Amid the chaos and confusion surrounding the Boston Marathon bombings, there have been no reports of injured Alaskans.
41 runners from across the state were entered in the race, according to the Boston Athletic Association roster. As of Monday afternoon, 27 Alaskans had crossed the finish line before race officials stopped posting results.
Police were still sorting out the details of what occurred Monday afternoon after a series of bombs exploded near the marathon's finish line. At least three people are dead and more than a hundred injured, according to Boston officials.
Skinny Raven Sports President Daniel Greenhalgh said Monday morning that no one at the store, considered Alaska's premiere running store, had heard of injured Alaskans. Through Facebook, he'd been able to get several updates on Alaska racers who were safe.
Several of those racers were part of a marathon training group hosted through Skinny Raven. Training group leader Todd List said he'd heard from most of the training group's entrants at the race. Two racers who had been close to the finish when the explosions went off, Sarah Kleedehn, 60 of Anchorage and Liz Friedman, 64, of Palmer, didn't have official times, but List said he had heard from them and they were OK.
"You can just imagine how chaotic it was," List said.
Friedman, speaking from her hotel room in Boston Monday night, was about two kilometers from the finish when she turned a corner and saw that about 50 to 100 people in front of her had been stopped by police.
Friedman said there was confusion over what happened. Neither police nor race officials gave them any word on happened for 15 to 20 minutes.
"We all assumed there had been a medical emergency," she said. "It seemed weird that we wouldn't get routed around the medical emergency."
But shortly after, word emerged on the carnage and destruction ahead. After about 45 minutes, officials brought space blankets and began directing runners toward buses that held their race gear. That was short-lived, however, when they were told another bomb was found near the buses.
Friedman was grateful to the people of Boston, who immediately brought out blankets, water and food for the stranded runners. One thing Friedman lost by not having access to her gear was her cell phone, making it hard for her to relay information back to friends and loved ones.
Friedman was still shaken Monday night, but optimistic she would catch her flight back to Alaska Tuesday. She said the events gave her a new perspective on world events and how close they can hit to home.
"As an Alaskan, we're so used to our little insular world where we see all the goings-on in the world and we feel bad about it, but it doesn't affect us in a face-to-face kind of immediate sense," she said. "And here we are in Boston and it happened here and we're here."
Another Alaskan, Tony Sheppard, had just finished cheering for his wife Roberta Spayd when one of the bombs went off three blocks away.
"(We) didn't realize the magnitude of it all until we tried to get on the green line and were escorted out by police," Sheppard wrote in a Facebook message. "Thankfully a local saw that we were in a bit of distress and offered us a ride all the way back out (to our bed and breakfast) near Harvard."
Across the state, local news organizations began compiling stories and scenes from Boston Monday, hoping to assure Alaskans that loved ones on the other side of the continent were safe, despite limited communications due to busy telecommunications networks in and around Boston.
Coast Alaska News reported on Facebook that Southeast runners John Bursell of Juneau and Brent Cunningham of Sitka are safe and were not injured in the blasts, based on information from Facebook.
From Kodiak, 64-year-old runner Howard Valley finished roughly 40 minutes before the bombings and was about two blocks away from one of the bombings.
"It was very loud explosions," he told KMXT. "It wasn't like a propane tank or anything that go off here in Kodiak sometimes, or anything else; it was quite obviously a large explosion of some type. But I didn't know what it was until about maybe a half an hour later when I got inside a hotel and was watching the TV."
In Interior Alaska, 10 runners from Fairbanks were entered in the race. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported that of those Greg Finstad, Samantha Wuttig and Steven Chu were OK. Interior radio reporter Emily Schwing also reported on her Facebook page that runners Don Kiely and Steven Betts were also safe. Runner Jane Leblond did not compete due to an injury according to Andy Holland, president of Fairbanks' Running Club North, who finished the race in 3 hours 26 minutes. Holland had been celebrating his race finish when he heard of the explosions.
Katie Heath, the wife of Joint Base Elemendorf-Richardson 90th Fighter Squadron F-22 pilot, finished the Boston marathon in 3 hours and 48 minutes, approximately 20 minutes before the explosions, according to a press release from the Alaska military base near Anchorage. Heath was in the family area about two blocks from the finish line where the first explosion occurred.
"This has been a very emotional day for me," Heath said in the press release. "Running a marathon is very taxing and then to have such a horrific event occur -- I have been in shock most of the day. I have nothing but great things to say about the race coordinators and volunteers. Up until the explosion this was such an amazing experience. And even after everything happened everyone was so willing to help. We have been welcome in basically all over Boston."
Noted Mat-Su valley runner David Johnston of Willow was resting in his hotel room after finishing his eighth Boston Marathon, according to the Frontiersman. In March, Johnston won the Iditarod Invitational 350-mile footrace from Knik to McGrath.
Johnston noted his luck and felt bad for the thousands of other runners who didn't have a chance to finish the race. Johnston told the Frontiersman he plans to run in both the Mayor's Marathon and the Resurrection Pass 100 this summer.
Contact Suzanna Caldwell at suzanna(at)alaskadispatch.com