Amid the bustling chaos outside Lexington Market, Michael Lisicky double checks his phone for today’s route. On this warm mid-February afternoon, the 59-year-old Baltimore Symphony Orchestra oboe player plans to jog three miles—a mishmash of alleys and lanes—crossing off the final stretches of an eight-month endeavor to literally run every street in Baltimore.

“Clay Street runs behind [what was once] Hutzler’s, which is a fitting start; that place redefined my identity,” says Lisicky, referring to his well-received history of the iconic department store, founded at the corner of Clay and Howard streets by German-Jewish peddler Moses Hutzler and his son Abram in 1858.

Donning a black hoodie, gray basketball shorts, and a shiny pair of blue Brooks running shoes, Lisicky smiles and takes in the crowded scene—the Metro and Light Rail commuters, the market’s lunchtime customers, random sidewalk salesmen.

“A guy asked if I was looking for bottles. I don’t even know what he meant. I patted him on the back, ‘No, not interested,’” Lisicky recounts before scrambling down Clay and veering onto Kimmel Street, revealing a Strawbridge & Clothier tattoo on his bulging left calf. (His mother worked for the retailer.)

He is nothing if not diligent. Since he began last July, Lisicky has stumbled across several hidden streets that Google missed, adding them to his personal city map (see above photo). His knowledge of Baltimore’s quirkily named streets has grown as well. He’s intentionally ending his ritual with a sprint up Dark Lane, which is squeezed between high-rise apartments and the City Office of the Public Defender and certainly getting less sunlight now than when officially named in 1817.

Later, he’ll be greeted by his wife, Sandy, and BSO musicians Karin Brown and Ivan Stefanovic for a celebratory toast of 12-year- old Glenglassaugh single malt Scotch. Done, but not quite.

“I’ve still got to go back to the intersection of High and Low streets and take a photo,” Lisicky says with laugh. “Sounds manic-depressive, right?”

He also likes the names Scrabble Alley, Yell Street, and Fear Avenue, and he loves Shakespeare Street in Fells Point and Lollipop Lane in Bolton Hill. The redundancy of Concrete Road and Asphalt Street made him chuckle during a trek through industrial Curtis Bay, as did names of some of the drinking establishments there, including Jim Dandy’s Tavern.

But more than getting familiar with the streets themselves, it’s been getting acquainted with the city’s neighborhoods and people that has been the most fun and uplifting.

“How many people know of the Hyde Park community?” Lisicky asks. “I’d been down Park Heights Avenue and Reisterstown Road, doing what I call ‘grid filling,’ and I end up in this tight-knight community with these beautiful homes. The sun is out and the big green space is like an oasis, and there’s this church [St. Ambrose] that towers over it.”

Rain, sleet, sun, or snow, Lisicky has run through Baltimore’s thriving and struggling sections alike, including the Linden Heights Avenue block where firefighters Rodney Pitts III and Dillon Rinaldo died battling a rowhouse blaze last September. “I know that street, that’s a hard street,” he says.

Just north, he recalls running across an 8-year-old youngster, who asked if he was exercising, and his sister, who wanted to know his name. When Lisicky told them, the boy said that there were lots of Michaels in his school. Right before Lisicky turned to continue his run, he apologized for not asking the boy his name. “Beethoven,” the kid replied.

“I didn’t want to pull the whole symphony card thing, so I’m like, ‘I know Beethoven. Do you know about Beethoven?’” Lisicky recalls. “He says, ‘Yes.’ I said I play music by Beethoven with violins and trumpet. A good stready rhythm was very important to Beethoven. He seemed curious and interested. It was a wonderful small connection. I felt his energy with me the rest of the day.”

Along the way, Lisicky maintained a blog and gained some local media and television coverage. At the end, he occasionally got recognized on his daily excursions. Two weeks after completing his ambitious and heartfelt project, however, he admitted to feeling at loose ends. It’s natural, of course.

