One adviser's harrowing story of running the Boston Marathon

Jennifer Hartman, principal at Greenleaf Financial Group in Los Angeles, participated in Monday's Boston Marathon. This is her story. We were running down the home stretch, with two friends. There were 14 members of our group, the LA Leggers. We are all qualified runners, not charity runners, but wanted to have a good time. With one block to go, we all wanted to raise our arms together so we could be in the photo together. All of a sudden, the first explosion occurred. There was no question — from the intensity, I knew people had lost their lives. It was scary, but that point, as a marathon runner, you're exhausted, but your first reaction is to get to the finish line. But now there's this explosion, so my reaction was, let's go the other way. And the second bomb went off, so then I thought: 'Will there be a third?' My friend Phil grabbed my hand, and my friend Renee's hand, and we went down Exeter Street. We worried about everyone else — we had friends who were about a minute in front of us, we had people who were tracking us via text message because of our tracker on the bibs we wore. People would've known we were past the 40K point and our estimated finishing point was 4:09, when it occurred. Being an adviser played into the situation. We were calm; it was nice to be with people who didn't freak out. We made good decisions about what we should do. We used Facebook once we got back to the hotel, and there were people calling, texting and e-mailing and all that. We all had friends and family out there, too. And we couldn't tell where the explosion was. We thought maybe it was the Copley station, so we were worried about that, and the runners ahead of us. Everyone ended up being okay. At that point, our people were on the trains. They were on the trains when it occurred, and when we walked down Exeter, everyone was calling people on their cells. My phone was dead. I took some photos on the route, I borrowed a phone was able to leave a message. We were staying at the Omni and my friend was at the Sheraton, so we went to the Sheraton, I said, 'let's cut through the Prudential Center,' but they weren't letting people go through there at that point. Usually you get the Mylar space blanket, as well food and water when you finish the marathon. But because we didn't finish, we didn't get any of that and we were cold, hungry. Runners, as a general rule, are very resilient people. Everyone I know said they wanted to come back next year; they love the people, the marathon. It's the Super Bowl of marathons. My one friend was getting tired (during the race). I said, remember there are hundreds of people in L.A. who would love to be in our shoes right now. I'm qualified for next year, and I'll be back. I think it was an isolated incident, but now it's going to affect marathons economically. If anything, all marathons will need security, entry fees will go up, and it's going to be a hassle. There's the loss of life, which is horrible, people losing limbs. But if you want to do something to support the small businesses, those people who have a week or so of unemployment on Boylston Street. I would add, once again, Boston is great, the people are great, the response was spectacular. When we were close to our hotel, we found a pizza place, I asked how much pizza can we get for $10? They threw in extra slices. People offered places for us to stay; one friend offered their jacket to another runner. Those great acts of kindness bring people together.