The celebrities running the 2024 Chicago Marathon

Robach and Holmes at the 2022 New York City Marathon.

Tony and Grammy Award-winning singer Patina Miller is another familiar face on stage who will be performing this weekend. She is a two-time finisher in NYC and ran 4:00:36 last year after singing the national anthem at the start. You may recognize her as Commander Paylor Hunger Games Series.

Actress/influencer Claire Holt who has appeared on the Supernatural shows the Vampire Diaries And The originals, runs to raise money for Boston Children's Hospital. She ran a time of 4:03:17 in New York in 2022. And newly crowned Miss USA Alma Cooper is raising funds for Apna Ghar – a nonprofit organization that works to prevent gender-based violence.

In addition to the celebrities, there are dozens of runners with heartfelt and inspiring stories.

César Torruella, a native of Puerto Rico who lives in Chicago, began running in 2021 amid the pandemic when he weighed nearly 500 pounds. After losing 300 pounds, he joined a running club. Now Torruella, who heads the Chicago Public Schools system's arts and education department, is running his first marathon and hopes to raise awareness of arts education during his race.

When she was 19 years old, Summer Willis of Lexington, Virginia, was sexually assaulted at a college party. A decade later, Willis has set a goal of running 29 marathons in her 29th year to connect with other sexual assault survivors and raise funds for her foundation. Strength through steps. Chicago will be her 29th race.

Truth Bachman of Brooklyn, New York, is running the marathon to secure her fourth World Marathon Majors star and become one of the first nonbinary people to receive a six-star medal. With only Tokyo and London left, Bachman says that a marathon, much like the transition process, is a physical act of transformation, an idea that helps cross the finish line.

Lauren Pendergrass of Dixon, Illinois, will run her first Chicago Marathon to honor her late brother Grant, who died of a drug overdose in 2021. She is running Erika's lighthousea nonprofit organization that helps teens struggling with anxiety and depression.

Thomas Eller of Germany is the world's first born deaf six-star finisher in the World Marathon Majors. As a marathon runner, he has worked to amplify the voices of the deaf community Promoting inclusion and to show that extraordinary abilities exist in every person.

Phil Sussman, a resident of Madeira Beach, Florida, is an Army Special Operations veteran and was a runner as a teenager, but injuries sustained during his service – including a broken back in 2015 – made him believe he would never run again would. But Sussman slowly increased his mileage again, culminating in a half marathon on Memorial Day 2023 in honor of the friends he served with. He will manage Chicago as part of the Semper Fi Fund Charity team.

In addition to these stories, alumni runners Randy Burt, Henry Kozlowski and George Mueller will be running on Sunday. The three have run the marathon every year since the first race on September 25, 1977.

Laura Ratliff is a New York City-based writer, editor, and runner. Laura's writing expertise covers a wide range of topics, from travel to food and drink to reports on political and human rights issues. She previously worked at Architectural Digest, Bloomberg NewsAnd Conde Nast Traveler and was most recently senior editorial director at TripSavvy. Like many of us, Laura caught the running bug later in life after years of claiming to “hate running.” Her favorite marathon is Big Sur.