Thom Little is a 36-year-old producer for an advertising agency in Manhattan who squeezed in his running this summer around business trips to Dubai, Copenhagen and Budapest. Stewart Ellington, 33, is a nurse anesthetist who often trained at 5 a.m. before 17-hour shifts at Parkwest hospital in Knoxville, Tenn. And Daniel Hughes, 29, ran twice a day in the broiling heat of Greenville, S.C., where he practices law.

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Thom Little, 36, will run the Chicago Marathon on Sunday, hoping to break 2:22.

What do they have in common? They are all semi-elite marathoners facing a deadline.

Sunday is the last day to run a qualifying time of faster than 2 hours 22 minutes to earn a spot in the United States Olympic trials in the men’s marathon, which will be held in Manhattan on Nov. 3, the day before the New York City Marathon. Although they have come close — Little has run 2:25, Ellington and Hughes 2:23 — they are not yet quite fast enough to enter the trials, the most selective marathon in the country. So they will attempt the 26.2-mile distance again this weekend — Little at the Chicago Marathon, Ellington and Hughes at the Twin Cities Marathon in Minnesota.

Their reward if they are successful: they get to run another marathon, the Olympic trials, only 27 days later.