April 18, 2011 - Still paying back for a race just under the wire...

Brian Chisholm

I crossed the finish line at the Boston Marathon in 2013. It wasn't the way I wanted to. I was wearing a white volunteer jacket with blue strips, pushing the yellow stretcher in the top right corner of the picture below, with three other volunteers. We were stopped briefly because the volunteer riding the rail thought he felt a pulse, but it was probably his own. That happens in situations like this where your own heart is pounding and you’re working to save someone’s life.

We continued our race across the finish line and into Medical Tent A where we were directed to "go all the way down." I knew we were going past empty cots and that didn't seem right. When we got all the way down and reached a second triage station on the right, the doctor said eight words, "hook up a monitor, set up a morgue." Those words were devastating. We lost this race.

April 21, 2014 - Third time's the charm!

Chris Teachout

My Boston Marathon story starts on January 4th, 2011. That was the day I weighed in for “The Biggest Loser” challenge at work, and I tipped the scale at 300 pounds. That’s the most I have ever weighed in my life. At the time, I could barely walk three miles without stopping.

I spent the next nine months walking faster and farther, until September of that year, when I signed up for a 10K race. I tied for last place, but I finished, and was bitten by the running bug.

I then set my sights for Boston. I trained all winter, and when the day finally came to run, the temperature hit 90 degrees. At mile 16, I decided no good was going to come from pushing on, so I decided to “live to run another day”. Completely unsatisfied with the results of my first marathon, I immediately signed up for one in New Hampshire that fall. That marathon I completed, my first ever, in the pouring rain.

April 21, 2014 - WE ARE BOSTON STRONG and the whole world knows it!

Kelly LeCours

I am 49 years old, married to a marathoner and have two beautiful girls. 2014 was my 13th Boston Marathon.

Last year in Boston I had a great race finishing in my fastest Boston time - 3:17:10. When I finished, I grabbed my clothes and went to Exhale Spa for a wonderful shower. This has become a Boston ritual for me. Feeling great after the shower, I headed with my friend over to MJ's for a beer. That's when we realized something TERRIBLE had happened.

My friend Carmela and I were desperate to find friends and family to make sure they were OK. I had told my brother, who also ran, I would be at the Lenox Hotel if he wanted to meet up. With interrupted phone service, it was difficult to locate people. First we confirmed our friends were safe in their hotel room. They informed me the Lenox had been evacuated.

I continued on to the Lenox to find my brother. It was scary walking through the streets seeing FBI, armored vehicles, dazed and panicked people. As I got closer to the Lenox I heard another explosion. Police were yelling to us to turn around and get out of the area. I’m not sure of the details, but I was told the police safely detonated another bomb. I ran back to the hotel where my friends were and begged the doorman to let me back in. They were locking down all hotels. They called the room and confirmed it was OK. I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't let me in. The phones were not working. Once I was in the room, a friend’s family offered me a ride out of the city. I was so grateful.

April 15, 2013 - Give This Man a Medal!

Nick Laganas,
with Pat Cook

[Our thanks to Pat Cook of Middlesex Community College for sharing his story of a 2013 marathon hero.]

This is a story about my friend and fellow “E Streeter,” Lowell Massachusetts Police Officer Nick Laganas, and his first Boston Marathon. Nick and I are part of the PT team at the Lowell Police Academy that helps train police officers to run.

Nick is already a running machine, but this was his first venture onto the vaunted Boston course. Nick impressively made it across the finish line in 3:57:27, and was at the first water station in the finish chute, grabbing a water, when the first bomb blast went off. Instead of continuing down the finish chute, Nick did what law enforcement officers nationwide do - HE RAN TOWARD THE DANGER, even after just logging 26.2 miles of running!

2013 - A text message suggests it would be a good idea to go on Facebook and tell everyone I am OK

Jonathan Hanson

My journey as a runner began in 2010, when a co-worker shared information on the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training program. She was going to be mentoring runners for the 2011 Maratona di Roma. Prior to this, I had never done distance running, but something about this struck me. I went to the information session and before I knew it, I was training for my first marathon. It was such a life-changing experience for me that I continued with the program in 2012; this time venturing out to Spain for Madrid's first Rock & Roll Marathon.

