Marion Rotary Marathon for Shoes Organizers Consider Safety Plans, Reassure Runners After Boston Marathon Bombing

The two bombs detonated in Boston have had reverberations far beyond that city, where they killed three people and injured over a one-hundred at the Boston Marathon.

See Also: Continuing Patch.com coverage from the bombing in Boston.

The effects, for example, can be felt in Marion, where the Marion Rotary Marathon for Shoes organizers felt compelled by the day's events to examine the safety of the race and to reassure potential runners via the group's Facebook page:

We are saddened to learn of today’s tragedy at the Boston Marathon. Our thoughts and prayers are with the runners, spectators, and the Boston community as they continue to deal with the aftermath of today’s events. Please know that the Marion Rotary Marathon for Shoes considers the safety of all individuals running and attending our event to be of the utmost importance. In partnership with the Marion Police Department, Marion Fire Department, Linn County Emergency Management, and several additional law enforcement agencies, we continue to have the best plans in place to enhance the safe environment for everyone. We will continue to monitor and evaluate the plans that we have in place and ask that everyone keeps the victims of today’s tragedy in their prayers.

The Marion-East Cedar Rapids Rotary Club is a key organization helping put on the first ever Marion Rotary Marathon for Shoes, which will take place this weekend on April 20-21 in Marion.

While there is a full 26.2 marathon, organizers are calling the course "relatively flat," and there's a variety of less intense options.

The marathon is set up as a benefit for the for programs supported by the Marion East Cedar Rapids Rotary Club, including Shoes for Kids. That program begins with school nurses identifying children in the Marion and Cedar Rapids area, who do not have adequate shoes, and then the program connects with Payless Shoe Source to provide them shoes.