Community Corner

'Nobody Deserves This,' Says Emmaus Runner of Boston Tragedy

Emmaus mother of two, runner and Rodale editor Sarah Lorge Butler shares her perspective on the devastating explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday.

"What really pains me are the spectators who bore the brunt of this."

Sarah Lorge Butler, senior editor of Rodale’s Running Times, understands the horror at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday from many different angles. 

A mother of two who lives in Emmaus, Lorge Butler is a runner and has run the Boston Marathon twice, in 2001 and 2002. 

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"The families of runners suffer right through all of the training along with us. They have to hear about all of our aches and pains, to be understanding when we are too exhausted to do anything.

"When you run a race, the crowds are these nice helpful people who are there to support you. They stand out on the sidelines of races in all kinds of weather. The kids are just so excited to be there and cheer for you. Nobody deserves this, but the families are so selfless."

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As a runner and a former marathoner, Lorge Butler feels the devastation of the attack on another level, too.

"To hit a runner in the legs, your legs are where it is at. They couldn’t plan it in more cruel way. Marathoners are not in a good physical spot when they approach the finish line after running 26.1 miles. It is when they are most vulnerable."

Lorge Butler knows many runners who were competing in Monday’s race and many sports journalists who were in attendance.

In fact, her husband, Charlie Butler, another journalist involved in running, was at the race, too, on a freelance assignment for Runner's World. His job was to track two specific runners through the race and he was on the “photo bridge” near the finish line at the time of the explosions. His racers were approaching the end of the marathon.

Fortunately for Lorge Butler, her husband is safe and he was the one to simultaneously inform her via a text message that there had been an explosion at the finish line of the race and that he was not harmed.

As a result, Lorge Butler did not have to suffer through a period of worry about her husband as she watched the details of the devastation at the finish line unfold.

"He saw a ball of fire and a big plume of smoke and then they high-tailed it out of there."


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