Before Monday, I had run 104 marathons in my lifetime. When people asked me what my most memorable race was, I had a few different ones that came to mind. Different races stuck in my mind for different reasons. That was a tough question to answer. That’s no longer the case, though. For the rest of my life, the 2013 Boston Marathon will absolutely be the one marathon I never forget. And like just about everybody else who was there, the aftermath of the race will be the true memory.
I ran the race, went for broke, fell apart by mile 8, struggled miserably the rest of the way, left everything I had out there and ended up going med tent afterwards for only the second time in 105 marathons. 3:43. Miserable. There’s not much more to talk about from the running standpoint and really, with the way the day was, there’s not much more that matters.
Post-race was the experience I’ll never forget and what I’ll always think of when I reflect on this marathon. After I was discharged from the med tent (it was nothing major), I went to pick up my gear and then started walking back to my hotel, which was north of the Boston Common. I knew to meet my friends over there and when I got to where Boylston meets the southwest edge of the Boston Common, I found them. I looked around for a few friends who I thought were right there in the area, but I didn’t see them. So we proceeded to walk to the hotel so I could take a shower. It was about a 15-minute slow walk. About two minutes in, we heard a loud boom that sounded out of place. Then we heard a second boom.
Both of the booms were very loud and they sounded like they were coming from the direction of the finish line. There was an echo and that was the general direction. From where we were, that was about a 1/2 mile away. My friends that I was with both said that they hoped that wasn’t anything bad, but it didn’t sound good. My initial thought was it was terrible thunder like I used to hear when I lived in the Midwest, but there weren’t storm clouds in the sky and it wasn’t warm enough. I told my friends I hoped it wasn’t a bomb. I was halfway serious, but halfway thinking, “no way was there possibly a bomb.” Another one of my friends speculated that maybe the scaffolding collapsed at the finish line. Just a guess, but that noise was loud. It sounded like somebody dropped a dumpster from 100 stories up. If it wasn’t thunder, and it wasn’t, it had to be something big.
We kept walking back to our hotel and within a minute or so, we heard sirens. Lots and lots of sirens, coming from all directions. We saw ambulances and fire trucks and started to think that had something to do with the booms. As we were walking, some people were asking what the booms were and nobody knew. That wasn’t a sound you heard every day. We kept going back towards the hotel.
On Charles Street, we walked by a restaurant with a TV and I peered through the window to see if there was any news on and there wasn’t. At this point, it was probably five or 10 minutes after the booms. My phone was dead, but my buddies hopped on theirs to see if there was any news online. At that point, there wasn’t. About a minute later, a woman walked by and was looking at her smart phone in horror. She showed us a picture from Twitter and told us there were two explosions near the finish line. We were shocked. My initial thought was that there was some kind of accident and I thought there was a chance it might make national news. I didn’t think it could actually be a bomb. I mean, you see that stuff on TV, and you know it happens, but it doesn’t happen where you are. But I thought an explosion near the finish line of the race might stretch beyond the local coverage of the event, so I used a friend’s phone to call my wife up so she would know I was OK. I wanted her to hear the news from me, not from the media and wonder if I was safe.
We continued to hear more and more sirens, like slot machines in Vegas. We were inside our hotel within about 10 minutes after the bombs exploded and went to the bar and asked them to switch the TV to the news. We were looking at footage and it was shocking. We were fairly close to there less than 15 minutes earlier and it looked like a war zone. It wasn’t much more than an hour prior that I had run right through that ravaged area.
I had been wanting to meet up with friends for a burger after the race, but I knew at that point we probably just needed to get out of town. I didn’t know if it was a bomb or some kind of accident at that point, but I started to feel unsafe. The amount of sirens and activity made it seem like chaos was overtaking the city and it was just the wrong place to be. I got up to the room and powered up my phone and had 40 text messages and 33 Facebook notifications and messages. I sent a quick update to Facebook and Twitter saying something like, “I imagine it’s going to make national news that there was an explosion at the Boston Marathon today. I am OK.” I started texting everybody I knew who was in town to make sure they were OK.
My phone wasn’t ringing but voice mails were popping through. I did get one call and I just answered it by merely saying, “I’m OK.” I didn’t need to be told the reason for the call. My friend said, “Oh thank God,” and I just told her I had to go. I didn’t have a lot of time and that was understood. I was getting new text messages faster than I could reply to them. A friend of mine texted me and said, “Don’t go to your hotel!” It struck me that it was possible that this was another 9/11 in the making. You don’t know what the next target is at that point. That kind of made reality sink in. I didn’t have the luxury of sitting back and watching the news to see things unfold because I was very possibly in the middle of it. I proactively texted my work, I texted my former coworkers in Colorado figuring they would be wondering, I called my dad, I saw my mom had texted and I texted her back.
After about five minutes of replying as fast as I could to texts, my buddies, who were watching the news, told me to get in the shower because we needed to get the heck out of town. I did that and we left the room within about 10-15 minutes. I had one friend I had been trying to reach, but texts to her and her husband went unanswered. I contacted her friends and none of them could get a hold of her either. Neither could her parents. Nobody had heard from her and we were freaking out. My buddies had seen her a minute before they saw me, and they were leaving to go eat lunch on Boylston. I started praying for them … I couldn’t imagine something happening to them out of nowhere like that.
