Boston Marathon: Harford County Man Reflects

At the end of the day, Matt Burdette said time on the clock was irrelevant.

Forget that he just ran one of the best races of his life in the dream event of his running career.

Forget where he finished in proximity to his personal best.

Burdette will remember where he finished the Boston Marathon in comparison to a nation-altering moment.

An hour after his 20th marathon had ended, Burdette heard a blast that reminded him of the start of another.

"I'll never forget what it sounded like," Burdette said. "In New York, when they shot off the howitzer at the beginning [of the marathon], that's what it sounded like. The sound rattled off the buildings."

Burdette, 31, is a Harford County native and a 1999 graduate of Havre de Grace High School. He qualified last spring for this year's Boston Marathon—the penultimate event on his marathon agenda.

Joining him at the race on Patriot Day in Boston were his wife and his parents. The quartet was together about two blocks from where a pair of bombs detonated, creating mayhem near the finish line of the race.

"I think we kind of froze," Burdette said.

He recalls walking through a Boston mall, seeing "people 50 deep, staring at TVs" at an electronics store, catching the news as it scrolled across the screens on display.

With their car parked in an underground garage, the Burdettes opted to wait until the scene was cleared.

So they walked far away from the chaos, sitting down at a Boston restaurant for a bit.

"We sat down to eat and we didn't talk. We stared at the wall," Burdette said. "We are just fortunate that everyone was safe."

About four hours after the attack, Burdette had settled down at a hotel he'd reserved prior to the race in Framingham, MA. His phone had received some 40 texts in the moments after the explosion. They continued to pour in, but Burdette couldn't respond, so he took to Facebook, where a short post offered those at home the relief they sought: "We are fine. ..crazy scene here but we are all ok"

Burdette said his wife noticed a heightened police presence in Boston, "two or three times more" than at other major marathons the duo has attended.

"I finished in New York and I don't remember seeing a cop at the finish. Today there were hundreds of cops at the finish," Burdette said, adding that his wife witnessed bomb-sniffing dogs before the race.

"It was just kind of odd," he said.

Adding to the chilling feeling for Burdette was the knowledge that his family was standing in the area of one of the detonations just an hour before the explosions.

A friend of Burdette's, a Baltimore-based doctor, finished just a few minutes behind him. They met up after the race, and the doctor departed the city for a flight home before the explosions. A call from Burdette to check in on his pal's whereabouts notified him of the incident.

A friend of Burdette's sister-in-law likely would have finished around the four-hour mark—when the double-explosion hit the final blocks before the finish line—but she dropped out of the race about six miles in.

But in a true marathoner's spirit, Burdette found new motivation in the face of terrorism—he won't stop running. He'll be back to Boston to run again. 

Just four hours after spending three hours of Patriot Day running, Burdette was ready to go for another jog.

"I kind of want to go run another one now to forget about this one," he said. "Try to get a sense of normalcy, you know?"

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Related articles:

• Burdette Paces Toward NYC Marathon (2010)
• A Run to Manhattan and Back (2010)
• Local Runners Finish Baltimore Marathon (2011)