“I’m going through a letdown. It’s not the same, by any means, but almost like a post-partum depression,” says Lisicky, during an uphill jog from Little Italy to Patterson Park. “I only feel better when I run.”

On cue, a man steps down his Bank Street rowhouse stoop and waves and yells to Lisicky. “Hey, aren’t you the guy who’s run every street? Love it, man. Inspiring stuff.”

“The truth is, I really don’t like running. I just like the way I feel when I’m done.

I am 48 years old. I have been running, basically, since I met my
wife a little more than 25 years ago. She was a runner, and if I wanted
to keep up with her, I had to run.

I’ve been doing the Baltimore Running Festival every year for the
past 10 years—since it began. I was already running marathons, so I
said, ‘Here I am in Baltimore, might as well run the Baltimore marathon
as well.’

I’m supposed to run five days a week. I know what I’ve got to do and I have training regimens to do it; I just don’t do it.

I’m definitely more of a morning runner. I run on the NCR trail and I
also run around the Loch Raven Reservoir to get some hill action. To
me, the whole key to finishing 26.2 miles is you’ve got to run three
20-mile races before the marathon date. If you don’t run three 20s, then
you’re not going to be prepared.

The marathon is a fantastic tour of the city. The best way to see any
city is running through the streets: You see neighborhoods. You see
offices. You see where people shop. You see where people drink coffee.
You see parts of the city that you can’t see from driving through it.
The thing I enjoy the most is running through Fort McHenry. I would just
say that is truly inspiring.

I would not run these races if not for the citizens of Baltimore.
Baltimore’s residents have gone from ‘I hate those blasted runners for
shutting down the city streets’ to ‘This is an inconvenience’ to ‘Well,
here come those crazy runners again. . . . We might as well cheer them
on!’ Their support is great and much appreciated.

I think my best finishing time was 4:45. I follow a pacer for the
first half, and then I slack off. I try to do a reverse-split, which is
where you go faster the second half than the first, but I’ve never been
able to do that because I get tired. I always have a great half
marathon, and then at mile 13, I’m like, ‘Oh God, I’ve still got to run
another 13 miles.’

The key is to start in your appointed time. If you’re a 10-minute
mile person, don’t start with the three-hour marathoners, because what’s
going to happen is they’re going to pull away and then you’re going to
have 2,000 people trying to pass you.

I guess the craziest thing I’ve seen are lots of people going to the
bathroom in bushes. The worst thing I’ve seen is when the organizers ran
out of water a couple years ago because someone stole the water during
the race. Somebody had driven behind the delivery truck and stolen all
of the water, so the people who were running slow, when they got to the
water stop, there was no water, and that really pissed a lot of us off.

I hate going by relay stations because you’re chugging along, and
then these guys bolt out like it’s a horse race and shoot by you, and
it’s very discouraging.

The worst part is when people double back on you. So, if I’m coming
down mile nine and they’re going past [in the other direction] at mile
13, they’re four miles ahead of me. It’s like, ‘Oh, crap.’

When I’m running, I’m really just thinking about the finish, thinking
about getting it over with and done. Eye on the prize. I get the
adrenaline rush toward the end, when you come down Eutaw Street, through
Camden Yards. That’s pretty neat because you’re running along the
cobblestone, you can see the finish, everyone’s screaming and yelling
and cheering, and you’re almost done.

My first thought when I finish is, ‘Where’s the beer?’ I’ll tell you
why, because when I finish, the water’s been sitting out there for six
hours, the Gatorade’s been sitting out there for six hours, it’s a hot
day, and the only thing cold is the beer. The best beer I’ve ever had in
my life was after finishing a race.

The best feeling I’ve ever had, personally, in my life is the first
time I finished a marathon. There’s no feeling quite like that. I’ve
spent hundreds of hours preparing for this, and now I’m done. But the
flip side is that I’m exhausted. I go home and take a nap.

I get stiffer and stiffer after all the long runs. You get old, your
body starts to ache, but when you see 70- and 80-year-olds crossing the
finish line, I think, ‘Well if they can do it, I can do it.’”