They ran the Boston Marathon the day of the bombing. Why this Mississauga running club keeps going back

Derm Holwell has logged every mile he has run since 1978. Those miles live and breathe on an Excel spreadsheet where days and months are tracked. There are columns for total annual miles and personal-best times, and a row totalling all the miles he has run in his career — 85,678 and counting.

To know Holwell is to understand his devotion to running and to the most prestigious marathon in the world: the Boston Marathon.

Walking down the winding staircase that leads into Holwell’s basement in Mississauga feels like stepping into an unofficial museum for marathoners. On one wall, his 32 blue and yellow Boston Marathon medallions hang in chronological order. Opposite them is a “Boston Strong” poster in bold black lettering. There’s a map of the Boston Marathon as it traverses through the eight towns that make up the course. And on a shelf sit 45 running diaries, one for every year the 68-year-old has been running.

Among the memorabilia is the front page of the Boston Globe from April 16, 2013, the day after the bombing. The headline reads “Marathon terror” above a photo of a woman getting treated as trails of blood run along the sidewalk behind her.

“It’s hard to believe I was right there,” Holwell said, pointing to the image. “I know that section like the back of my hand. Every street. Every store along there. Just seeing that now, I don’t like looking at it.”

Holwell is an accountant and a sponge for numbers. He can recall intricate details of the 81 marathons he has run, like the order of his bib numbers or the weather that day.

But 2013 in Boston is hazy.

Saturday marks 10 years since the Boston Marathon bombing. It’s still hard for Holwell and other runners like him to process the feeling of being at that race where three people were killed and 260 injured, including 17 who lost limbs, in a terror attack that threatened to destroy the innocence of marathons and the history of the running event.

For Holwell, details about that day remain foggy. He can’t remember the weather or the time he ran. He couldn’t tell you the colour of the Chrysler minivan he used to drive in from Toronto to Natick, Mass., and back. What he does remember is being cramped up in that minivan full of family who had made the trek to watch him race. He remembers sitting in the back seat with his knees pressed up to his chin while driving on the I-90, heading back to Natick for a shower and a beer after he crossed the finish line on Boylston Street along with others who had an early start time that day.

He also remembers checking his watch at 2:49 p.m. as his van took Exit 13 to Natick some 11 1/2 miles from downtown Boston. He was thinking about how some of the 25 runners from the Nomads, his Mississauga running club, were doing as they were still out on the course.

What Holwell didn’t know then was the first bomb blast went off at 2:49 p.m. Fourteen seconds later, a second blast happened.

Holwell got to his hotel, switched on the TV and saw the carnage. The following three hours were spent scrambling to reach runners from his club, answering texts from family and trying to process the fact he could have been one of the casualties.

He still can’t shake the image of eight-year-old Martin Richards, whose body was photographed laying on the ground, wrapped in a blanket, and he gets emotional seeing the monuments that honour the victims.

“I feel like we were a big Boston family. And when those bombs went off we felt like we do when we lose a loved one,” Holwell said. “We mourned over it and were very sad about it for months after. And just like real-life family or friends passing away, we eventually have to get on with life. But we don’t ever forget what happened.”

Jack Fleming, president of the Boston Athletic Association, said when something as enormous as the Boston Marathon gets tampered with or harmed from a terrorist act, the immediate position from an organizer’s perspective is to make sure the community who supported the race is safe. And while the future of the marathon hung in despair, renewed hope was eventually born.

“We feel tremendous responsibility to deliver on a promise. There’s a new-found appreciation for what it was,” Fleming said. “People are interested in Boston more broadly and more widely than before. Prior to 2013, we certainly were followed as a sporting event but now there’s a genuine interest. If you’re a runner, inevitably in any conversation the question comes up: ‘Have you run Boston?’ ”

The remembrance at Monday’s marathon will feature an early-morning private gathering and wreath-laying at the memorial sites for the families who lost loved ones at the 2013 event. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, along with first responders, hospital leaders, BAA leadership and local running groups will gather to dedicate a new commemorative finish line, the ringing of bells and the unveiling of a “One Boston Day” marker on Boylston Street.

Holwell and the Nomads will be there, too.

