■ Benicia man’s leg injury kept him from 2013 Boston race

By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter

Dr. John Huebner was preparing for his seventh Boston Marathon when he re-injured his leg and had to bow out of the race.

The Benician, whose Redwood Veterinary Hospital is in Vallejo, is familiar with the usual hoopla that surrounds the legendary race, particularly its final yards.

And to see what occurred this year, he said, was shocking and disturbing.

“I watched the news. That last quarter-mile, I ran so many times,” he said.

“It was shocking to see the mayhem.”

Huebner is familiar with every inch of the 26-mile, 385-yard foot race that starts, not in Boston, but in the small town of Hopkinton.

“It’s a point-to-point race,” Huebner said, meaning it starts at one spot and ends in another. He said 24,000 runners are driven east in thousands of school buses to Hopkinton, where they await the start of the race.

Originally, the Boston Marathon began at noon; about six years ago the start was changed to 10 a.m.

Historically, the race is run on the state holiday Patriots’ Day. Started in 1897, it’s the second-longest continuously run footrace in North America, bested only by the Buffalo (N.Y.) Turkey Trot.

This year, the 26th mile of the Boston Marathon was marked with the Newtown, Conn., city seal, in remembrance of the 20 children and six adults slain in a gunman’s attack last December. The seal was surrounded by 26 stars.

Each runner in the marathon has had to qualify, Huebner said. You can’t just show up and enter. At 55, Huebner must prove he can run the distance at no more than three hours 40 minutes, a time he can best by at least 10 minutes when he’s healthy.

The marathon puts participants on a course through what he described as picturesque New England towns as they run toward Boston. While spectators gather to view the runners along the way, they become packed six to eight deep closer to the finish line. By then, the most serious runners — those who may be setting speed records and completing the race in a little more than two hours — are completing the course.

“I can imagine how they feel, the energy when they see the elite runners,” he said about the crowds near the finish line.

The noise of screams and shouts gets louder toward the end of the race. Many of the spectators are family and friends of the runners, straining to get a glimpse of their athlete completing the race.

Afterward, Huebner said, runners hailing taxis or taking public transportation away from the course are greeted by total strangers who are anxious to shake their hands and congratulate them, thank them and welcome them to Boston.

But Monday’s marathon ended differently.

About noon Pacific time, two explosions about 12 seconds apart sent shrapnel into the crowds along the final yards of the course. Three people, including an 8-year-old boy who wanted to hug his marathon-running father, were killed in the blasts, and 176 have been reported injured, including members of the boy’s family.

Exhausted marathon runners ran to help, joining first responders. Other runners went to hospitals to donate blood. “That’s what I’d expect,” Huebner said.

“Where I would have been, I don’t know,” he said. Some runners had finished the race and had left the area before the explosions.

“I wonder what I would have done. I’m a vet — I could have bandaged a few things,” he said.

He said the runners who volunteered to help or give blood would have been exhausted. “It’s 26 miles. You’re sore and stiff and waking funny.”

But he recalled how runners who had intended to race in the New York Marathon didn’t grouse when Superstorm Sandy forced its cancellation. Instead, they volunteered to help storm victims.

Like others watching coverage of the aftermath of the explosions, Huebner has thoughts about anyone who would plant bombs of shrapnel and metal balls.

Law officers in Massachusetts said at least one of the explosions, if not both, came from a pressure cooker packed with explosive powder, ball bearings and nails.

“The person who did this did his homework,” Huebner said. The exploding devices were set in the thickest gathering of friends, family and marathon supporters.

“It’s a tragic event.”

Huebner recently was cleared by his physician to start running again, and he’s looking forward to running the next Boston Marathon.

“I’m qualified for 2014, and I’m hoping to go,” he said.