Runners from the Sunshine Coast crossed the finish line at the Boston Marathon mere minutes before two bombs exploded, killing three bystanders and injuring more than 175 people.
A total of five known current or former Coast residents participated in the marathon, and all were reportedly unharmed after Monday's incident.
Rick Cooney of Sechelt finished 35 minutes and 41 seconds before the blasts.
"I feel very fortunate and lucky to have gotten through there before it happened," Cooney said after returning to the Coast Tuesday night. "I travel to a lot of marathons around the world, and I'm so saddened that someone had to destroy such a great spiritual event. To have such a tragedy, where people were killed and lost limbs, it's almost a new chapter for the running community."
Runner Ian Wall of Garden Bay finished almost 10 minutes closer than Cooney to the time of the blasts. Other local runners included Helen Sabourin of Gibsons, former Coast resident Frank McKenna, and John Atkinson, who recently moved from Sechelt.
News of the explosions shook the Coast running community Monday.
"I was following the race all morning, then the news all afternoon," said Teresa Nightingale of the Sunshine Coast Athletics Club. "I was tracking friends, was just about to see Helen Sabourin's final time (she'd passed 40 km, was on track for an excellent 4:41 finish) when a non-runner friend posted the news with that horrific bloody photo on my Facebook timeline."
When Nightingale saw the posting, she thought the explosions had just occurred.
"So I was very worried for Helen, as she was so close to finishing. Then I found out, a frantic 15 minutes later, that it had happened 30 minutes before she would have arrived at the finish line (4:09 on the clock). Frank McKenna was only about 1.3 km behind her. They would have been diverted from the finish line," Nightingale said.
Cooney said about 5,000 runners who hadn't yet crossed the line were diverted. After completing his run, he did not hang out near the finish line.
"Normally I might stick around, but I actually rushed through. I wanted to get back to my hotel to book my flight home."
Cooney first learned of the explosions while watching TV in his hotel room.
That night, he said, "they totally shut down the city. After-parties - everything was cancelled. The Boston Bruins game was cancelled."
He said police presence the next day was very heavy on the subway and at the airport.
"I was interviewed six times by gun-holding people. They weren't harassing you, but they were really trying to dig into your memory," Cooney recalled.
Police were asking for photos, videos or any information witnesses could provide about the incident.
"They were trying to screen everybody before leaving. It was totally appropriate. It was a total information gathering," he said.
One peculiar incident happened to Cooney, about 10 minutes before the blast.
"I was halfway to my hotel and out of the corner of my eye I saw someone going down one of the side streets and heard them yelling and screaming, 'Look out, get out of here!' I don't know if it had anything to do with this - it might have been totally unrelated - but it creeped me out afterward."
In a similar account reported by The Squamish Chief, a 59-year-old runner from Squamish claimed that "a woman holding several bags" warned runners picking up their pre-race packages Saturday that they would die if they participated in the event.
The two bombs, reportedly made from six-litre pressure cookers stuffed with nails and steel ball bearings, exploded about 11 minutes apart, killing Martin Richard, 8, of Boston, Krystle Campbell, 29, of Medford, Mass., and Lu Lingzi, a Chinese citizen attending Boston University as a graduate student.
"The only runner who was injured was a 78-year-old man. The shock wave knocked him down and he cut his knee," Cooney said. "For most of the runners it wasn't, 'What's your time?' It's how close you were to the blast."
A friend of Cooney's who finished the run four minutes before the blasts described the confusion near the finish line. When the first detonation occurred, "everybody thought it was just a celebration explosion," he said, and the initial sight of fire and smoke suggested a gas line had accidentally exploded. The second blast dispelled those illusions.
With 500,000 to 750,000 people lining Boston's streets for the 42-km run, the perpetrators "could have done this at a dozen different places to get the effect," Cooney said. "But if they really wanted people to see it, that's why they did it at the finish line."
Monday's race was Cooney's 88th marathon and fourth time at the historic Boston run. He said the events Monday have not compelled him to hang up his shoes yet.
"I'll keep running, but I'll think twice before the big marathons," said the 55-year-old chief credit officer with Sunshine Coast Credit Union.
In fact, before the end of the month, Cooney is planning to attend the marathon at Big Sur, Calif., where runners have traditionally qualified at the Boston Marathon.
"It'll be very interesting," he said.
More than 2,000 Canadians were registered to participate in the Boston Marathon, and none were reported injured.
Meanwhile, Vancouver police said they were planning to deploy "extra eyes and ears" this Sunday for the annual 10-km Vancouver Sun Run, which is expected to attract close to 50,000 runners.
