Marin's Boston Marathon Runners Reflect on Tragic Bombing

The horrific images of Boston Marathon runners who were injured in Monday's explosions — photos that quickly circulated in media outlets around the world — hit Ross resident Kathy Johnson on an extraordinarily deep level.

She recognized most of the faces.

Johnson had been running alongside several of them earlier and was just about to turn onto Bolyston Street, roughly three blocks from the finish line, when she heard both the explosions. 

The race hadn’t been going well for Johnson, who was injured and had a cold. She was going at a slow pace, stopping multiple times for cramping muscles.

Fortunately, the positive support from the crowds had been overwhelming and kept her going, she said.

“As we got into the city of Boston, the crowds were so loud your ears were buzzing,” Johnson said.

When she heard the first explosion — over the deafening yells of the crowd — she thought “oh no, that doesn’t sound right.”

A cheering spectator near her said cannons were going off for the runners. But Johnson wasn't convinced. She kept her eyes on the police.

“There were a lot of police and armed forces on the course and a bunch of police were standing to the left of where I was,” she said.

After the first explosion, the officers suddenly put their fingers to their ears and appeared to be listening to their radios, she said. 

“When the second explosion happened, they all gathered and, literally five seconds after that, they came onto the course and stopped us,” Johnson said. “They were on it immediately and were very decisive. They stopped us all from going any further and told us something had happened on Boylston Street.” 

Johnson, knowing cell service gets overwhelmed during emergency situations, immediately took out her phone to reach her husband, who was waiting for her at their hotel. As she told him the race had been cancelled, the police began to evacuate everyone from the intersection she was standing at. 

She walked down the street with other runners — many of them shivering and upset — unsure of exactly where they were headed. “Some people were crying and hysterical and others were calm and quiet,” she said.

Roughly 20 policemen on bicycles flew past them, headed in the opposite direction. Sirens filled the air. 

“It was very evident it was a bad situation. Some of the runners were crying and were trying to call their families,” Johnson said. “One woman said her two kids were waiting for her at the finish area. They were alone and she couldn’t reach them.”

She said it took her roughly 40 minutes to find her bag and another hour to get to the hotel — the Copley Square Hotel, which was a block behind the finish line. “I befriended another runner who was trying to get to the hotel, but we kept getting lost,” she said. “Every time we went around the corner they were telling us we couldn’t go any further.”

She had just arrived at her hotel, hugged her husband and put her bag down when they were told they would have to evacuate from the building. 

Not long after, when they were in a nearby café and her husband was ordering her coffee and a pastry, the police came running in told all the patrons to evacuate immediately.

They left and found a restaurant further away, where they stayed for the next few hours until they were allowed back in their hotel, where security was significantly tighter.

“When we tried to get back to the hotel, the whole area had been closed off as a crime scene,” she said. "We had a police escort take us to the hotel."

Johnson, a co-founder of Consort Partners Inc., flew back to the Bay Area early Tuesday morning. “I’m happy to be back in Marin,” she said Tuesday afternoon.

She said it breaks her heart that the explosions targeted the crowds. “The crowds were just so supportive,” Johnson said. “That’s the thing that breaks my heart. I can just picture all those happy faces — if you were close they would all put their hands out for you.” 

As the tragedy struck, people in the Bay Area have found sanctuary in their local running community. 

Almonte resident Brett Rivers, who recently opened the San Francisco Running Company in Tam Junction, said his shop is a place people can come to “if they simply want a hug.”

“We’re a community store, and we want to have an open door,” he said. A handful of people have been in to talk about it already, and he imagines it will be on everyone’s minds during their weekly public run on Wednesday.

Rivers, who won the Quad Dipsea last year, ran the Boston Marathon in 2011. His wife Larissa was there Monday doing marketing work at the event when the bombs went off, as was his close friend and best man at his wedding. 

Thankfully, they were both at mile 23.

“They’re okay, just in shock,” Rivers said.

At the Pelican Inn Track Club in Corte Madera, member Jack Burns’ nephew was at mile 25.5. 

“Another minute, two minutes, he would have been right there,” Burns said.

This year's Boston Marathon wasn’t Novato resident Mike Willey’s first marathon, but his first in Boston. His wife and 13-year-old daughter accompanied him.

“I finished before it happened,” Willey said of the explosions that rocked downtown Boston. The Willeys, of Novato, had left the family area, where people wait for marathoners to cross the finish line, and were in the parking garage when the blasts took place.

“We didn’t know what had happened,” Willey said. “It was chaos. Everyone was running and screaming and yelling. It was hard to get out of there.”

Willey said friends from California were calling him to make sure he was safe and to provide updates — those watching the scene unfold on TV knew a lot more than those scurrying away from the danger.

They learned that Willey’s wife and daughter had minutes before been standing on the very spot that TV broadcasts were showing at the heart of the first explosion.

“That’s too scary,” he said.

Willey said he and his family discussed whether or not this should prevent him from other high-profile running events and the consensus was no. “We can’t let them do that,” Willey said of the bombers. “I might be more vigilant, if I could be, I won’t let it shake me.”

— Chris Rooney and Cate Lecuyer contributed to this report.