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ALEXANDRIA, Va - The idea came together at Murphy's Grand Irish Pub on King Street, on a January night three winters ago, over what Ono Margioni now describes as "maybe one too many Guinnesses."
Onofrio "Ono" Margioni, a Navy captain in his 28th year of active duty, was 29 when planes hit the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. A native of Rye, New York, he remembers calling his boss to ask where he was needed. "He said, 'be careful what you wish for,'" Margioni recalled. He was mobilized within days. "It just changed everybody's lives."
Margioni went on to deploy three times in support of operations stemming from the attacks: to Guantanamo Bay in 2003 for Operation Noble Eagle and Enduring Freedom, to Al-Anbar province in Iraq in 2004 as officer in charge of four logistics cells, and to Afghanistan in 2012. He is currently the executive officer and chief of staff for Joint Reserve Forces at the Defense Logistics Agency.
Across the table that night was Eric Danesi, a longtime military contractor who now works at the Washington Navy Yard. Danesi had been organizing fun runs for years — including a tongue-in-cheek "Beer Olympics," a 13-mile route past 12 breweries timed for halfway to St. Patrick's Day. He wanted something more meaningful.
The seed of the idea came from a frustration both men shared. The Pentagon's annual September 11 reading of victims' names is closed to the public; only families are invited inside. Danesi thought there should be a way for the rest of the community — the people who lived through that day in Northern Virginia and never forgot it — to pay their respects. What if they ran from the Pentagon to Ground Zero?
Twelve to fifteen runners, two vans, an overnight push to New York. That was the original plan.
It grew.
This September, the Old Town Run Club will run the third edition of its 9/11 Remembrance Run, a 485-mile relay from Shanksville, Pa. — the crash site of United Flight 93 — through the Pentagon and ending at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. Danesi calls it the longest continual relay in the United States.
Danesi calls it the longest continual relay in the United States.
"Our DNA"
The 9/11 run is what Margioni calls "our DNA." Everything else the club does — five weekly group runs out of Old Town pubs, a Star Wars–themed kids' race in May, a Jingle Bell 5K in December, a Tunnel to Towers–sanctioned 5K in Virginia Beach in September, and a brand-new Commodore-to-Commodore run linking their D.C. and Alexandria home bars — exists in part to fund and feed the September relay.
In the first year, the run cost the club roughly $25,000 to execute, with profits above that going to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the Staten Island–based charity that provides mortgage-free homes to catastrophically injured veterans, first responders, Gold Star families, and the families of fallen first responders. With sharper logistics and stronger sponsorship, Margioni said, this year's executional cost is closer to $15,500.
The club is also raising money earlier and more aggressively. As of April, Margioni said, the group had already donated $5,000 to Tunnel to Towers from the year's events. A four-hour fundraiser at Murphy's last weekend brought in another $8,000. The goal this year, Margioni said, is to deliver $50,000 to the foundation from the September run alone.
A charity most people don't know yet
The Tunnel to Towers Foundation is named for FDNY firefighter Stephen Siller, who was off duty on the morning of September 11, 2001, when he heard the World Trade Center had been struck. Siller drove to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, found it closed, strapped on his gear, and ran through the tunnel on foot to the towers, where he died with 342 fellow firefighters.
The foundation his family started in his memory has, by its own accounting, delivered more than 1,500 mortgage-free homes and committed over $1 billion across its programs. Its 2024 financials show 93 percent of fundraising dollars going directly to programs — a figure that has earned it a four-star rating from Charity Navigator for ten consecutive years.
But Danesi said the foundation's profile thins quickly outside the tri-state area. The club has visited fire stations across Northern Virginia in their Tunnel to Towers shirts, he said, and consistently found firefighters who hadn't heard of the charity. "If you can't ask for help, you can't receive it," he said.
That awareness gap is part of why the foundation is leaning on volunteers like Margioni and Danesi to push southward. In March, Tunnel to Towers dedicated its first Smart Home in Virginia — a specially adapted, mortgage-free residence for a catastrophically injured veteran — in Warrenton. Margioni attended the ceremony, where retired Marine Col. Harvey "Barney" Barnum, a Medal of Honor recipient, was among the dignitaries.
The Old Town runners' longer-term hope, Danesi said, is to raise enough to help fund a Tunnel to Towers home somewhere in their own region. "If we could raise enough money and get enough sponsorship, we would love to be able to pay off a house here somewhere local and make that into a big production."
The logistics of running 485 miles
A 485-mile relay is mostly a logistics problem. Margioni and Danesi cap participation at 30 runners from Shanksville to the Pentagon and 40 from the Pentagon to New York — limits driven by van capacity, hotel rooms, and the difficulty of insuring runners on rural roads.
"We don't have the insurance, we don't have the escorts where we need them," Margioni said of his concerns about this year. "If there was some proper planning here, this would be — I'd have no problem bringing 500 runners."
Safety is the recurring word. The route's hardest stretch comes early: 200 miles in the first two days, much of it along the Lincoln Highway through rural Pennsylvania, with significant elevation and tight shoulders. Margioni said he and Danesi sleep perhaps two hours the first night, after every runner is back at the hotel.
Police and fire escorts have made a difference where the club has been able to arrange them. Danesi said he has personally reached out to 93 town mayors, fire chiefs, and police departments along the route this year, asking what they can offer. Some respond enthusiastically. Some cite tight budgets. A volunteer fire department in a town that hadn't been contacted at all came out last year and provided an escort on the spot, he said, after seeing other towns ahead had done the same.
A second emphasis is visibility. The club distributes lightweight American flags to any runner who wants to carry one — a tradition Danesi said he hasn't seen at other races. "When you see, you know, 200 people with flags running along the waterfront, it's pretty meaningful," he said.
A tribe, not just a club
The 9/11 run only works because of what surrounds it. The Old Town Run Club is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, with a logo — a stylized Greek running figure — designed by Margioni's brother. It runs five days a week out of Old Town establishments: Tuesdays at Market Square with Team RWB, ending at the American Legion; Wednesdays at Murphy's, where 40 to 70 runners turn out on a typical week; Fridays at Daniel O'Connell's; Saturdays at The Commodore on N. Lee Street; and Sundays at Hotel Heron, finishing at Good Fortune and the Frances Hall speakeasy.
Some runners come for the workout. Many come for what comes after. "If we're gonna go have drinks," Danesi said, "why not do something meaningful while we're doing it?"
Both founders said the steady drumbeat of group runs is also how new members find them. "Many people, they answered our questionnaire online about why they want to join the run club, and it's because, 'I'm new to the area and I want to make friends,'" Margioni said.
Danesi tells newcomers who don't think of themselves as runners to come anyway. Walk for 20 minutes and come back. Walk to the coffee shop and come back. "In a month, now they're jogging half of it. Before I know it, they're running."
How to get involved
Registration for the 9/11 Remembrance Run closes June 1. The club asks runners to commit by then so it can confirm vans, hotel blocks, and insurance coverage. Information and registration are at oldtownrunclub.org, where the club also lists its weekly group runs and other annual events.
Donations to Tunnel to Towers credited to the Old Town Run Club can be made directly at http://dogood.t2t.org/OldTownRunClub26. Sponsorship inquiries can go to oldtownrunclubalx@gmail.com.
The next local race, the Old Town Run Club Intergalactic 5K & Kids 1 Miler, is Sunday, May 3, at Cameron Run Regional Park.
Ryan Belmore
