Boston Marathon Tragedy

I wanted to share with everyone our experience at the Boston Marathon. It was my Mom's first time running it, and Cosette and I went to Boston with my parents to see her race. 

It started out as a very exciting day. The Boston Marathon was finally here! My Mom has been running marathons since I was a senior in high school and qualified for the Boston last fall. That was always the dream, the race we would talk about. How great it would be to qualify for Boston. Mom did it! She qualified and then got in the race!

Mom was in the third heat of runners that started later that morning. While Mom was running Dad, Cosette, and I got to tour around Boston. We planned on meeting around up with Mom  around 3:30 later that afternoon when she was done with the race. 

We were on our way to meet up with Mom when our subway train stopped for about 15 or 20 minutes. That did not seem to strange since the subway kept stopping at random times on the track. When we reached the next stop the subway "conductor" told everyone to get off the train that it was the train's last stop. That did not matter to us much because we were getting off at that stop anyway. While we were getting out of the subway there were several police officers who came down into the subway getting everyone out of there. Dad and I just figured that there was a problem with the subway. We were going to try to get to the finish line to see Mom finish the race but when we got out of the subway it was really crowded and we decided to go wait in the friends and family gathering area to wait for Mom. There was still nothing that really made us think there was anything terribly wrong. We had no idea what was going on until I receieved a text from a friend saying that she had heard about the bombs and asked us if we were okay. Now everything was making sense. At that point a lot of ambulances were going by and more and more police cars. Dad and I both started getting a lot of texts from people asking if we were okay and if knew about Mom. We tried to get back to as many people as possible but cell phone service was not the best. We could receieve texts but phone calls would not come in as well. Mom was able to text Dad and let her know that she was okay. We were so relieved! Then we waited and waited. Cosette and I paced up and down the street waiting for Mom. The atmosphere was not panicked but there were people who were crying and anxiously waiting for their runner like us. Policemen would come through our street telling everyone once you got your runner to leave. After waiting for an hour and a half Mom got to where we were. Relieved again! We all ran to her. It was an emotional meeting. We knew that she was okay but the anticipation of being separated was the worst. 

At that point the police were clearing everyone out of the area. People who did not have their runner were told to go to the Boston Commons and wait there. Mom, Cosette, and I continued to the station while Dad went back to the hotel to get our luggage. He said on the way to the hotel there were police lined up along the bottom of the Boston Common with their giant guns and dogs. He also said that there were policemen at the hotel as well. Security was tightened at the station too. There was a police officer and police dog walking all around. Luckily our bus was still scheduled to leave at the same time and we were able to make it back to New York safely. 

Mom said that she was at mile 25.6 when she heard the bombs go off. She did not think anything of it. She just thought that it was something to announce runners finishing the race. The police stopped the race shortly after the bombs went off. She said that she and thousands of runners were stuck on the course for about an hour. She said that it was pretty bad because all the runners were out there in their sweaty running clothes getting cold and some people were going into shock. People who lived around that area were kind enough to bring out trash bags for runners to get warm and she was lucky to get one. She said that they then had the runners continue to the finish area of the race, so she technically did complete the course. The runners were obviously not allowed to go through the finish line area. She was able to get her things and meet up with us shortly after. She said that the race was really amazing before they were stopped. She said that there were people pretty much the whole way through cheering everyone on. 

That is what happend. Thank you to everyone who called and texted us to make sure we were okay. We were so blessed to be protected through out this tragic event. Please keep the families of those who were injured and killed in your prayers.