Sports

Blast Kept Decatur Runner From Finishing Boston Marathon

Cathie Boyles was about a quarter mile from the finish when the Boston Marathon was stopped. Three people were killed and scores injured in two explosions.

Cathie Boyles of Decatur caught a break when she started feeling sick around mile 16 of the Boston Marathon.

She walked four miles, felt better and started running again. About a quarter mile from the finish line race officials stopped her and other runners because of "an incident at the finish line."

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Boyles hadn'd heard anything. The incident turned out to be a landmark tragedy in the history of American sport: twin explosions that killed three people and injured scores of others.

The sickness may have saved her life.

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"I would have been at the finish line if I had run the time I expected," Boyles said.

She next endured about an hour of high anxiety because cell service was overwhelmed in the aftermath of the bombings.

That meant Boyles, a nurse and IT worker at DeKalb Medical, couldn't contact her brother Greg Maclin of St. Louis. He was ahead of Boyles and she didn't know what happened to him.

Guided by a Boston area resident, Boyles maneuvered her way to the bus near the finish line that was carrying her jacket, hotel room key and other belongings.

There she connected with her brother, who'd finished the race just before the blast. Neither one of them saw any of the people injured in the explosions. They spent the night in a Boston hotel under a state of semi-lockdown.

"Everybody is just horrified, just stunned and shocked," she said.

On Tuesday, Boyles will fly back to Decatur. She still hopes to make it back to Boston another time and take another try at America's most prestigious marathon.

Other Patch stories about the marathon.

  • Big Peach will sponsor a memorial mile on Tuesday morning.
  • Eight Decatur had signed up for the Boston Marathon.


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