SFU professor was minutes from reaching the Boston Marathon finish line when the bombs went off
By Kristina Charania
Photos by Christopher Penn
On an average day on Boylston Street in Boston, Massachusetts, the air hums with conversation, the rustling of shopping bags and take-home restaurant containers, and the clicking of swaying metal flower baskets hanging from old-style lampposts. At first glance, Boylston Street looks much like parts of West Vancouver and Gastown.
On April 15th at 2:50pm, the scene was much different. After the explosion of two bombs set off thirteen seconds apart — the first within moments of the finish line — the area smelled like a mixture of fresh fireworks and smoke, according to SFU psychology professor Rachel Fouladi. She was minutes away from the Boston Marathon finish line when she heard the blasts, still nestled amongst nearly 5,700 other runners yet to complete the race.
“The police didn’t automatically recognize what happened,” Fouladi said. “They were walking a bit slowly, and one officer was reaching for his communication device. It’s a difficult sound to recognize at first — how often do we hear a bomb go off?”
Fouladi said she stuck to positive thoughts as she continued to run, with no one immediately stopping her and no visual indication of what had occurred. “It certainly did cross my mind that the explosion was a bomb. But, I thought, it could have also been an accident, a blast at a construction site, bleachers falling — of course, I had hoped not — or the scaffolding archway for photographers near the finish line.”
Spectators and volunteers then stopped her and 25 other runners between the intersections closest to the bombing sites. If they had been even a second later in stopping her, Fouladi would have found herself amidst the chaos and destruction created by the packed pressure-cooker bombs.
After the scramble to borrow spectator’s cell phones and send text messages over a poor connection, groups of on-foot enforcement, police on bicycles, and a SWAT car rushed towards Boylston Street. Fouladi’s group was instructed to evacuate away from the bomb sites a few minutes later.
Although she is now safe and sound in Vancouver, Fouladi encourages increased marathon participation after witnessing the warmth and kindness of other participants in Boston. It’s crucial, she notes, that people continue to put one foot in front of the other to demonstrate the power of community engagement.
“These are beliefs I take to heart. I try my best to encourage other people to discover for themselves what I’ve discovered through marathon running,” she says. Fouladi herself progressed from relaxed interval training to running a half marathon in 2007.
“At this race, I even met a fellow running his 19th Boston Marathon. He had a little pot belly, and by the look of him you’d never have guessed he was a runner. People of all ages came from a variety of places like North America, Colombia, Japan, and Scotland — everywhere. Many repeat participants get to know each other and recognize people that they see at these races and ask, ‘How have you been this past year? What other races have you run this year? Is your foot feeling okay now?’”
With hundreds of volunteers and 42 kilometres of clapping and cheering spectators, much of the marathon’s spirit also comes from those people who selflessly administer race packs and run aid stations whether they take part in the race themselves or not. “Kids even offer the runners cut oranges, liquorice sticks, gummy bears, water — all sorts of items. If you’re thirsty as you run, there’s probably somebody along the route that will offer you something,” she says. “It’s really sweet. All of these actions are so innocent and positive, so it makes me extremely sad that these bombings happened.”
Besides organizing SFU’s Terry Fox Run and hosting informal run groups on a weekly basis, after her experience in Boston, Fouladi invited the community to join her for a run on the university’s Burnaby on a rainy Sunday afternoon. A total of eleven runners participated, including three children, the head of the university’s Health and Counselling office, a Lower Mainland resident, and two SFU students. One student brought her father along, who had participated in the Boston Marathon in 2011.
“She had been standing where the bombs went off this year when she had gone to support her father two years ago. For them, it had also been a close call. If they had been there this year instead, they would have experienced what I and others had experienced,” said Fouladi.
After 45 minutes of running around the track through a mixture of hail and snow, the runners stopped to change direction at 2:50pm — the time of Boston bombing — and ran silently for ten minutes in recognition of others’ sorrow and as a sign that people should not stop running or living their everyday lives.
“Even for those people who emailed me and couldn’t come to run because of other obligations, they were still thinking of us,” said Fouladi. “That’s another great thing. Not running with us doesn’t actually mean that you aren’t participating at all. You’re still there in spirit.”
