Photo by Nick Henthorn From left, Cole Wright, Nikkol Zanes and Thomas Karrasch, pictured, will represent the Ohio Valley in the Boston Marathon on Monday, taking part in the world’s oldest marathon.

WHEELING — On Monday, the world’s oldest, and perhaps best-known, marathon will bring upwards of half a million spectators and 30,000 runners together for the Boston Marathon.

First out of the box will be the professional runners, and right behind them, in wave two, will be a small group of runners from the Ohio Valley, eager to participate in the historic race.

“Us runners, we call it the Super Bowl of running,” Nikkol Zanes said.

Zanes, from Rayland, Ohio, and Thomas Karrasch and Cole Wright, both from Wheeling, will be making the trip out east to run in the Boston Marathon, the culmination of a long journey for each of them.

Qualifying for the Boston Marathon requires hitting a certain time at one of several approved marathons. Zanes’ was in Mount Charleston, Nevada. Karrasch’s was in Erie, Pa.. Wright’s was in Columbus, Ohio.

Before those qualifying races, and before Monday’s big moment, there were many– many– steps along the way.

“Years of preparation, really, you just have to start somewhere and start running,” Zanes, 44, said. “When I first started running, it was only like a half a mile, and then I started doing 5K’s and then 10K’s, half marathons. Then I was like, hey, I want to run a marathon. My first marathon… five hours. Now I’m running about a 3:20, that was my last marathon.”

“How I started out, it was an outlet, something to not just pass time, but I needed another outlet as a hobby,” Karrasch, 47, said. “So I turned to running. And then from there, as far as the growth and development of it, I got to attribute a lot of that towards Tom Rownd, who took me under his wing years ago. He’s got 20-plus Boston marathons under his belt, and then his guidance and help and training has got me into this position.

“But as of late, a good buddy of mine, Matt Riffle, has helped me in my last couple marathons. And, and that’s what ultimately has put me into the qualifying position to go to Boston and run.”

Wright, 26, walked onto the cross country team at West Liberty, and has been running ever since, though he did not run in high school. Zanes and Karrasch each ran just one year in high school.

“For me. I would just say running Boston’s been a dream of mine since I was in high school,” Wright said.

“I walked onto my college cross country team and just fell in love with it. And I had a good coach who helped me progress in the four years that I was up there. And that kind of put me in a position where, you know, whenever I ran a marathon, assuming everything went well, I’d probably be able to qualify. So I finally did that at Columbus in 2023 and ran a time that comfortably got me in.”

Monday will be the first time that Wright and Karrasch run in the Boston Marathon, while Zanes ran it once before, in 2023.

Boston was a dream for Wright since he was in school, while Karrasch and Zanes had made it a goal of theirs some years ago.

Setting your mind to it is one thing, but the follow-through is another.

“I’ve been running marathons for about 15 years, but trying to qualify for Boston, I’d say probably within the last five years to get actually serious about it,” Zanes said. “You know, training and tracking my time and paying attention to fuel. And there’s just so much that you have to account for, waking up daily and dedicating yourself at five a.m. and getting out there.”

“I didn’t get serious about it until the last couple years, as far as trying to qualify for Boston,” Karrasch said. “Running was an outlet and a hobby for me. Running my marathons, the end goal was never Boston until recently. And I think what drew me closer to that was, you know, I’m getting older and the qualifying times are dropping, so it’s making it more difficult to qualify.

“And I thought that I was close, and if I don’t do this now, I’m never gonna do it. So I made a decision to take it seriously.”

The dedication and time needed to get to the point that the trio had reached was made easier by the community of like-minded individuals with them each step of the way– literally.

“Without these guys helping and the whole group, the community– I mean, we have a pretty big running community group here,” Karrasch said. “I run with Nikkol, she’s part of it. Cole’s a big runner. We see him out there all the time passing. It’s a great community as far as running goes.”

“Me and Tom started running in a group for the first time maybe eight years ago,” Zanes said. “What happened was, I was training for a marathon and I reached out through Facebook and there’s a running group on there, the Ohio Run Club I think it was. I just posted, ‘Hey, who’s running Saturday? I need 15 miles.’ And one of our friends reached out– ‘Hey, we’re running, we’re doing the Ogden course, come join us, we’re starting at seven a.m.’

“I decided I’m just gonna go and run this thing. I need the miles. And they were the sweetest guys I ever met. There was about seven of them at the time, and I got there, didn’t know any of them. I get to the top of a hill, they’re all standing there waiting on me– ‘Come on, Nicole, come on!’ Never knew me, but still waited on me.”

The three have studied the course at the Boston Marathon– which winds through Hopkinton, Ashland, Framingham, Natick, Wellesley, Newton and Brookline, before taking ‘Heartbreak Hill’ down towards Boston. But they are also excited to see what else Boston has to offer.

Zanes and Karrasch said they’d been recommended Mike’s Pastry in downtown Boston, as well as the bar Cheers, the very one that inspired the TV show of the same name. Wright is set to attend a Red Sox game at Fenway Park on Sunday.

“This is my first trip, not only running the race, but ever being in Boston,” Karrasch said. “I’ve never experienced the city. My wife and son are going with me. For me, it is business for sure with the race, but, but outside of that, yeah, we’re looking forward to it.”

“It is the whole experience of being there, being in the city, seeing the people, and you’re seeing the crowds and you know, just going to these places that people point out,” Zanes said.

“It’s really a fortunate opportunity for sure,” Wright said.

Make no mistake though, any other activities over the weekend are only a lead-up to the main event.

“It’s an iconic race, yeah,” Karrasch said. “And it’s the, in my world, the biggest marathon there is.”

“It’s just a lot of years of hard work and preparation and I’m really fortunate to be able to make it happen and go to Boston,” Wright said. “There’s only maybe 30,000 people that get to run Boston every year, and there’s millions of other runners around the world that don’t get to run it ever.”

“I’m just going to, to experience the race, have a good race, maybe beat my time from the first time I went,” Zanes said. “That would be a good scenario for me.”

Zanes, the only of the three who has run the Boston Marathon before, had some insight to share with the other two– though each has crossed plenty of finish lines in their lives, there will be nothing else like the final stretch in Boston.

“This finish is the most amazing,” Zanes said.

“I’m not even exaggerating when I say close to a hundred thousand people are just yelling and it is really overwhelming and you cross that finish line and it’s just a dream. It’s just like– wow.”

“I know I did New York City last year and it was massive,” Karrasch said. “The crowds were deafening, you know, through Manhattan, and what I’m being told is that Boston blows it away. So it’ll be interesting to compare the two, because everybody says there’s nothing like Boston.”

“The biggest race I ran was the qualifying race at Columbus, and it probably has one-tenth of the people that’ll be at least running in Boston,” Wright said. “And I’m sure there will be a lot more spectators too. So it’ll be a newer experience for me. And, you know, just growing up watching the Boston Marathon on TV every spring, and dreaming of doing it as a kid and so to now get to actually participate is really cool.”