Jennifer and Rick safe following Boston Marathon blasts

Jennifer sent this message moments ago from Boston, where there were several blasts today at the finish line of the Boston Marathon:

Dear Friends,

First of all, Rick and I are fine. As many of you know, I ran my 19th consecutive Boston Marathon today. I finished in 3 hours, 58 minutes, just two minutes ahead of the explosions at the finish line. I was pushing as hard as I possibly could to finish under 4 hours and was experiencing bad calf cramping coming down the home stretch on Boylston Street. I limped across the finish line in 3:58, thinking that all was well.

I was about two blocks past the finish line, picking up my race medal, water, etc., when there was a loud Kaboom! with a large black cloud of smoke at the finish line area.&nbs! p; The hundreds of runners in the finish area stopped to turn around and try to see what was happening. Then, 15 seconds later, there was another loud Kaboom! followed by another large cloud of smoke. I was terrified that Rick was walking right through it, since he would have been walking back toward our hotel after waiting for me at the finish area. Fortunately, he walked away from Boylston St. (the finish street) one block over to Newberry St. to walk back to our hotel and so missed it by one block.

We are heartbroken for the hundreds of runners and their family and friends who were waiting at the finish line to celebrate what should have been a great moment in their lives. The Boston Marathon is the “holy grail” of marathons for most runners, since it requires running a qualifying time to be admitted. Our thoughts and prayers go to all those who were injured and to the two people who lost their lives. If this was in fact an intenti! onal act, it was clearly intended to injure and/or kill as many people as possible, given that hundreds of runners were crossing the finish line at that time and the sidewalks were packed with spectators.

If you want to hear more, you can hear us on 9News Denver tonight, as well as on Jenna Lee’s show on Fox News tomorrow (Tuesday) morning. It seems that people are interested in hearing first-hand what happened, so we will do our best to share our experience.

The bottom line is that we are extremely thankful to God for being spared today. If I had not been willing to “dig deep” today, as our friend Ken Chlouber (Leadville 100 founder) says, and had finished just two minutes later, OR if Rick had chosen to walk up Boylston Street instead of going to a less crowded street, our day would have had a very different outcome.

With thanks for your prayers and concern,

Jennifer Schubert-Akin and Rick Akin

April 15, 2013