Local Runners Stick Together After Boston Explosions

Seven local runners were at different parts of the Boston Marathon when the first explosion shook the earth. After the second blast, the seven runners first sought each other and then headed away from the scene, said Trish Muccia, a 40-year-old Rye resident who finished the race around 40 minutes before the blasts.

“It was a huge boom explosion and the ground shook and then everyone kind of froze in the street and looked back to finish line,” Muccia said. “Then the other bomb went off and after that people started panicking, scrambling to find who they were supposed to meet.”

Muccia thought the first one was possibly a gas main break or something else like that, but when she heard the second explosion she knew it was something much worse. “ When the second one went off I just thought something was bad. It reminded me of 9/11.”

Muccia was with her running partner Adam Gibbs and two other members of their group. One woman’s husband was still running the race and they were concerned he was near the finish line at the time of the explosion. He was able to call her to report that he and the two others who were still running had been diverted from the track and were safe.

“They were close but they didn’t even know anything had happened. They were just told there had been an explosion and the race was over.”

The runner who was ahead of the other two ran back to them to stick together as a group, Muccia said.

Once they found everyone the real panic started with officials telling everyone to clear the roadways for ambulances and emergency response.

The group made it back to their bus together and headed back to New York. One runner had been downtown during 9/11 and said the explosions and crowds reminded him too much of that tragedy, Muccia said.

For Muccia, it was a terribly upsetting way to start racing again. This was her tenth marathon, but also her first one in ten years.

“I am very happy I did it. I am just so sad about what happened and for the city of Boston.” 

The group of runners included Rye's Jim O'Toole, Adam Gibbs, Mike Iuliano and Chris Daly, Larchmont's Julio German and Port Chester's Bill Miller. 

Six other Rye residents paticipated in the race and all and their families were unharmed in the explosions. Read Rye's Vicki Cox and Noga Ruttenberg's stories by clicking on their names.