My Boston Marathon – Lessons from a tragedy

Editor’s note: Sullivan’s Steakhouse General Manager Leo Verde ran the 2013 Boston Marathon for chari­ty. He raised $31,000 for the local chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. The New Orleans native and longtime Baton Rougean was just blocks away from the blasts when they went off. This is his account.

I run to be healthy. To clear my mind. But the more I thought about it, I realized I was being selfish. I thought, “There are a lot of people who can’t run. My running could help those people in some way.”

Through the restaurant’s involvement with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF), and people I’ve met through CFF, I decided to try to get into the Boston Marathon and run for them.

We raised a lot of money: $31,000 for the local CFF chapter. John Hancock was a big underwriter. Because we were able to raise the money, I got into the marathon. Got my invitation in December and began training immediately.

In Boston, this race is like Mardi Gras. It’s like Forth of July in Philadelphia or Bastille Day in Paris. It’s huge. It’s overwhelming how much everyone in the Boston area gets geared up for it.

Everywhere you go, cab drivers, people in restaurants, they’re all telling you congratulations and good luck. Your expectations build up, up and up.

And because of all this, I actually started worrying about stuff I had never worried about at other marathons.

Did I run enough in these shoes?

Are my socks too tight?

Did I do enough hill work?

Everything.

The elite runners started at 9 a.m. We started at 10:40 a.m.

It felt like a Mardi Gras parade, but for 16 miles, with everyone shoulder to shoulder, 15 or 20 people across.

I felt good. I ran slower the first 10 miles. People told me to save my legs for the Newton Hills and then Heartbreak Hill.

Everyone was cheering the whole way. Little kids held signs. The “screaming mile” at Wellesley College was so loud—nothing but college girls cheering for you. I literally felt like a rock star.

Mile 20 was the toughest, extremely challenging. The Newton Hills really separated the men from the boys.

My mind started playing games with me. “Can I make it?” My legs started to feel it; muscles fluttered. I felt like I had no lactic acid left. I second-guessed myself. Did I hydrate enough?

I made the turn onto Boylston Street and thought, “I’m home. I’m there.” So I actually started picking up the pace. I knew exactly where my fiancée, Laure, was going to be. She was in the VIP section next to the finish line.

On my arm I had written the names of the three kids I was running for: Claire, Christopher and Jamie. I remember looking down and thinking, “We did it. We did this together.”

I was looking at my arm when I heard the first boom.

I thought it was a cannon, a celebratory cannon shot, so I kept running. Not even a hundred yards later, another “cannon” went off maybe 100 feet from me.

This time I felt the heat. Saw the smoke and the debris.

I knew then that it was terrorism … that something was wrong.

I stopped dead in my tracks, and the smoke overtook me.

I walked right through it. Didn’t look to my left. I was looking to the right for Laure.

It was almost like that beach scene from Saving Private Ryan. The sound sort of faded out, but I saw all these faces and people running. I just kept walking. No one stopped me.

I remember seeing flags on the ground, sheets of plastic barricade everywhere.

People started shouting, “Get back!”

My body just sort of took me toward the left, toward where the bombs went off. I saw people lying on the ground, a police officer carrying a child, people with smoke still coming out of their bodies.

I saw a child with two legs missing roll right next to me. I stared in his eyes. It was surreal. I saw things I’ll never forget. Things I’ll take to the grave with me.

When I saw Laure 10 yards from the finish line, she had two volunteers from John Hancock holding her. She was holding two signs she had made for me. We just hugged. I know it was probably just for a minute, but it felt like forever.

I said, “Let’s go.” I didn’t want her to see those things.

No runners were behind me. I kept looking. Everyone else had been stopped.

It was the most eerie thing in the world. Normally, the finish line is an area of celebration, and there was nothing, just me, Laure, and people running toward the site of the bombs, which was the most amazing thing to see.

A local news team stopped me and interviewed us. I only watched that interview once, and all I could focus on was the people running so fast behind me.

It was cold that day, something like 40 degrees. I was just shaking there right next to the big triage unit. They cleared us out, and we didn’t know what to do.

I couldn’t feel my legs, but we walked three miles back to the hotel. People were like zombies, just walking and not knowing where they were going. Others were holding each other and just crying. We saw policemen with fingers on their triggers. It was a feeling like the city was under siege.

A man stopped his car and gave us a ride to our hotel. My phone was blowing up—700-something text messages and emails from family, friends, newspeople—everyone. But we couldn’t get service to dial out. Finally I got one bar [on my cell phone] and posted to Facebook that we were okay.

My kids were freaking out. Finally we were able to speak on the phone, and I could assure them we were okay. I told them I loved them.

The whole experience was just overwhelming, and we found ourselves asking, “Why us?”

I think there’s a reason I was there so close to tragedy.

I stared death right in the face. But I saw God’s greatness a thousand times more than I saw the devil, through all the good things people were doing. Volunteers were everywhere; people gave blood at the hospital; Bostonians opened their doors to strangers, the runners who were on the streets freezing out in the cold with nowhere to go.

I didn’t want to watch the news of the chase for these bombers. I just couldn’t do that.

People at the hotel were recognizing me from the news interview, and everyone there was asking if we were okay and being so amazing to us. One guy stopped me in the bathroom at the airport because he’d seen us on TV.

We finally got home to Baton Rouge around 2 a.m. that Friday morning, just exhausted physically and emotionally.

But I jumped right back into work that Friday. Went to a Big Buddy event that weekend. Took Laure to Jazz Fest and to hear Irma Thomas.

It was humbling to feel just how much people cared about us being home and safe.

Truly humbling.

It’s strange, though, how amazing our bodies can be. I still smell that powder smell from the bombs sometimes. It’s still with me. I’ll never forget it.

People have been asking me if I’ll run the same race next year. I would have run it the next day.

Those two people [the bombing suspects] can’t take our liberties away from us. They can’t break our spirit. They messed with the wrong people: the United States of America, the people of Boston—who are tough as nails—and marathon runners.

Marathoners are the toughest athletes in the world. Because no matter what, even when you’re hurting, when you think you can’t take another step, you keep running.