Among the pack of runners taking their mark to participate in the Bank of America Chicago Marathon Sunday will be an Oak Park man who first started running the long races four decades ago.
John Schuessler, 66, of Oak Park and a senior vice president at the marathon’s namesake bank, ran his first marathon in 1982 — when the now-popular event was simply the “Chicago Marathon.” Since then, he’s ran a total of 17 marathons, including the Boston Marathon which he qualified for in 2005 after sprinting the last stint of the race and making the time by four seconds, according to a news release announcing his participation in this year’s race.
The release states that Schuessler didn’t run competitively in high school or college but caught the running bug from his brother, who was the captain of the marathon team at West Point.
“It’s interesting, most people I know who ran competitively stop running marathons as they get older,” Schuessler stated in the release. “But here I am, still running after all of these years. The energy, the excitement of running in my hometown of Chicago, I just can’t get enough!”
He does much of his training in his hometown of Oak Park, but has also run on country roads in Michigan, the release states. And while training, his playlist includes music of George Strait and Andrea Bocelli, also The Grateful Dead and Sara Bareilles.
“People travel from all corners of the world to run our marathon and I love talking to them about our city,” said Schuessler. “It’s really crazy to think about how much the Chicago Marathon has changed over the last 40 years, and all for the better. In 1982, there were about 4,000 runners and most of them were male athletes. Now you see men, women, elite and wheelchair athletes and people of all shapes and sizes. I love how inclusive it has become.”
