Back to Boston -Spring 2014
by: John Stanton
Elle Foley’s first thought was for her mom. She was on track to finish the Boston Marathon in around four hours, until the bombs put an end to her race just before she made it to Copley Square. Her brother had already finished and was sitting on the makeshift stands on Boylston Street with her 83-year-old mother, close to the explosions.
“They got my mom out. I knew where they were but just couldn’t get there,” said Foley, who jumped a fence and tried to make it to Boylston Street to see if her family was OK, but police stopped her. Eventually they all made it to a Boston restaurant that had always been their meeting place after the race.
Dr. Tim Lepore runs with his daughter Meri at a previous Boston Marathon.
“My mom, at 83, shouldn’t have to see that,” Foley said. “This year she said she just can’t be there. I totally understand that. But I’m running. All those people who were injured, you have to do it for them.”
Even casual fans of the Boston Marathon, those of us who only thought about the race one day a year, who saw it as a sort of free-ranging civic get-together as much as a race, know the names. Johnny Kelly, who won twice and ran it when he was 84 years old. Bill Rodgers, who won four times in the late 1970s.
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