Boston Marathon: 2 Nazareth Runners Escape Harm

Two runners from the Nazareth area escaped unscathed after two explosions rocked the Boston Marathon finish line, killing at least three people and injuring more than 130.

Over on Nazareth Patch's Facebook page, Christine D'Aquila VanderValk said she knows Lisa Dente, one of the Nazareth runners, and said she is OK.

Kelley Ann Neal Joseph and Holly Bachman reported that runner Jim Rehrig was also OK. Rehrig had not yet finished the marathon when the first blast was reported at 2:42 p.m., according to www.baa.org.

Rehrig was about a half mile from the finish line when the first bomb detonated, Joseph said.

The third Nazareth runner is Dillon Lockwood. If you've heard from him, e-mail mallory.vough@patch.com so this story can be updated.

Amy Gleason and Allison Zimmerman, from neighboring Forks Township, had just crossed the finished line. Then minutes later, two bombs went off, and the two women and their families were running for safety.

"It feels like the marathon was 10 years ago now," Gleason said during a phone interview from her Boston hotel room.

Gleason, running in her third Boston marathon, had finished the race about 20 minutes earlier and was waiting for her friend Allison to complete, which she did seven minutes before the bombs struck.

"The whole thing is pretty surreal right now," said Zimmerman, who believes she was about 50 yards away from the explosions. "We all paused. Our husbands lifted up the barricades and we shimmied underneath on our bellies."

Gleason added, "That very quickly ruined the marathon for me. I want to leave as soon as possible. This brings back a lot of feelings of fear."

Those fears stem from Gleason's experience as a nurse in New York City on 9/11. Her husband Mike was a New York City police officer.

Mike Gleason said he was about 100 feet away from the explosion Monday.

"The girls had just crossed the finish line," he said. "We went down to meet them with our kids and gave them some water. Then, about 100 yards to my left, I heard the first explosion. There was a big plume of smoke. The second one came 20-30 seconds after."

"I'm thinking, 'two explosions. This isn't a coincidence. This is a terrorist attack,'" he said.

On 9/11, Gleason was mobilized from his unit at 42nd and Broadway to the World Trade Center.

"They hit a populated area and created fear and panic," said Gleason, who retired as an officer in 2010. "If you can't go to a marathon that's been going straight for 117 years because you're fearful, then they have succeeded."

Christine Burke, a Lower Nazareth Township resident who competed in her first triathlon in 2012, has participated in big-city races and "loved the crowd support and energy."

"That being said, I've always been conscious of the dangers associated with having that many people collectively gathered," Burke said in an e-mail to Patch.

Burke cited the controversy surrounding last year's New York City Marathon, which was set to take place days after Hurricane Sandy pummeled the East Coast.

"When I opted out of the NYC Marathon in 2012 prior to its official cancellation, the main reason was my safety and that of the friend running with me," Burke explained. "There was a lot of anger that the New York Road Runners had not canceled and we were fearful of the many threats being made towards any runners who chose to go through with the marathon. Thankfully, they canceled and defused a potentially dangerous situation."

Burke recently blogged on Nazareth Patch about her blossoming running "career." And the timing of the explosions hit, no pun intended, close to home.

"My first thought on seeing the coverage was that the race timer said 4:14, meaning that the race was well into its fourth hour," Burke said. "The runners coming in were not the elites. They were local runners—weekend warriors like me who were running their dream race. [They were] average people who put their running shoes on this morning never dreaming their beloved sport would end in such tragedy."