We got the car and got on the road. There was traffic getting out of town, which didn’t surprise me. There were still sirens coming from all over the place, ambulances and fire trucks and police cars flying by. It felt like the city was out of control. I wouldn’t use the term “war zone” but it did feel very unsafe. You just didn’t know what was surrounding you. I heard from my friend we had been searching for not too long after we got going. She had been in a restaurant that didn’t have cell coverage and had 52 texts when she came out. She was going through the same thing as me, letting everybody know she was safe, and they were on the road back to Maine and north of the city.
A friend of mine was driving because I just wanted to get through the incoming communication. I told my wife we were on the road and I started texting back to everybody as fast as I could. While we sat in traffic on our way out of town on 93 south, there were countless police cars flying north into town. Tons. At one point, I saw a caravan of about 25 police cars and SWAT trucks with their sirens on. Not even in the wildest chase scenes in movies had I ever seen anything like that. I didn’t have any emotions of fear or anything like that … I was just numb. Was this really happening? It felt like we were in a war zone and there was the potential for bad guys everywhere.
I tried to post updates to Twitter and Facebook a little bit just in case anybody who was on social media and was wondering what was going on would have at least one view. I didn’t offer much insight, but I tweeted and posted just in case the info was interesting to anybody. I went back and forth between my incoming Facebook messages, texts and emails. Police cars continued flying north to the city after we got south. It was pretty obvious that outside help was being dispatched in a hurry and that there was no good reason to be in Boston.
I eventually checked my Twitter and had about 90 mentions, which is a lot more than I get nowadays. I read them and sent a mass reply and bounced back to texting. All the way back to Philly people kept contacting me. I don’t know how many Facebook, Twitter and email messages I had, but I looked at my data usage report for my phone and I had 314 text messages sent/received on Monday. That’s definitely more than I typically use. By a mile.
People were texting me news updates but I hadn’t seen much of the footage because we were in a car the whole time. Kind of ironic that even though we were about a half mile away from the bombs and heard them loud and clear, we had about as little knowledge of what happened as anybody.
I’m writing this about 56 hours after the bombings and it’s still pretty foggy for me. As I wrote yesterday, I’m doing the what if thing right now. I’m not really sad or scared. I’m just kind of numb. I’ll never forget the sound of those booms. At this point, it seems like I was very close to one of the most shocking, unifying terrorist attacks on US soil this side of 9/11. I think I’m angry, but I don’t even know what to think.
Did that really happen? Was I really there? It’s so weird. One thing I know for sure was it made me feel pretty special that so many people reached out and were concerned about me. It’s nice to know that people actually care. But beyond that, I’m still in a haze. It hasn’t really sunk it what happened and I’m trying to process it all.
The only things I know are I’m grateful everybody I know made it out unscathed. This will always be the most memorable marathon I was a part of. I’ve always talked about how much I love running the Boston Marathon. I can’t even put my finger on it, but I just love that town and the way the folks there embrace the race. I look forward to it — qualifying to return every year is really the only reason I train hard. I love the way this country is rallying around the city and I love the way the city is standing tall.
But beyond that, I don’t what to think. I don’t know what the heck happened on Monday. And I don’t know when I’m going to emerge from this fog I’m in. But from a running standpoint, I’m motivated now. I loved that city and that race before Monday. Now I love that city even more. I want to run that race next year more than I’ve ever wanted to run a race in my life. People have asked me if I’d go back and there’s no doubt in my mind I would. I won’t live in a bubble. And I love Boston, always have since my first trip there in 2008. Evil people can’t change that feeling.
JoAnn Ramsey Porter says
Thanks Sam for sharing that all with us, so grateful your safe, Hugs from your ETHS family 🙂
Jody Gittleman says
Sam,
Your minute-by-minute description was so enlightening. Really made the reader feel what it was like to be there. I’m sure it will take time for you to decompress from this near-miss.
The Boston calamity aside for a moment . . . 105 marathons???!!! 105???!!!
I’m not a runner, and have always had great admiration for my few friends who have run a marathon, but I hope you never lose sight of what an EXTRAORDINARY accomplishment that is in the grand scheme of things!
Jody
Amy says
During our long, disoriented walk away from the area, I kept updating twitter to make sure that everyone I knew was ok. I was relieved to find your updates in the mix, considering cell service was going in and out. We were in about the same place…close enough to know something was wrong, but far enough to walk in fear and uncertainty for about 20 minutes before information started coming in. Glad that you and everyone you were with are ok.
Morgan says
I stalked you all race and even though I knew you had finished well before everything happened I still confirmed your finish time a few times to make myself believe that you were ok. I was so thankful for your updates and so glad you and yours were safe!
Cassey says
When someone at work said, “There were two bombs in Boston.” I said, “Our Boston office? OH Wait! The marathon! I hope Sam is okay.” I jumped on FB and saw your post. I can’t even imagine going through that. Thanks for sharing and I’m glad you are okay!
Connie Nicholas says
thank you!, you note helped me know what you were going though! God has plans for you!love connie