“It’s the mecca of marathons. It’s the running tradition that is Boston,” said Rick Kenney, a Montreal-born Nomad in Mississauga who qualified for his first Boston Marathon this year after 15 years of trying. “I just can’t wait.”

The Boston Marathon is the longest-running marathon in the world and pumps in $200 million (U.S.) annually, including $40 million raised from runners that goes to local charities and non-profit programs. Along the route, fervent spectators pack the sidelines like an endless, raucous parade. They hose down runners when it’s hot, make handmade signs and bring a Super Bowl vibe.

Nomads co-founder Bryan Mulligan ran 16 consecutive Boston Marathons, his last in 2016. The retired engineer was the closest member of the Nomads to the twin blasts. After crossing the finish line, Mulligan went to grab a coffee at Starbucks off Newbury Street, about a two-minute walk from the second blast, when the chaos hit.

He recalls the first blast sounding like steel falling on steel. A loud thud, with no echo. The second bomb was short, abrupt and sounded like a loud cracking, then it was gone. He stills remembers the panic. He saw a man with shredded pants and blood stains from being hit by shrapnel. Barricades were toppled and abandoned items scattered in the streets as people ran for their lives.

“Looking back it was a matter of being there where I was. I was traumatized by what I saw but I was so displaced by what had actually happened,” Mulligan said. “If I was standing next to one of the bombs that had gone off, it’s just such a horrible thing that happened. I was traumatized by an aspect of it. But it could have been so much worse.”

In the days following the marathon, the Nomads talked about never going back to Boston. But fear shifted to defiance. And so 2014 became much more significant. No one cared about run times. All that mattered was qualifying and getting back to the start line to support those deeply affected.

“It brought us a second cause. We were together for our love of running. Now we were together for runners everywhere, for the people that got injured,” said Mulligan. “We had people in our club that couldn’t finish the race in 2013. Now we’re in a much larger community that got brought together by that event.”

Joann Flaminio, who was the BAA president between 2011 and 2017, thought for a fleeting moment that the Boston Marathon could have been over if she couldn’t guarantee the safety of the community. Planning for the 2014 event became an unofficial rebirth of the marathon where 36,000 entrants ran — the second-highest total in its 125-year history — and a million spectators showed up, which was double the norm.

“There was always some sort of fear in the back of your mind that something could happen again. It was very important from a normalcy perspective after the bombing for the marathon to bounce back,” she said. “When you strip it all away, it was an evil act. Do we let an evil act continue? No, we don’t. There was so much good that came out of this. It continues to flower and grow.”

It still staggers Flaminio that it only took 22 minutes to clear the streets when the blasts happened. She was sitting in the grandstands, went for a walk and ended up inside the Copley Plaza. Then she heard the two explosions and was locked down while Boston authorities took control of the streets. That day is etched in her head like it was yesterday. When she thinks about the agony of 2013, Flaminio also pauses to reflect on how that event galvanized a community that was already tight-knit, which helped move the marathon from tragedy to a hopeful future.

“The community came together in a way that nobody could have predicted in terms of compensation for the people who were affected by it,” she said. “ I have never heard a louder roar than when Meb Keflezighi won in 2014. The sun was shining. The crowd was screaming. An American won. It was something out of a dream. I thought, this was real. This is safe. We’re back. Everybody felt the spirit that day, the spirit of recovery.”

Holwell, and runners like him, will never forget what happened in 2013. That race has stitched Boston marathoners together forever. Since then, new memories have sprung from acts of kindness and solidarity. In 2014, Holwell hit the six-mile mark with a group of runners in Boston as the Neil Diamond classic “Sweet Caroline” was blaring from a pub’s speakers. Without prompting, the runners started singing in unison. It’s the kind of unbreakable spirit that has carried on.

On Monday, Holwell will run his 33rd consecutive Boston Marathon, which he calls his second home. The body is a bit slower and he doesn’t care as much about his time. Now he has discovered a passion in helping new runners complete their first Boston.

“None of us dreamed 2013 could ever happen,” Holwell said. “We (Nomads) are a very tight-knit group of friends. I believe the thing we all have in common is our love of the Boston Marathon. And that keeps us coming back.”

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