A race official came to check on him and helped him up.
Then, accompanied by the official, Iffrig walked the last 12 feet or so across the finish line.
“I ended up second in my division,” he said. “After you’ve run 26 miles you’re not going to stop there.” His timing chip marked his finish at 4 hours, 3 minutes, 47 seconds.
However, Bill was rattled as we all would have been in that situation:
“It was a close one though, boy. I’ll tell you, that scared me.”
Bill started running in the 70’s and hasn’t slowed down. In fact he’s very fast for his age. He know’s that he is not only fast but has outlived much of his competition as well.
“Not many old guys are as fast as me.”
He reminds me of my good friend, Dallas Smith, who is 72-years old and finished 4th in his age division on this tragic day.
It’s been a day full of bad news, stories, Tweets, and updates so it’s good to read something positive today.
I’m happy that Bill is ok. I’m even happy he got off the asphalt and walked the remaining 20 feet to the finish line.
He’s tough like everyone who ran Boston today and like all of the first responders and volunteers who did an amazing job under a lot of pressure.
Bill is lucky. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those that have been wounded and to the families of those that lost someone.
You can view a GIF of the explosion that knocked Bill down at the bottom of the page by clicking HERE. (I didn’t want to repost the video or GIF again on another page. I think we’ve all been traumatized enough by it today.)
UPDATE 37: Fox News is reporting that the Boston police have arrested the suspect they believe did the Boston Marathon bombings. CNN and AP were also reporting the same thing. Other networks are saying that an arrest HAS NOT been made.
UPDATE 36: The name of the second victim killed in the blasts is Krystle Campbell from Arlington, Massachusetts according to CNN.
UPDATE 35: Investigators found circuit board believed used to trigger marathon bombs per Boston Globe.
UPDATE 33: Photo of 8-year old Martin Richard who was killed in the Boston Marathon bombings. Pray for his family! His sister lost a leg as well and his mom has a brain injury.
UPDATE 32: Ed Davis: “176 is the best number I have right now, 17 of them are critical, 3 have died.” [via Huff Po]
UPDATE 31: U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel calls bombings ‘cruel act of terror’ per AP.
UPDATE 30: President Obama: Not known whether Boston bombings an act of an organization or an individual [CNN]
Pope Francis offers prayers for all Bostonians (story).
UPDATE 29: The Boston Celtics game against the Indiana Pacers for Tuesday night has been cancelled (NOT POSTPONED) and will not be made up per ESPN.
UPDATE 28: Three deaths are too many but the good news is that number has not risen in the past few hours.
UPDATE 27: Keep passing this story around on Facebook and Twitter: FULL STORY It’s a good story from a very bad day in Boston. Keep sending good thoughts and prayers to those impacted directly by today.
Several reports of this or that regarding the investigation into the bombing suspects floating around at the moment. Nothing that I think is link worthy at the moment.
UPDATE 26: Report (updated): 23,326 started, 17,584 finished, 4,496 made it to 40k but never crossed the finish line, and 1,246 never made it to 40k. (via @flotrack)
UPDATE 25: The man who went crumbled to the ground in the bombing video? His name is Bill Iffrig and he’s ok. He’s 78-years young. He dusted himself off and finished the remaining 20 feet to the finish line where he placed second place in his age division. (FULL STORY)
UPDATE 22: Reports that more undetonated devices are being found in packages near marathon route. Officials are going to scour the entire 26.2 mile route with bomb sniffing dogs to try to find any bombs and info.
UPDATE 11: Via ESPN’s Darren Rovell: The avg Boston finish time (when the most people are crossing) was 4:18 last year. Explosion went off at 4:09:40. Most people in area.
UPDATE 8: Third explosion at the JFK Library just confirmed by Boston Police during their press conference.
UPDATE 7: There are many updates I could post from what I’m hearing from the local hospitals. You can easily read them on Twitter and one in particular from Darren Rovell. I’ll just say there is no good news coming from the hospitals in Boston. Many victims including both runners and spectators. Hopefully most will survive and live but their lives won’t ever be the same.
UPDATE 6: The Boston Globe is reporting 2 dead with up to 64 wounded.
UPDATE 5: NY Post reporting, “Authorities have a identified a suspect, who is currently being guarded in a Boston hospital with shrapnel wounds.”
UPDATE 4: Reports are claiming that a 3rd explosive device was found…undetonated.
UPDATE 3: Boston police confirming 2 are dead and at least 22 are wounded.
Run It Fast Club members will be representing at the Boston Marathon this year! There will be quite a few members there from Tennessee, Mississippi, New York, Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, California, South Carolina, Oregon, and New Hampshire. They’ll all be going for the medal shown above, probably a PR too, and hopefully an Age Group win or two. Whatever their goals, we are so happy and proud that Run It Fast members will be running it fast from Hopkinton, up Heartbreak Hill, and across the finish line in Boston.
Check out our list of Run It Fast Club members who will be there and send them some good luck and well wishes:
RIF #159 Diane Bolton (Bib #26967) will be running her 4th Boston Marathon. Diane is a running machine and just recently completed marathons in Antarctica and Chile in her quest to run this world. Go Diane!
