Five men who have completed every Baltimore Marathon explain what the race means to them
Why do they run? Different people have different reasons. But they all keep going.
6:21 p.m. EDT, October 13, 2010
There are 36 runners — 34 men and two women — who have run in every one of the previous nine Baltimore Marathons.
Here's the story of five of those men, all locals who have different motivations and varied views on running 26.2 miles through the city's streets.
The energized one
He was, admittedly, a geek as a kid.
"In junior high, I was always the last one chosen in baseball and basketball," Robert Olsen said. "I had a hard time hitting or catching anything. My hand-eye coordination was very bad."
His feet? They're another story.
Olsen's feet have taken him around the world. The Fells Point resident has run marathons on all seven continents. He has raced along The Great Wall of China and in
A retired architect, his goal is to break five hours, no small feat for one his age.
"Friends call me 'The Energizer Bunny,' " Olsen said. "I'm not terribly fast, but I'm persistent."
Consider his obstinacy in 2006, when he pulled a calf muscle at mile 11 and nearly quit the race. At 67, who'd have blamed him?
"I was ready to give up but thought, 'My streak (of consecutive Baltimore Marathons) will be over,' " Olsen said. "So I took some Advil at the aid station and slogged it out. At the finish line, I kept yelling, 'I made it! I made it! I made it!' "
Pardon his exhuberance. Olsen didn't take up marathoning until almost 50. Before that, he said, "I had a belly because I liked the deli. The first time I ran anything was one-quarter mile around the Baltimore Museum of Art. I almost died."
But he finished. Then, as now.
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