Just about everyone who uses the Torrey C. Brown Rail Trail, formerly the NCR Trail, has an opinion about its appeal.
 
For some, it is a quiet respite from the bustle of everyday life, offering a chance to enjoy the countryside from Cockeysville to Pennsylvania. For others, it is where they meet friends to walk, ride bikes, run or ride horses.

For Domenic Petrucci, it is a lifesaver.
 
After a heart attack brought the masonry business owner to his knees eight years ago, Petrucci lost 60 pounds by exercising on the trail.

First he walked short distances, huffing and puffing the whole time. Then he tried running. Until the weight came off, running hurt his knees, so he got a bike and rode. And rode.

By the end of two years of constant exercise on the trail, he thought nothing of riding from one end to the other and back again, a 40-mile round trip. As his 260-pound frame melted down to 200, he was able to run. He now keeps a gym bag with running clothes and shoes in his truck.

Petrucci has recently been spending time on the trail for another reason. He donated his labor to help install a 15-foot by 32-foot brick patio on the trail just north of the old Monkton train station. He also put four stone benches on the patio at no cost.

“There were plenty of times I wish I had a bench to sit on when I first started on the trail,” said Petrucci, who lives in Highlandtown and said he has a “summer house” in Cockeysville, near the trail. “I got lots of memories of this trail.”

He has created a heart-shaped brick for the patio that will be engraved “The Petrucci Family Loves the NCR Trail.”

The entire project — patio, frost-free water fountain and rest stop — is sponsored by the Rotary Club of Hunt Valley. Landscaping is scheduled to begin this week and the rest stop should have an official opening in November.

“Having Domenic do the work was a perfect fit,” said Suzanne Amos, the rotary club’s vice president. “He has such a warm heart and he wants to give back to the community.”

This summer, the rotary club formed a partnership with Civic Works, a job-training program in Baltimore, to build a rest stop on the trail in Monkton. When Civic Works representatives looked for a masonry contractor, they asked Petrucci for a bid, and only then discovered his link to the trail.

Civic Works acted as general contractor for the rotary project, overseeing the necessary engineering, design and plumbing work.

Its crews also excavated 10 tons of soil before the patio’s concrete base was poured.

Petrucci, 55, is a native of Frosinone, Italy, about 45 miles from Rome. He left his mother, six brothers and two sisters and moved to Canada in 1969 after his father died at 46 from heart disease. He started working in construction for $1 an hour.

His Philadelphia-born mother moved back to the United States in 1970 and settled in Baltimore in 1972.
Three years later, Domenic moved to the United States, bought a house in Highlandtown and met his future wife, Vittoria Corapi, the day he moved in.

“After 33 years, I still have the same wife, the same house, the same phone number,” he said.
 
Petrucci says he earned his heart attack. He loved pasta, pizza and meats with rich sauces. He washed everything down with beer or wine. He quit his habit of smoking three packs of Marlboro cigarettes a day  only in 1995, after his daughter developed asthma and he couldn’t smoke in the house anymore.

His unhealthy lifestyle caught up with him on March 26, 2000. He was 46.

“I was driving to work when I felt a pain in my chest. I knew it was a heart attack,” Petrucci said. “I felt like my heart was pumping out of my chest.”

After a balloon angioplasty to open up his arteries, he hired a trainer, who took him to the trail every other day.

“A good trainer is way cheaper than a doctor,” he said. “I changed my eating habits. My wife makes such good Italian food, but I knew I had to do this.”

After years of healthy living, he entered a bodybuilding contest in 2005. Petrucci was down to 185 pounds then, and lived on egg whites, brown rice, fish and chicken.

He won the National Physique Committee’s East Coast competition for the over-50 men’s division.

Since then, he has eased up a little, but still eats healthy meals. He runs or bikes on the trail regularly, and works out with personal trainer Dave Rutch at Interactive Fitness in Timonium three to five days a week.

“If Domenic tells you he’s going to do something, you can be sure he does it,” Rutch said. “He is so determined.”

Petrucci weighs 215 but wants to get leaner and enter a body-building competition in June. He plans on using that event to raise money for the American Heart Association.

“My life is a commitment to excellence,” he said. “I’m going to exercise and eat better until the day I die, which I hope won’t be for a long, long time.”

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