RIF #28 Kenneth Williams (Bib #20561) has run Boston over 10 times. He’s not only a runner but a coach as well and has travelled the world to run marathons. You can follow him on Twitter here @MarathonKoachand check out his Run It Fast Profile here for more fun facts: Kenneth Williams Profile.
RIF #105 Kathy Shirley (Bib #20098) will be running her 3rd Boston Marathon. You can follow Kathy on Twitter @ipoddess
RIF #92 Steven Lee (Bib #6645) will be running his first Boston Marathon this year. He completed his 50 States quest at the Honolulu Marathon in December and has run a sub 4 marathon in all 50 states. You can follow him on Twitter here: @steventlee
RIF #206 Gary Krugger (Bib #309) will be running his 5th Boston on Monday. He ran a 2:44:48 there last year…when it was hot. It will be exciting to see what he does this year with better weather.
RIF #124 Michelle Walker (Bib #13916) will be running her 1st Boston Marathon. She also just recently completed marathons in Chile and Antarctica. You can follow her on Twitter here @MarathonMomof6, read about her Road to Boston here: Road to Boston, or check out her profile to learn more about her here: Michelle Walker Profile.
RIF #79 Dallas Smith (Bib #18431) will be running his 6th Boston Marathon on Monday. The last 2 years, Dallas finished 2nd in his Age Group! Go Dallas! He also holds quite a few Age records in the state of Tennesse. You can follow him on Twitter here @smithbend and check out his blog here: http://dallasfallsforward.blogspot.com/.
RIF #70 Chuck Engle (Bib #276) “Marathon Junkie” has run a sub 3 hour marathon in all 50 states and has over 275 sub 3 hour marathons on his resume. You can follow him on Twitter here: @MarathonJunkie and read more about him on his blog here: MarathonJunkie.
RIF #101 David Wingard (Bib #19810) will be running his 2nd Boston Marathon. He just completed his quest to run a marathon in each state at the Walt Disney World Marathon. You can follow him on Twitter here: @CockyDW.
RIF #261 Kerri Haskins (Bib #23693) will be running her 1st Boston Marathon. Kerri is on a quest to run a marathon in every state and has only 5 states to go! You can follow her on Twitter here @khrunner0815and check out her Run It Fast Profile for more fun running facts here: Kerri Haskins Profile.
RIF #139 JD Leman (Bib #3575) is running his 1st Boston Marathon on Monday. It will be only his 4th full marathon. You can follow JD on Twitter here: @lefthash.
RIF #69 Nadia Ruiz Gonzales (Bib #8682) Nadia has completed over 90 marathons and has qualified for Boston over 50 times! You can learn more about her on her Facebook page Nadia Ruiz/Athlete or by checking out her blog: Nadia The Runner. You can also follow her on Twitter here: @IrongirlNadia.
If we left you off it wasn’t intentional. Just message us RunItFast@gmail.com and we’ll add you to the list!!! 🙂
Quite a list, isn’t it? Good luck to everyone running! We will be following along on Monday to see what they are up to. We hope you’ll join us on Monday too and follow along to get the latest info on all the Run It Fast Club members…and oh, yeah…the elites who will be running as well. 😉
If you’d like to join Run It Fast – The Club or would like more information about it, please click this link:
Two things you might not put together, The New York Times and The Barkley Marathons, happily married this morning when the esteemed paper did an extensive article on The Barkley Marathons which is more of a recluse, as far as races go, than the late Howard Hughes was back in the early 70’s.
It’s a nice piece that delves into the history of the race and gives facts and winners that less than five people in the world probably knew beforehand.
It rightfully gives Gary Cantrell ‘Lazarus Lake’ the credit he deserves for the tough and challenging races he conjures up in his sick brain.
Here is how Dave Seminara of the Times described the race:
It is a 100-mile footrace that some say is actually 130 miles or more, through unmarked trails with names like Meth Lab Hill, Bad Thing and Leonard’s Buttslide that are choked with prickly saw briars. Temperatures often range from freezing to blistering on the same day, and there is a cumulative elevation gain of more than 60,000 feet, or the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest twice from sea level.
A 60-hour time limit forces runners to run, climb and bushwhack for three days with little or no sleep. They endure taunts from the race director, who deliberately keeps the competition’s entry procedure a mystery. It is a race in which there are no comfort stations and runners cannot use a GPS device or a cellphone.
Less than 2 percent of the nearly 800 ultrarunners who have subjected themselves to this punishment — 12 men, the same number as have walked on the moon — have finished the race in its current iteration. The only prize is that after 100 miles, they get to stop.
This is the Barkley Marathons, the world’s toughest and most secretive trail race.
Read the Full Article HERE. It’s a great piece that gives ultrarunning some of it’s much needed props. Not that Barkley is per se a ‘running’ race, but it is one of Satan’s most cherished events on Earth.
Here is the finisher’s medal/dog tag from the Bataan Memorial Death March (Marathon) that took place in White Sands, New Mexico on Sunday, March 17, 2013.
