Each of the more than 22,281 runners who will crowd the streets of Baltimore for Saturday's running festival has a story. Only a few of them, though, have been there since the beginning. For five local runners — four men who've completed the marathon each year and one woman who has run in all but one — the desire to run, and to keep going, comes from different places.
The chubby-no-more one
For Peter O'Neill, the M.B.A. he received from Loyola College came at a price. He'd gained 20 pounds, scarfing down snacks and guzzling sodas in the rush between classes.
So, 10 years ago, his wife tried to nudge him into shape.
"She gently pointed out an ad in The Sun for the first Baltimore Marathon," O'Neill said. "She said, 'Now that you've finished school, it might be a good idea to get fit.'"
O'Neill took that idea and ran with it. But neither of them dreamed he'd go this far. He ran that race, then another and another.
"By the fifth year, I thought, 'Cool, let's see how far I can go,' " the Calvert Hall grad said. "At seven, people said I was nuts — but that I ought to shoot for 10."
All the while, he has kept a log of his training regimen: rise at 5:30 and run for 1-1/2 hours before going to his job in investment sales.
"I've had deer cross my path and scare the heck out of both of us," he said. "I've had tears freeze on my eyelashes."
He lost the 20 pounds long ago, but kept running..
"I guess I got fanatic about it," said O'Neill, 50, of Lutherville.
How can he stop now, after what happened at mile 24 in the 2005 race?
"I was running near Howard St., by the light rail tracks, just as a train pulled up," he said. "The doors opened and there were my wife and kids, cheering me on and yelling, 'Keep going, Pop!'
"Talk about perfect timing. I was stunned. I just shook my head for the next half mile."
The sightseeing one
Cory Sorice moved here 10 years ago, just in time to take part in the first Baltimore Marathon. Competition wasn't his main goal; he ran to see the city's sights.
It seemed the touristy thing to do, said Sorice, 39, of Towson.
"Think about it: you spend the morning seeing Baltimore, with no worries about traffic," he said. "You see the zoo, the harbor. You run through different neighborhoods and soak in the diversity and the architecture and the neat rowhomes that are appropriate to the culture here.
"You run through all the different flavors of the city. How else would you see it all? Nobody drives down residential streets anymore."
Sorice, a sales director for Stanley Black & Decker, bonded with Baltimore that day. He hasn't missed a marathon since.
Some years, he rubbernecks more than others. Injured two years ago, he entered the race just to keep his streak alive. He finished in six hours, having walked the last half of the marathon.
"I can't call myself local, but I feel I know more about the town than I did," the Chicago native said. "I remember the first time we ran through Fort McHenry. I'd never been there, and it was great. Once I'd seen it, during the race, I went back and took my wife and four kids there."
Said Sorice, "It makes me feel closer to the city, knowing I've got an annual tie to it."
The pace-setting one
Gene Fritzel knows how long it will take him to run the marathon.
"Five hours," he said. If he does his job as an official race pacer, Fritzel will cross the finish line at 1 p.m.. – joined by, he hopes, a handful of runners who chose to tag along with him.
As a pacer, Fritzel agreed to coach, through the course, anyone whose goal is to finish in a specific time – anywhere from 3 hours, 10 minutes to 5:15.
Fritzel, 60, of Lutherville, drew the 5-hour crowd.
"We guarantee people that if they run with us, we'll get them there in the time they want," he said. Believe him. This is Fritzel's 179th marathon — he has run at least one in every state, plus the District of Columbia — and it's his ninth year as a pacer in Baltimore.
But Fritzel's work is easier said than done.
"Before the race, I tell runners to just stay with me," he said. "But when the gun goes off, they get caught up in the excitement and start to run. I see them drop off along the way. I might start with a group of 30 people and finish with one or two."
Those who stick with Fritzel find him a willing motivator.
"I work the crowd and play mind games with them, to take their mind off their hurt," he said. "I'm a gabber. I float around and ask about their backgrounds, and tell them about mine. I give them a tour of the city. I shoot the bull to make it easier for them to complete their goal."
In the end, though, Fritzel is no different from the rest.
"My legs hurt just as much as theirs do," he said.
The not pregnant (yet) one
Michelle Prieto put off starting a family to run in Saturday's marathon. She didn't want to have to race for two.
"Men don't have to think about that," she said. "They don't have to stop training for nine months."
That could be a reason why no Maryland woman has run in every Baltimore race to date. But Prieto, 33, came close. The Patterson Park resident completed the first eight marathons before opting for the 5K in 2009.
"I'd just bought a house in 2009, and I didn't have time to train (for distance)," she said. "I'd put all my energy into fixing my home."
On the day of the race, however, she wound up running 19 miles anyway. After the 5K, Prieto jogged the three miles back to her home on Potomac St., one-half block from the marathon route.There, at mile 15, she spotted a friend struggling to finish "and latched onto him to help him get through the rest of the race."
At day's end, when Prieto tallied up her miles, she realized that she could have kept her streak alive.
"I was so bummed out," she said. "When all was said and done, I probably should have run the marathon."
Living so close to the course is a plus, said Prieto, a tech support manager for a website company.
"I've trained on all sections of the route," she said. "The more familiar the terrain, the less terror there is on race day.
"The butterflies are gone. I really feel I have a home field advantage."
The partying one
Hugh "Skip" Carr will be easy to spot in the marathon. He'll be the one wearing a neon orange hawaiian shirt, basketball shorts and sunglasses.
"I just kind of trudge along," said Carr, 46, of Westminster. "I take my cell phone, call my kids and tell them where I'm at. I've taken calls from work during the race. Had to stop once to explain some stuff. No big deal."
If he's so cavalier about the race, why does Carr run it year after year? To meet folks, chat with friends and watch the oddballs jog by.
What has he seen?
"A guy in a powder blue tuxedo with tails. Another in a Batman suit. Several guys wearing kilts. One man dressed up like a lighthouse. And a girl in a Wonder Woman outfit, who's always trailed by a crowd of men," Carr said.
"I start in the back of the pack, so I can see all of the characters."
Entrants run the gamut, he said, from the ridiculous to the sublime.
"After 9/11, a group of 12 servicemen ran the race, three abreast, doing their chants and carrying an American flag," Carr said. "It brought a lump to my throat."
Spectators are also a sight to behold, said Carr, a technology project manager.
"You're cheered by girls in South Baltimore with beehive hairdos," he said. "At mile 22, there's a guy in a tiger outfit who stands on his car and dances to the song, 'Eye Of The Tiger.' You look forward to that kind of stuff.
"Near Johns Hopkins University, you see guys with a card table filled with National Bohs. It's only 10 o'clock, but I'll pick one up. It's the 10-minute milers, like me, who'll grab a beer."
Why does Carr run dressed in garish garb?
"Wear something unique and people tend to give you words of encouragement," he said. "Nobody yells, 'Way to go, Number 2512!'"
Health tips from runners
"During the race, eat and drink before you think you need to. Once you get thirsty or hungry, it's too late. Your performance will drop because it takes about 20 minutes for the electrolytes to kick in." Michelle Prieto"Make sure you've done one of your longer training runs in the clothing you're going to wear on race day, so you won't have chafing issues." Prieto
"Put Band-Aids on your nipples and vaseline between your thighs. They'll thank you for it." Peter O'Neill
"Don't take the race too seriously. You want to finish but you're not going to win. If you need to walk a bit, then walk. Don't push it to the point of hurting yourself." Hugh 'Skip' Carr
"Wear a good pair of shoes in which you've run at least 100 miles. Never wear new shoes for a marathon." Prieto