Dedicated runner: Larry Rutledge of Dellroy completes his 31st Boston Marathon

DELLROY ‒ Larry Rutledge has become something of a fixture at the Boston Marathon, a 26-mile race run the third Monday of every April since 1897.

Rutledge, 69, of Dellroy, is a member of the prestigious Quarter Century Club, open to those who have run the marathon for 25 consecutive years. There are only about 100 people in this group. Rutledge has far exceeded 25 races. This month, he completed his 31st marathon in Boston.

Most people only participate in the Boston Marathon one time.

"A lot of people, it's on their bucket list," said Rutledge. "They just want to do it, and then they're just done. I said, I love this race. Whenever you go to Boston, everything is completely different, because you go to Cleveland, you to Columbus and it's not the level that Boston is, because they have hundreds of volunteers, you know exactly where you're supposed to be, exactly what you're supposed to do, and you can just tell that you are in a premiere running event."

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He has met people from all over the world there.

"It just became very special to me. I was always proud to go and get my Boston shirt, my Boston medal," he said.

Being in the Quarter Century Club gives him a lot of status during the event. At the Blessing of the Athletes on the day before the race this year, held at Old South Church in Boston, strangers came up to Rutledge after the event, asking to take selfies with him. "These runners are just coming up to them like they're rock stars," his wife, Anita, said.

How he got started

Rutledge grew up in Carroll County and graduated from Carrollton High School in 1973. At school, he ran cross country and track.

"After I graduated, running kind of faded," he said. "I didn't really do any running until I turned about 35. They used to have a local race called the Bucket Brigade. It was a 5-mile race. I ran it, kind of got the running bug and started doing local races again."

He participated in the Pittsburgh Marathon in 1988. A friend told him that he was good enough to run in Boston. So, Rutledge began intensifying his training regimen. He qualified for the Boston Marathon in 1993 and ran his first race there in 1994.

'You have to finish this race'

He finished his 25th marathon in 2018. It was a grueling experience.

"There was a nor'easter that blew in. The wind, the rain was absolutely terrible," Rutledge recalled. He didn't have enough water-proof clothing on, and he got chilled.

"One of my Quarter Century buddies passes. He says, this is the worst one I've ever been through. And I said, you have to finish this race. You absolutely have to finish this race to get Quarter Century. And we were really struggling. It was really, really cold."

Anita usually stays outside their hotel to watch the entire race.

"On his 25th, I went out there for 20 minutes when I knew he was coming through, and that's all the longer I could stand it," she said. "It was raining up. It was raining sideways. It was raining down. I was so soaked and so cold with this wind, I couldn't stand it out there anymore than 20 minutes. I kept thinking, he's running 26 miles in this, and I can't even be out here for 20 minutes. I feel like such a wimp."

Rutledge's reaction on joining the Quarter Century Club? "I felt great. I felt, I made it. I said, you've got to make the finish to get Quarter Century. And I made it. I was like, oh, yes, yes, yes."

Remembering the Boston Marathon bombing

Both Larry and Anita have vivid memories of the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013. Two homemade bombs went off a short distance from the finish line, killing three spectators and injuring 264 people.

Larry had already finished the race. He had changed into dry clothes and was talking to the other runners. He heard a bomb go off and thought it was something accidental. Then he heard a police officer order everyone out of the area, because it was a crime scene.

He headed to the subway to take a train back to his hotel. But shortly after he got to the station, transit officials ordered everyone out of the tunnels. Rutledge went back up to street level. His wife called, telling him to get out of the area. So, he started walking to their hotel, which was at the 24-mile mark on the marathon.

"As I'm coming upon the hotel, Anita was outside and she's talking on the phone. She said, 'h'Here he is, I'll let you talk to him.' It turned out to be my 91-year-old mom (Eloise)," he said. He told her he was fine.

"What had happened was, they apparently deduced pretty fast that they were detonating the bombs with their cellphones," Anita said. "So, they shut the cellphones off. Nobody could get out to anything. Luckily, I had gotten a hold of him and knew he was OK early on. But then all the cellphones went down. They would come up momentarily, only for maybe a minute or two, and there would be a flood of voicemails and texts come in, and then they would go right back down. So, that gave me time to look through.

"One of the voicemails I picked up was his mother. I'm like, oh my goodness, this lady is priority one. We got to get back to her."

Training regimen

Rutledge starts training for the Boston Marathon three months before the event. He runs on the bike path on Ohio 542 along Atwood Lake. He also trains on a treadmill in the basement if he gets home late during the dark winter months from his job at Cooper Standard in New Philadelphia, where he is a line operator.

He doesn't follow any special diet. He eats mostly lean meats, and he and his wife both love fruits and vegetables.

This year, Rutledge completed the Boston Marathon in 5 hours, 43 minutes, 13 seconds. That is enough to qualify him for the 2025 race. Because he is in the Quarter Century Club, he qualifies if he finishes under 6 hours.

"It wasn't a great time, but, hey, I'll take it," he said.

Reach Jon at 330-364-8415 or at jon.baker@timesreporter.com.

This article originally appeared on The Times-Reporter: Larry Rutledge of Dellroy runs in his 31st Boston Marathon