Boston Marathoners Picked Up Their Bags A Day Late

By Ariana Sandillo 4-16-13

Imagine almost 5,000 left over bags crowding the Castle at Park Plaza in downtown Boston…this represents the number of runners who did not get a chance to cross the finish line.

WEBN Boston Staff Photo

Early afternoon on April 15, two explosions near the Boston Marathon finish line left three people dead and almsot 200 injured.

Most of the runners who didn’t get a chance to finish were displaced throughout the city. Some couldn’t get into their hotels or even find their family and friends.

One Cambridge woman said her biggest fear was that her family was hurt.

“My son was supposed to be down there and so I just started running as fast as I could. And then I stopped to try and figure out if he was out of there…But it took about an hour and a half to find him,” said Hilary Hall.

She was stopped at Mile 21 and returned to the Castle at Park Plaza the day after to receive her metal and runners bag.

Another woman from Cape Cod ran her first marathon on Monday. She said after the bombings, she found her family as fast as she could and they got out of the city and traveled back to the Cape.

“We left pretty quickly and went back to the Cape. My mom…wanted to keep me safe at home. We just needed to get out as soon as possible because we didn’t know where it was going to hit,” said Larissa Brewster, a student a Suffolk Law.

She returned to Boston this morning to pick up her metal and bag. Larissa says this tragedy will not stop her from running another marathon in Boston.

“I love running so much and I’ve wanted to do this since I was a little kid…this wasn’t going to stop me from doing anything…I’ll raise the money again, I’ll find a way to get a number again because stupid people aren’t going to shut down my dreams.”