Later in 2012, I received information on Team BMC, the charity program that benefits the various patient programs at Boston Medical Center (where I happen to be an employee and a patient). They were recruiting runners for the 2013 Boston Marathon. I knew Boston was one of the most prestigious marathons in the world; one people from around the world trained long and hard (and traveled across the globe) to run; the one practically in my backyard. As rewarding as my international marathon experiences were, I had also longed to be able to invite family and friends to share the day with me - to actually watch me cross the finish line. This was my chance. Before I knew it, I was preparing myself for my first Boston Marathon.

2013 - Running down Beacon towards Kendall, I was sure I would really make it...

Leah Dickerson

The 2013 Boston Marathon was my first marathon.

I got a bib at the last minute (about a month before) to run on the Team with a Vision, which supports the Massachusetts Association for the Blind. Luckily, I had been in training mode since December for a marathon that I didn’t make. Before Boston 2013, the longest race I had ever run was the 2012 Austin Half Marathon.

I was so nervous the morning of the marathon. All of my energy and focus was on finishing. I wanted to go as slow and steady as possible, I wanted to really enjoy the run and pass through the finish line.

2013 - Keep Calm and Marath-On

Andrew Cook

Preparation: Here we are… After a long time coming, the Boston Marathon is finally only a week away. For those of you starting to get worn down by the constant talk of it from us deranged people who find these kinds of things fun, just bear with us: it’s almost all over!

Without a single iota of sarcasm or tongue-in-cheek here, I want to tell you that training these six months has been one of the highlights of my athletic life so far, with the jewel on the crown looking to come right about this time next week as one sweaty, aching, dehydrated, disorientated mess of a 19 year old crosses the finish line on Boylston Street. Bring your camera, I know. Now, I know it’s still very pre-mature to be making my Sally Field acceptance speeches here (“You really really like me!”), but finish or no, at the back of the pack or a with surprise upset of the Kenyans, I want to send out a huge thank you to quite a lot of people.

2013 - I was there. I should write something.

Beth O'Grady

I was there.

I should write something.

I was there at the start when the air was alive with energy and anticipation. I was there when runners who prepared for months nervously counted down to the start of the race.

I was there when it was a perfect day for running 26.2 miles, fueled by the energy of the volunteers and spectators lining the route. I was there when it was uplifting and exhilarating. I was there when it was a fantastic day to run the 117th Boston Marathon.

2013 - A lifetime's worth of tragedy in the span of 20 minutes.

Brian Carroll

Accompanied by cooler temperatures, race day started with promise and enthusiasm. The starting line was abuzz with talk of PR's and possible personal Boston bests. A trend of new PR's was also evidenced by the too-many-to-count runners who scanned their wristwatches while covering the last five miles. I crossed the finish line at 2:45 pm with a face smiling and a 3:57:33 time.

Taking a picture with my wife next to the medical tent is a tradition unlike any other in my family. Joy, love, sweat, and then "BANG!" Only five minutes after the finish, the heaven turned to hell. “Maybe a cannon,” I first thought...but I know I would have noticed one next to the finish line, and I thought the sound was odd. No, this was bad. The second "BOOM" confirmed bad had gone to worse.

2013 - 'There was one more person I met that day who helped get me through it.'

Ed Harms

My first and only marathon happened on April 15th, 2013. Boston had been a goal of mine since graduating from the University of Delaware in 2008. I had lived in Somerville, Massachusetts, ever since then, and seeing 25,000 people running the streets of Boston with hundreds of thousands cheering them on was an experience I knew I needed to have some day.

Unfortunately, though, I was not nearly fast enough to qualify. For my age group, 3:05 is the standard, and though I have a “runner’s body,” I never started running consistently until college. I didn’t run my first 5k until my junior year, and ran my first half-marathon in 2011 with roughly a month of ‘training” (hard to even call it that now, looking back). The standards seemed so high I knew it would literally be years from the time I began training for 3:05 to the time I would be able to run Boston, so I never started. It seemed very intimidating.

2012 – Dancer in a Heat Wave: Pain, Agony, and Distress on the Road to Boston

Kate Stanton

When I first set out with the intention of running the Boston Marathon for the Alzheimer’s Association in memory of my dear grandfather, I had some idea of the challenges I would face in my training and fundraising. Some, but not all.

Let's just say the next time a dancer tells you she wants to run a marathon, you should give her a hearty chuckle, accompanied by a very sarcastic “Well, good luck!” While many running enthusiasts regard routine stretching as a necessity for maintaining a functioning body, hypermobility (as they so kindly diagnosed me) is just about as detrimental as not stretching at all.

Without giving you the full rundown of ailments I acquired as part of my training for my first marathon, I’ll leave you with this image of former dancer turned long distance runner: