Fair Lawn Runner 'Always Worried' About Possible Marathon Bombing

Scott Avidon’s second time running the Boston Marathon last week will likely be his last.

While the Fair Lawn music teacher and competitive marathoner extolled this year’s event as being run “to perfection,” Avidon said he can no longer risk competing at major races that attract hundreds of thousands of people like the Boston, New York and Chicago marathons.

“It’s kind of an ideal target for a terrorist on a lot of levels,” he said. “The way I’m feeling now I don’t think I’m going to be doing any more of these major marathons. I’m not saying I’m not going to run marathons, I’m just saying not these big ones.”

Avidon finished last Monday’s marathon more than an hour before two bombs set near the race’s finish line killed three spectators and injured 183 others, but post-race treatment for muscle spasms kept him confined to a medical tent a few blocks from the finish and within earshot of the explosions.

He was standing with his young son and two runner friends outside the medical tent waiting for his wife to return with a bag he’d checked prior to the race when the first explosion occurred.

“We didn’t see any smoke or anything from where we were standing, but it was really powerful, you felt it,” said Avidon, who initially thought the blast may have been a giant piece of scaffolding crashing to the ground. “The second [explosion] came very shortly thereafter and immediately after it the ambulances and emergency vehicles were screaming into effect, so it was pretty clear that something was going on.”

Avidon said his thoughts turned immediately to his wife, who had been headed in the direction of the finish line to gather his bag from the bus where it was being stored.

He waited, for what seemed like an eternity, for her to return.

“I feared the worst,” Avidon said. “It was a long five minutes, but thank god she was OK. I saw her come around the corner, she didn’t have my bag, but who cares.”

Avidon said his wife, who was about 1.5 blocks from the finish line, saw smoke and flying debris but didn’t witness any of the human carnage wrought by the bombs.

She was at the bus that was supposed to have her husband’s bag when the first bomb detonated.

“The lady [assisting her] said, ‘Oh, let’s find the bag,’ and she said, ‘No, let’s get the H out of here,’ Avidon said his wife told him. “She just wanted to get back to me at that point, screw the bag.”

Once reunited, the Avidons immediately set out on what proved to be an exceedingly difficult escape from Boston. 

“It’s wall-to-wall people everywhere and then they closed the subway lines,” said Avidon, whose car was parked near a T stop at the end of the Blue Line. “We couldn’t get out and I’m injured and of course we’re scared to death that there’s more, that this was just the beginning of something.”

After a great deal of walking, the Avidons finally made it to an open Blue Line station and were on their way out of town — although even the ride home was nerve-wracking.

“We had to sort of go under some tunnels and [my wife] was just freaking out that there was more that was going to happen,” Avidon said. “As we were driving out of Boston, so many army vehicles and emergency vehicles, just one after another, were coming the other way toward Boston.” 

At his home Wednesday, recovering from the 26.2-mile pounding his legs had taken two days earlier, Avidon said that since 9/11 he’d often considered the possibility of a marathon bombing, although it had never dissuaded him from racing. 

“I’ve thought about it a lot, actually,” he said. “I’ve done New York three times and every time I’m there I’m always worried about this. I don’t talk about it to my family — I am now — but I’ve always been worried about this.”

Were it not for his family, Avidon said he’d still consider running another major marathon, despite the potential dangers.

“If it were me, if I was single and I didn’t have a family, children and so forth, I would maybe not think this way,” he said, rocking his baby daughter on his lap. “But when you do [have a family], you start to think about things a little bit differently.”

The 41-year-old Avidon, who now has 13 marathons under his belt, said he continues to run them for the inexplicable feeling that comes after completing the race.

“There’s something about covering that distance that is definitely not like any other distance in terms of racing and it gives you a sort of feeling of elation, an incredible feeling of relief and accomplishment and euphoria and all of that all together,” he said. “There’s something very mysterious about the distance and wonderful about it, but at the same time there’s no other distance that beats up my body the way that a marathon does.”

Avidon’s orthopedist and his mother, Susan, both wish he’d cut down on his marathon running for his body’s sake, but Scott believes he still has a few more years of competitive running left in him in which to best his personal marathon record of 2 hours and 50 minutes. 

He just won’t be attempting it anywhere that’s likely to be targeted by a terrorist.

“Not necessary,” Susan Avidon said of her son running major marathons. “He’s done New York three times. He’s done Boston twice. There are so many other lovely marathons to choose from.”

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