The Falls High School record holder for girls in the 1600- and 3200-meter runs finished Monday’s Boston Marathon minutes before two bombs exploded near the finish line, where The Associated Press reported at least three people were killed and more than 140 injured.
Race results indicate Tina (Bahr) Ostroot, 51, who now lives in Elk River, completed the 26.2-mile course in 3 hours, 49 minutes and 40 seconds, finishing 13,773rd overall and 4,760th among females.
In a phone interview Tuesday, Ostroot said she was about a block and a half to two blocks away from the finish line in the finishing chute and in the process of picking up her bag when she heard the first explosion.
“It sounded like a cannon going off,” said Ostroot, who also noted the runners having finished had sensed after the second explosion that something wasn’t right and began to move faster toward the end of the chute.
Given her distance away from the finish line, Ostroot said she was spared from seeing the carnage of those injured and killed from the explosions, which have been suspected as possibly being terrorist bombs.
Ostroot said people around her didn’t panic, though she could hear shouts such as “Oh my God” at the time when they didn’t know for sure what had happened.
“It was very calm and the (race) volunteers were very calm,” she said.
Ostroot said the Boston Athletic Association deserves credit for how it responded to the horrible tragedy that took place from the explosions, which didn’t prevent her from being able to enjoy running in this year’s marathon.
“The Boston Marathon was an incredible experience,” she said.
Ostroot, who noted she ran her first marathon while still attending Falls High School in 1978, said Monday was the first time she ran in the Boston Marathon, for which she decided to enter after reaching age 50 and qualified for by finishing a marathon in under 4 hours.
She said she made the trip to Boston with her husband and another family.
Though another full marathon isn’t in her immediate running plans, the six-time participant in Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth is planning to run in a half marathon this coming August in Minneapolis along with various other running events this year.
Ostroot is the daughter-in-law of former longtime Broncos track and field coach Dick Ostroot. She set the FHS girls school record in 1979 in the 1600 run (5:07.5) and in 1980 in the 3200 run (11:06).
Tragedy observed locally
In response to the initial reports of three deaths, including an 8-year-old boy, and 17 people critically injured from the explosions, local distance runner Tony Oveson, who is in his 60s, said he got on a treadmill at 9:15 a.m. Tuesday at Snap Fitness to run an hour for every person critically injured and also a distance about equal to three marathons in honor of those killed.
“That was the initial thing that I thought about doing was just to run, because there was nothing else to do,” Oveson said. “I thought this would be a good thing to do.”
Once he began running on the treadmill, Oveson said another idea came to him about collecting a donation at Snap Fitness and other locations in the Falls to send to the family of the 8-year-old boy who died.
“His mother and sister are also in the hospital, so that’s a secondary thing that I just thought of...,” he said.
Though none of the people he knew who were running in this year’s Boston Marathon had been injured by the explosions, Oveson said he’s concerned that future marathons with large amounts of people could become targets for bombings.
