Teacher who lost 100 pounds now running to the Boston Marathon finish line

Among the thousands of people running the Boston Marathon today is man who just five years ago weighed 100 pounds more than he does now and could not run more than two minutes at a time.

Andy Bell, of Lewisberry, Pennsylvania, is aiming to run the 26.2-mile race in just three hours and 16 minutes.

Bell’s transformation from out-of-shape high school basketball coach to an athlete running in one of the world’s most exclusive marathons began with a simple 5K race on Thanksgiving that he says his wife forced him to enter.

“She wanted to run a local Turkey Trot,” Bell, 45, told ABC News. “I thought it was the dumbest idea ever, but she wanted to do it and signed us up.”

Bell, a high school sociology teacher, had just been to the doctor before his 40th birthday and was told he needed to take blood pressure medication and that he was on the fast track to diabetes.

"He was a heart attack waiting to happen," said Bell's wife, Heidi Bell. "There was a realization that [if things didn't change], he wasn't going to be around for as long as we wanted him."

At nearly 300 pounds, Andy Bell decided he would run for 10 minutes on a treadmill at his high school’s gym after basketball practice ended every day.

“Two minutes in [the first 10-minute run] I had to hit the stop button,” he recalled. “There was a bench nearby and I sat down and just put my head in my hands and was crying.”

He continued, “I could not believe it had gotten to this point. I was only 39 years old.”

Andy Bell decided to eliminate fried food and soda from his diet. He kept running on the treadmill every day, just aiming to run 30 seconds or one minute more than the day before.

Andy Bell, who played multiple sports in high school, completed the Turkey Trot and learned that he loved to run.

“[In high school], running was always the punishment for doing what you weren’t supposed to do,” he said. “I was as surprised as anyone that I enjoyed how I felt not only after the run but during the run.”

“I just discovered I was at peace when I was running and it just fueled me to keep adding time,” said Andy Bell, who does not listen to music when he runs, focusing instead on his heartbeat, his steps and the environment around him.

The more he ran, the more weight he lost. The more weight he lost, he said, the faster he ran.

Within one year, Andy Bell said he lost 100 pounds.

Today, five years later, he has maintained the weight loss and completed 11 marathons, three ultramarathons and 100 Spartan races -- running races that also include extreme obstacles.

"Once he decides to do something, he gives all of himself to it," Heidi Bell said of her husband. "It's nice to be reminded that we're capable or more than we think we are, and he's a perfect reminder of that."

Andy Bell, who is now a certified personal trainer, qualified for this year’s Boston Marathon in his age group by more than six minutes.

He wakes up at 4:55 a.m. to get his workout done before his wife and three daughters start their days. He follows an eating plan of “everything in moderation,” he said.

“I have a healthy combo of vegetables, good carbs (multi-grain bread) and lean meat like turkey,” he said. “After a long run on the weekends I like to treat myself to a diet soda.”

He and his wife made their trip to Boston a celebration weekend, marking the longest time the two have been apart from their kids since their oldest, 19, was born.

“We’re viewing this as our celebration,” said Andy Bell, who had a racing shirt custom-made for today’s marathon with his wife and daughters’ names on his sleeves.

When asked what he is most looking forward to during today’s marathon, he quickly replied, “seeing the finish line.”

“I don’t think there’s anything anyone wants to see more than that,” he said. “I’d imagine the emotions and reactions will be very similar to that first two-minute run I had.”

“[I’ll be] collapsed, head in my hands and the emotions will be flowing,” Andy Bell said.

As Keith Smith talked about his wife, Jacquelyn Smith, he rattled off a list of characteristics he fell in love with: She was a career woman, a good mother, a church-goer and, most of all, a giving person.

Her kindness, he said, is what cost her her life.

Now Baltimore police are hunting for an apparent team of panhandlers who preyed on her good nature and stabbed her to death for a few dollars.

"She was trying to help someone out," Keith Smith told ABC News. "I think the reality is, we forget about the times that we're living in. You may have the best intentions on helping this person, but when you let a person get into your safe zone, you're actually opening yourself up to whatever this person has intended for you."

'Help me feed my baby'

About 12:30 a.m. on Saturday, Smith was driving his wife and daughter, Shavon Smith, home after they had been out celebrating Shavon's 28th birthday. At a stop sign in the Johnston Square neighborhood of East Baltimore, Jacquelyn Smith, 54, spotted a woman standing on the side of the road, carrying what looked like a baby wrapped in a blanket and holding a cardboard sign, reading, "Help me feed my baby, God bless."

She asked her husband to pull over and she rolled down the window and handed the woman $10, Keith Smith told ABC News.

"It was drizzling, it was cold, wet and my wife, like any normal person, felt sorry for the baby, which turned out not to even be a baby," he said. "It must have been like a stuffed animal or something wrapped in a blanket. From where we were, it looked like a baby and we thought it was a baby."

Keith Smith said he noticed a man standing next to the panhandling woman. But it never crossed his mind that he and his wife were being set up.

"As she was handing her the money, the guy came to say 'Thank you,' and the woman was saying 'God bless you. God bless you,'" Smith recalled. "While we're looking at her saying 'God bless you' and my wife was handing her the money, he came over to the car and said 'Thank you' and then he started stabbing my wife and snatched her necklace off and ran."

He said the female panhandler reached into the car, grabbed his wife's purse and scurried off into the darkness.

Search for suspects

Two Deaths — And Then A Green Light

With his wife bleeding profusely from a stab wound to her chest, Smith sped to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where Jacquelyn was pronounced dead.

"For most people, the last thing you're going to think about is that this person is about to take your life for a few dollars," Keith Smith said.

Baltimore interim Police Commissioner Gary Tuggle said during a news conference Monday that detectives are seeking the public's help in identifying the two suspects.

He described the female suspect as being in her 20s with medium brown skin, a medium build, about 5 feet tall, and wearing a long brown coat. He said the suspected male accomplice is black, about 5 feet 10 inches tall, with a medium build, a goatee and wearing a black hoodie.

"They're using this ruse as panhandlers to get the attention of their would-be victims," Tuggle said. "We also want to caution the public about engaging with panhandlers in recognizing the fact not all of them have honest intent. Not all of them are in real need."

'I want justice'

Keith Smith said he and his wife were married for nearly five years. Together they have six children and three grandchildren.

Jacquelyn Smith worked as an electrical engineer at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, an Army facility in Aberdeen, Maryland, her husband said. He said he and his wife are members of the Helping Hands Ministries Church in the Baltimore suburb of Churchville, where Jacquelyn's memorial service is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Friday.

"I don't want to beat myself up, but I feel somewhat responsible for letting that person get that close to my wife," Keith Smith said, his voice choking with emotion. "It's just a lot right now going through my mind. That's why it's hard for me to sleep because now I'm trying to see how I could have did things differently, how I could have took another street. I'm just thinking of all kind of ways that my wife would still be here."

He also had a warning to other kindhearted people like his wife, saying, "You've got to stay vigilant or you're going to be sitting in the same seat I'm sitting in."

"I just want justice. That's it," he said. "I just want justice for my wife."