Melanie Holman began the Boston Marathon last year nervous that an old injury would slow her during the race. Instead, she ended with a time of three hours and 26 minutes, a faster time than her previous marathon. 

Excited about her finish, Holman met up with other members of the Iowa State Running Club and took the subway back to the hotel, which was located near the 25 mile marker of the 26.2 mile race. This is when another club member ran into the room to tell everyone that something had gone horribly wrong.

“All of us were delirious at this point because we were dehydrated and needed food. We turned on the news and we didn’t really understand what was going on,” Holman recalled, who was in Boston with 11 other Iowa State students running in the race. “There had been two explosions at the finish line. I didn’t hear them, a couple other guys that were in our club did. I didn’t really realize how serious it was until I started getting phone calls from my parents, friends and family.”

Today marks the one year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing that claimed the lives of three people and wounded more than 260. It was the first time Holman had run the internationally famous race, and she doesn’t like to dwell on what could have happened if her injury had flared up and slowed her down.

“I think it’s important not to focus on that, but I was definitely like oh man, I could have had a flare up, and I could have had a bad race and been a lot closer to the explosion. That freaks me out, but it didn’t happen that way, so I try not to think about it,” Holman said.

Holman, a senior in kinesiology and health, is returning to Boston at the end of this week to run the Boston Marathon for her second time. This time, she will be joined by Meredith Anderson, also a senior in kinesiology and health and the women’s captain of the Iowa State Running Club.

“The idea of the bombing last year doesn’t affect me at all,” Anderson said. “I’m just very excited to go. When I qualified, that was just the best feeling ever. The Boston Marathon is something that every runner kind of dreams of doing.”

For John Pleasants, an Iowa State assistant professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology, he’s hoping that this will finally be the year he gets to finish the race.

“For me, doing Boston … doing it once is important,” Pleasants said, who was supposed to run the marathon in 2012, but was allowed to defer to the next year due to the extreme heat that year. This meant that Pleasants automatically qualified for the race in 2013. However, once again, he didn’t find himself at the finish.

“I was probably around mile 20. I knew almost immediately something had happened because I just happened to be running by some EMTs,” Pleasants remembers of last year’s race, which also fell on his birthday. “I just kept running because I didn’t really know anything else to do, but I was calling my wife who was following me and had seen me around mile 20 and was headed to the finish then. The first thing was to call her and say don’t go to the finish, something has happened.”

Pleasants kept running until he was stopped by barricades that were put up by police. Since he wasn’t able to finish, he once again automatically qualified for this year’s race.

“This particular Boston takes it up another notch,” Pleasants said. “You want to be part of this thing. You want to be part of something that says, ‘we’re here, we’re going to keep going. This is what we do, we’re not going to let this stop us.'”

Even with the jarring events that cut last year’s event short, Holman and Pleasants both remember the race as an amazing event to be a part of. However this year, there will be some changes.

“We can’t bring our own bags in, we have to use the clear bags that they give us,” Anderson explained of information runners have received in emails. “You’re not allowed to bring in your own water bottles or anything like that.”

Security has been heightened for the event, along with stricter rules for what participants can bring. However, none of this has lessened the number of individuals who want to be a part of the marathon with just over 36,000 participants running this year.

“There are so many more people running it this year because of what happened last year,” Holman said, who hopes to make running the marathon a tradition. “I think that just shows that Boston is such a strong community and is so focused around this race every year. That’s a special thing to be a part of.”

Participants must qualify in order to run in the race or be a part of a charity team. The event is not just open for anyone to join the day of, making it truly an honor to compete. 

Holman, Anderson and Pleasants don’t believe last year’s events have tarnished the excitement of the event, and none hesitated in the decision to head for the Boston Marathon on April 21 when the race will take place. For Pleasants, he’s prepared for the moment after crossing the finish line.

“It’s an emotional thing,” Pleasants said of the upcoming finish of the race. “There might be some crying involved.”