‘It was very festive, until the bombs went off’: Valley runners recall experiences during 2013 Boston Marathon

PALMER — Two kilometers.

Only two kilometers of pavement separated Liz Friedman from the finish line. It was April 15, 2013. Friedman, of Palmer, was competing in the Boston Marathon for the first time, and on the verge of finishing one of the world’s most recognized 26-mile races.

Friedman made her way down Beacon Street and through Kenmore Square. As she ran underneath the overpass at Massachusetts Avenue, ready for the final stretch toward Boylston Street, the Boston Marathon came to a screeching halt.

Friedman, in a pack of dozens of runners, stood inside the eye of a hurricane on that April Monday, unknowingly guarded from the chaos that had just struck the city.

A pair of pressure cooker bombs detonated a reported 12 seconds apart, only about 200 yards from the Boylston Street finish line, rocking the city, and shaking the world. Three people were killed and about 260 were reported injured. Two bombers, later indentified as Dzhokhar and Tamerian Tsarnaev, had just put their deadly imprint on an event celebrated internationally.

But Friedman, a mere two kilometers from the epicenter of the chaos, had no idea what was happening.

“All of a sudden everything just stopped. We didn’t know what happened,” Friedman recalled recently. “We were all just freaked out sort of at that point. Your body had just gone through this race. You’re not thinking as clearly as you normally are. It was getting really cold. We all were standing there, really cold, really confused.”

Friedman said, standing there stunned, she wondered why nobody had come to bring them warm clothing. She still didn’t know all of the medical personnel in the area were tending to the injured. It was 20 minutes, maybe a half-hour, before Friedman and her fellow runners huddled near the Massachusetts Avenue overpass finally figured out what was going on, what had happened.

“At some point, police appeared and told us bombs had gone off. We didn’t know if people were hurt,” Friedman said. “We didn’t really know people were killed until we got back to the hotel and turned on the TV.”

Friedman said watching news reports of what had just happened left her stunned, speechless.

“We were all just completely shocked and horrified. We couldn’t understand what happened,” Friedman said.

The timing of the bombing also shocked her. According to reports, the bombs were detonated at 2:40 p.m. EDT, long after the elite runners had finished.

“What was really so horrifying, it was not the elite they were targeting. It was the middle pack of the runners, just sort of regular people. None of us were celebrities or anything,” Friedman said. “That part was just very hard to comprehend. It just felt sort of personal. They intentionally picked this time to do it.”

Friedman said it took her quite a while to get back to her hotel. She didn’t have a cellphone. It was in her race bag that she was supposed to pick up at the finish line.

“I couldn’t get in touch with anyone,” Friedman said.

As she recalled the events of that day, Friedman said she is still struck by the generosity of the people of Boston, amid the chaos.

“The people were very kind. The came out of apartments, brought us blankets, brought us water,” she said.

Monday, Friedman, 65, will be among four Valley runners and about 50 Alaskans participating in the 2014 Boston Marathon. Friedman was granted automatic entry to the 2014 race, because her 2013 race was stopped due to the bombings. Friedman admitted she was hesitant about returning to Boston for the 2014 race.

“I wasn’t going to race again, but slowly I decided to do it,” she said.

David Johnston is also among the Alaskans set to participate in Monday’s marathon. Johnston, an elite distance and ultrasport runner from Willow, is back in Boston for his ninth run in the marathon. A trip to Boston has been an annual event for Johnston, since he first qualified for the race nearly a decade ago.

Although Johnston was a bit hesitant about making a return, he’ll be back for another stab at breaking his personal record, and breaking the 2-hour and 50-minute mark. Saturday, Johnston, in Boston, was visiting a group of fellow marathon runners from Michigan, and said there is a vibrant atmosphere in the city.

“It’s alive and well,” Johnston said by cellphone. “Every other person has a shirt on with something about last year. The main thing is this year’s theme, ‘Boston is Strong.’ The shirts say ‘remember.’ Shirts have the date of last year. The whole thing is geared toward last year. It’s kind of unique.”

Johnston was already in his hotel room, last year, when the bombs went off.

“I was not feeling too good, after pushing my body harder than it was capable of,” Johnston said. “It was my son who told me something was going on. Looking out the window, we were a few blocks away from everything that was happening; you could see something was happening. We flipped on the news, and found out what had happened.”

Johnston said he immediately grabbed his cellphone, trying to track down his mom, who was in town for the race, and his sister, who was also running that day.

“My sister, luckily, had finished and wasn’t in the immediate area. My mom was at the mall. They were both safe,” Johnston said.

Johnston did have an eerie reminder of 2013 when he went to pick up his race bib for the 2014 marathon.

“It was weird. We were at the exhibition to pick up numbers. They had all the vendors. All of a sudden, the alarms started going off. They started evacuating immediately,” Johnston said. “Oh great, here we go again.”

But all was well, and Johnston said all appears to be well in Boston. The healing continues, but the race is celebrated, he said.

Both Johnston and Friedman said, while 2013 should never be forgotten, they hope the Boston Marathon returns to the way it was before the bombs went off.

“The crowds cheering along every stretch. Little kids handing you bananas. It was very festive, until the bombs went off,” Friedman said. “It was sort of a hard decision [to return]. One of the reasons I wanted to do Boston, it’s such a joyous event. Everybody in the city really gets into it. Everybody is so enthusiastic about it.”

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.