petitions and observe moments of silence on behalf of such authors as Wei Jingsheng, an imprisoned Chinese dissident and editor of an underground journal, and Aung San Suu Kyi, the Noble laurate who was under house arrest in Burma.

Joyce would certainly have sympathized with such a gesture. And he might even have enjoyed the idea of a road race in his honor. Joyce's grandnephew Bob Joyce, director of the James Joyce Cultural Centre in Dublin, ran last year's Ramble (72:29, 1,692nd place) and will be back this year to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the publication of Ulysses. "It's special to be in a race in which the body is stretched as Joyce stretched the mind," Bob Joyce said over a postrace libation."And I think James would be amazed and amused, too."