Lutz Runner 'Lucky' at Boston Marathon

A leg injury caused Lutz runner Ellen Gerth not to perform her best Monday, April 15. It turned out to be a blessing.

“If I had run the time of my last marathon, I would have been just about there actually,” she said.

“There” is the finish line of the Boston Marathon, the spot where two bombs exploded Monday afternoon, killing three people and injuring well over 100. The tragedy has rocked the nation, with President Barack Obama calling it an “act of terrorism.”

Gerth, speaking with Patch.com from Boston, said she was at mile 25.5 when the race came to a sudden stop. The 51-year-old had no idea what was going on.

“I just thought that some runners were injured on the road maybe,” said Gerth, who had previously run the Boston Marathon in her 20s. “I just thought that it was what it wasn’t.”

Gerth did not hear the explosion of the bombs. She figures she was 10 minutes out from the finish line. Plus, the cheering of the crowd was so loud anyway.

“I ended up hearing lots of sirens,” she said. “I knew it had to be serious.”

Gerth was able to borrow a cell phone and call her husband, but she and other racers were unable to get their runners bags — it contained her cellphone and other personal items — stored near the finish line. Her hotel was on lockdown, too. So Gerth and other runners ended up wandering the streets of Beantown for three hours, moving those legs for another 10 miles or so.

“We were shaking — it was that cold,” Gerth said. “The most frightening part was not knowing what was going on or what was going to happen.”

Away from the tragedy’s ground zero, Gerth was spared bloody images of the wounded. Instead, she witnessed something “joyful.”

“In times like these … people come out in droves and are incredibly kind and generous — they offer their cellphones, offer their food,” she said, adding police were “extremely nice," too, despite the tense situation.  

Any hard feelings about not being able to finish the 26.2-mile course?

“That really wasn’t on my mind,” Gerth said. “It was on the chaos and tragedy. I was more concerned about what was going on.”