Denny Straussfogel knew he was safe from the Boston Marathon bomb blasts, but the rest of the world was left wondering.
He found out how much his friends and colleagues back home in Prince George cared about his fate when he finally logged on to his computer and saw all the Facebook posts. His response was short and to the point.
"To all concerned, I'm OK. Finished about thirty minutes before the insanity occurred and was well away from the area. Hard to express my feelings of shock and anger at this point."
On Tuesday, the day after a pair of bombs exploded near the finish line in downtown Boston, killing three people and injuring 170, Straussfogel knew how fortunate he was that his 56-year-old body, wounded knee and all, allowed him to finish the race in three hours 33 minutes. He crossed the finish 26 minutes before the first blast ripped through a crowd.
"I'm glad I had a good race, because I very easily could have had a time that would have put me right there when it happened," said Straussfogel, while waiting for a flight in Toronto. "I ran pretty much an average marathon for me, which is fortunate, given the lack of training I did for this one. But on bad days I've run between 3:40 and 3:45, which [having started in the second wave, 20 minutes after the first group left], would have put me right there."
Instead, Straussfogel was about a mile away from the explosions. Having already picked up his backpack and changed his clothes, he was just about to board a subway train to Cambridge when the station was closed and evacuated.
"I didn't hear anything, and from what I heard from other people, if you were anywhere near the area you would have heard it," he said. "My first thought was that maybe there was a bomb scare in the subway or a train accident. I've never had a close brush with anything like that. We got shuffled out of the station and within about 15 minutes or so, word filtered through the crowd from people with smart phones and it all unfolded what happened at the finish line."
Straussfogel eventually found a pay phone to call his girlfriend in Terrace, Suzanne Leblanc, who had been tracking his progress online.
"She was obviously very relieved to hear from me," said Straussfogel.
"I didn't have a cell phone so I was completely out of touch. It was very touching to me to see on my Facebook page all the people concerned about me. I kind of felt like George Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life -- all the people who you don't know you've touched their lives were kind of worried about me. I'm sure everyone there had the same experience.
"I knew I was OK and there was no danger to me directly. It's much worse for the people who don't know, who care about you and heard about the blast and don't have any information."
At that point he had no money, holding only a subway ticket, and there were no taxis available. After a draining 42.2-kilometre run, he faced the prospect of having to walk another eight kilometres to his hotel room when he learned one of the subway lines to Cambridge has reopened. On the train, he met a woman who was unable to finish the race, diverted just a mile from the finish.
"It's kind of trivial, given what occurred to the people who really suffered, but I feel bad for the runners who were out of the course and got stranded, particularly if it was their first Boston Marathon," he said. "It was such a big deal when I went through it for the first time. They got cheated, and it's one more reason to be pissed off at the person who did this.
"It's a senseless tragedy, but it's nowhere near as bad as it could have been. That doesn't mean much to the three who were killed and all the injured, but given the throngs of people that were there, it could have been a whole lot worse."
Straussfogel is a three-time Boston Marathon finisher. A heat wave last year slowed his time to 4:09. Monday race temperature was 14 C, perfect for running conditions. His 2011 time was 3:20. His best marathon time was 2:14 in 2006 in Victoria.
He was unaware until late Monday that two other racers from Prince George, Steve Martin and Tanya-Hall Carter, also finished the race. Martin's time was 3:24, while Carter clocked 4:04. Straussfogel's friend from Victoria, former UNBC environmental science instructor Jen Psyllakis, finished the race a few minutes ahead of Straussfogel.
Straussfogel has lived in Prince George for 10 years, and works as a research associate at UNBC. The native of Levittowne, Pa., holds a doctorate in aerospace engineering and has just finishing up a one-semester term teaching physics at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops.
Straussfogel and Leblanc have qualified for Boston next year. He vows he will return to the 118th annual race and predicts the tragedy will further galvanize Boston and the willingness of its residents to get behind the world's oldest, most prestigious marathon. He's already heard stories about how people came to the rescue of stranded runners, offering them rides or places to stay.
"What makes it so special is the entire city is into it, even people who have nothing to do with running or athletics, they treat you like a celebrity, and the whole experience is so great," he said. "The entire 26-mile course is lined with people cheering and screaming the whole way, and it is a big deal. It's such a wonderful event. How dare someone come and try to spoil it. This certainly will not deter me from coming back. You can't live in fear."
