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AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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Officials name senior vice president, chief of staff
By Fiona Riley, Assistant News Editor • March 26, 2024

Student runners safe but shaken

The first bomb went off the same minute senior Sarah Joyce crossed the Boston Marathon’s finish line.

When the second blast shot shrapnel into the air, Joyce was about 100 feet away. She was safe, but shaken.

The bombs killed three and injured more than 180, spraying shrapnel into the crowd. Joyce didn’t turn back towards the chaotic Copley Square. Instead, the American studies major froze, unsure which direction was safe.

A runner next to her from Harvard University began crossing himself over and over and a woman next to her hyperventilated. Smoke hovered over

Media Credit: Photo Courtesy of Jacqueline Wilkins
Physician assistant student Jacqueline Wilkins has run 14 marathons, and said the bombing would not deter her from running more.

them all.

Still in shock, Joyce recalled silently hobbling away slowly, after a long training season that was tough on her knees.

“When I finished [the race], I was about to cry I was so happy,” Joyce said about her first marathon. “But it sucked the happiness out of it and it should be a really happy event. It doesn’t deserve to scare people. If anything, it should inspire people because they can’t take the positive out of an event like this.”

She wouldn’t have been so close to the blasts if at she hadn’t decided to push herself harder at the fourth mile. Breaking away from her friends in Tufts University’s Marathon Club, running with the 10-minute mile group, she quickened her strides to reach the eight-minute mile pace.

She ended after 3 hours and 58 minutes – a pace that had her ecstatic and ready to tell her friends back at GW it was the best thing she’s ever done.

Joyce was one of at least three GW students attending the marathon Monday, which by 3 p.m. had ended in terror. The University’s Alumni Association confirmed Tuesday that they had not heard of any students or former students who had been injured by the explosions.

As news rolled in about the explosions, hundreds of GW students from the Boston area waited anxiously to hear from loved ones running or watching the race. Massachusetts sends the third-most undergraduates to GW of any state in the country.

Senior Elizabeth Kennedy’s family lives less than a mile from the explosions, and for about six hours, no one had heard from her younger sister. Her family had last heard she was near the finish line when the

Media Credit: Photo Courtesy of Daniel Mordarski
Senior Daniel Mordarski, left, left the course before the blasts.

blasts sent shockwaves through their neighborhood.

Phone lines were jammed. She finally learned that her sister was unharmed around 9 p.m.

As hours passed, the nation’s top investigators remained unable to answer questions about what happened, prompting officials in D.C. and New York to tighten security. University President Steven Knapp reminded students in an email about three hours after initial bombing reports to stay aware and report suspicious activity.

The Secret Service shut down Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House and the Metropolitan Police Department called in additional security forces across the city, including Metro tunnels, as officials prepared for related threats. Capitol Hill reporters said workers removed trash cans, which Boston officials said may have hid the bombs near the marathon.

As students on campus began grieving Monday, religious organizations like GW Hillel and the Newman Center held vigils to honor the bombing’s victims. The Student Association will also host a ceremony Thursday in University Yard. At least one student from Boston, whose mother ran in the marathon but was not injured, will speak at the event.

Others were still healing mentally and physically as investigators try to explain the bombing.

Senior Daniel Mordarski said he struggled to make it up Boston’s famous Heartbreak Hill, and after walking for two miles near Boston College, he hopped off the course at mile 22. He said it was probably one of the best decisions he’s ever made.

“Had I run the marathon I planned to run, I would have been right there when the bombs went off,” said Mordarski, a biology major who will return to Boston to start veterinarian school at Tufts this fall.

After getting back to campus Tuesday, ambulances zooming down Foggy Bottom’s streets startled Joyce, bringing her back to the panic she had witnessed the day before.

But Joyce said the experience won’t stop her from running more marathons. She plans to run in Boston again when she can qualify for a spot in the race.

As one of the nation’s most prestigious marathons, Boston welcomes more than 26,000 runners each year on Patriots’ Day. Schools shut down, banks close and thousands crowd to the finish line in Boston’s busiest square to cheer on the athletes.

It was physician assistant student Jacqueline Wilkins’s second time running Boston, a race that she loves for its boisterous crowds and the runners that it brings together.

The veteran racer attended the free pasta dinner for runners the night before, and like other races she prepared for, she woke up at 4 a.m. to get ready for the race starting about six hours later. It was her 14th marathon.

She took the bus to a small, colonial town outside of the city with others, starting the race that would take them winding around the most historic parts of the New England city.

“It’s just magic. Something about it – all the good energy. You just feel thankful,” Wilkins said.

Filled with traditions – like when girls from Wellesley College line up at mile 13 and give runners kisses in the Wellesley Lean, the bombs shattered runners’ trust in the event.

Wilkins also said the tragedy won’t turn her away from running next year.

“If anything, it’s made me stronger,” Wilkins said. “As a runner, it has united all the runners to go back next year and make it a better experience. We really value what we had.”

Wilkins, who runs about five marathons a year, said she has no plans of cancelling her next marathon in two weeks in Tennessee.

She finished the race about an hour before the explosions, and was already on a train back to D.C. when she heard the news.

“I was just really shaken up. It’s such a tragedy. You work so hard to qualify for it. It’s so steeped in history and it’s not ever going to be the same after this,” Wilkins said.

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