<p>I love the international competitors who identify their home countries by their running clothes. It is always great to cheer them on.</p>
<p>All the tutu-wearing male runners and everyone else whose costumes add to the wonderful spirit of the day.</p>
<p>The VOLUNTEERS. DH picked up his packet from from a volunteer with limited English skills. When I thanked him for volunteering he didn’t know what to say; he was clearly just happy to be there.</p>
<p>Yesterday I saw a runner lose his ear buds at the bottom of Heartbreak Hill. He decided to press on but one of the fitter spectators picked up his ear buds and chased him up the hill so he would have then for the (grueling) last six miles.</p>
<p>Thumper, you are right on that. I noticed this morning that the article about the winners was on page six or eight in the Globe. No post race interviews, etc. Kudos to them.</p>
<p>I remember Rosie Ruiz well. The worst thing is that the real female runner, Greta Waitz, I believe, missed out on the glory. Her ceremony was delayed for over a week, if I remember correctly, and by that time there was much less attention.</p>
<p>I wish they could crowd-source all those photos, put them on the web and have people like us search them for suspects. Not that I would know what to look for. But I would rather do something to help than just sit here feeling awful.</p>
<p>The Tufts Marathon Team had 100 runners in the race raising money for anti-obesity programs and there were many classmates at the finish line to cheer them on</p>
<p>There were many frantic parents and friends waiting for what seemed like forever for a text response indicating that their kids/friends were alive </p>
<p>All runners are OK, 3 spectators are injured, but it appears that they will be OK. </p>
<p>I was thinking that a lot of the runners who were finishing at that time were those raising money, especially for Dana Farber and Children’s Hospital.</p>
<p>Yeah, Rosie Ruiz, the Green Line “winner”. Bill Rodgers knew she was a fake right away. Stinks that the real winner, Jacqueline Gareau, wasn’t crowned until days later once they discovered Ruiz had cheated.</p>
<p>Yes, it was the “non professional” runners, due to the timing. The spectators got the worst of it due to bomb placement. The blasts were low to the ground, so that’s why small kids were also hit badly. I talked to a Tufts doctor and many children had their eardrums blown out.</p>
<p>1moremom,
Yes. 4 hours is after the cutoff for qualifying for all but the senior runners. Most people who came in at that time would have qualified by running for one of the charity teams. For those unfamiliar with the race rules, you must have a number to run. You can get a number one of three ways-by running a qualifying time in a previous marathon, by essentially buying a spot by fundraising for a charity (Dana Farber minimum is $4,000), or by being invited by the BAA.</p>
<p>soccerguy, that search turned out to be a bust. The apartment-dweller gave permission for it to be searched voluntarily, because he had nothing to hide. According to CNN:</p>
<p>I think that’s one of the things that makes the bombings especially sad-there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to them. There were no demands made. The marathon isn’t a political target or a symbol of American capitalism. While it’s held in Boston and Bostonians take great pride in the race it’s truly an international event.</p>
<p>What is clear is that the perpetrator was looking for maximum media exposure. He/they/she knew there would be cameras there to capture the carnage.</p>
<p>All it takes is one sick SOB (and I mean, truly mentally ill) to carry out this kind of senseless violence. It could merely be someone listening to voices in his head that have been insisting he do something like this as “God’s avenging angel”, or “because the aliens have implanted a mind control device in his brain, and he’s powerless to resist it.” We don’t do a very good job of identifying or isolating the dangerously mentally ill in our society anymore, which is one reason why more and more of them seem to be responsible for mass shootings.</p>
<p>Of course, it could well be Muslim extremists who’ve carried out this attack, or any number of other groups or individuals, foreign or domestic. That’s what’s so scary. We just don’t know at this point, and may never know. That said, with today’s technology, I do think we’ve got a better chance of catching those responsible than ever before. When I saw the news reports of the bombing, I thought it was a wonder we’d not had something like this happen sooner. If we only knew what Homeland Security and other government entities were doing on a daily basis in the name of “keeping us safe”, we might all be more than a bit unsettled. They seem awfully good at casting an extremely fine net, intercepting terrorist plots and apprehending those responsible. What do they have to do to construct and maintain such a net? Do we really want to know as long as it keeps us safe from constant terror attacks? At this point, I don’t want to know.</p>
<p>The Baumans knew how lucky Jeff had been. “The man in the cowboy hat — he saved Jeff’s life,” Ms. Bauman said. Mr. Bauman’s eyes widened. He said: “There’s a video where he goes right to Jeff, picks him right up and puts him on the wheelchair and starts putting the tourniquet on him and pushing him out. I got to talk to this guy!”</p>
<p>The man in the cowboy hat, Carlos Arredondo, 52, had been handing out American flags to runners when the first explosion went off. His son Alexander was a Marine killed in Iraq in 2004, and in the years since he has handed out the flags as a tribute.</p>
<p>Yes, I meant to come back and post about this yesterday after seeing Mr. Arredondo interviewed on CBS. The young man he saved, Jeff Bauman, was the young man in the wheel chair whose photo I mentioned earlier in the thread. The young man who had haunted me since seeing it, with him being wheeled away in a wheelchair and his legs were gone. It was an awful image that I wish I’d never seen. I saw a report from one of the doctors and the Jeff’s father that what little was left of both his legs below the knee had been amputated. He’d also needed another surgery for some abdominal injuries. He had been at the finish area to greet his girlfriend who was running.</p>
<p>Re pressure cookers–pressure only builds up and they “explode” if they are over a HEAT SOURCE. Like if you forget to turn down the stove when you are cooking something. </p>
<p>They are not dangerous when sitting on your pantry shelf. Or in the bottom of a garbage can, unless an explosive device with a timer has been placed in it.</p>