UPDATE: ‘It Sounded Like the Cannons at an Iowa State Game - Boom, Boom’

Updated at 7:55 p.m.

Boston Marathon runners Matt McDermott and Jacob Johnson were sitting tight in their hotel room late Monday afternoon – tight, as in the hotel was under lockdown.

The West Des Moines men and their wives were staying at the Fairmont Hotel on Copley Plaza, located just a few blocks from the marathon finish line, where simultaneous explosions brought the 117th running of the Boston Marathon to an early end Monday.

McDermott was part of a wave that started at 10 a.m. and he finished shortly before 1 p.m. EDT, about two hours before the explosions.

The group was just getting ready to leave the hotel to enjoy the festivities when they heard two blasts that reminded him of the cannons the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity fires after every Iowa State University Cyclone touchdown or football games.

“At first, we didn’t know what it was,” said McDermott, a lawyer with the Belin McCormick law firm in downtown Des Moines. “It sounded like the cannons at an Iowa State game – boom, boom. Everyone was sort of looking at each other wondering.”

The sounds occurred well into the race, not as a traditional starter sound, or to signal the professional runners crossing the finishing line.

“We couldn’t make sense of it,” McDermott said. “It was very strange.”

But then panic broke out and people were running away from the area of the finish line, where Heather McDermott and Meredith Johnson were cheering on their husbands.

They heard frenzied shouts, McDermott said: “It was a bomb! It was a bomb!”

“It was a surreal thing to hear those blasts, to see people running and the confusion at the scene,” he said. “We figured if nothing else, we need to go upstairs and wait this out and see what happened. We didn’t bother with elevator, took the stairs right up to the fourth floor.”

By late afternoon Monday, they had not been allowed to leave.

“We’re watching TV in disbelief,” McDermott said in a phone interview with Patch. “It’s a situation none of us have ever been part of. This is literally a block from us. We’ve been up and down that street and past the finish line four times in the last three days.”

The McDermotts had second-guessed their decision not to bring their children, ages 3 and 1, to Boston after they saw many other participants had brought the entire family. After the explosions, they knew they had made the right decision.

“I’m so glad we didn’t bring the kids,” McDermott said.

This was McDermott’s second Boston Marathon.

“I ran it last year and it was a blazing hot day and miserable experience,” he said. “I wanted to come back and do it again – it’s a great marathon, a great atmosphere and incredibly well organized. They get it right. It was a great day, a great atmosphere and perfect weather until it was shattered by this tragedy.”

Updated at 6:30 p.m.

Paxton Bennett of West Des Moines decided to “suck it up” and skip the massage because the line was moving so slowly after he’d finished the Boston Marathon about 1:30 p.m. EDT Monday.

It was a good call.

“We would have been right down there” when simultaneous explosions turned a celebratory atmosphere into “mass chaos,” said Bennett, 39.

CNN is reporting two people were killed and 111 were injured in the blasts, which the FBI is treating as a terrorist attack.

Bennett and his friends were on a subway heading to where their vehicles were parked near Harvard University when the train suddenly stopped and passengers were asked to exit. They had an inkling of what was going on through Facebook posts, but for the most part, they were learning about the explosions along with their friends in Iowa.

The sight of four ambulances parked near a tunnel entrance was disconcerting. “About halfway through the tunnel, I thought, ‘You know a tunnel’s probably not the best spot to be,’ “ he said. “They’re prime targets.”

This was Bennett’s second Boston Marathon and he’s qualified to run again next year. He wants to do the London Marathon, too, “but I almost want to come back to support Boston.”

He ran the race in 3:22:44 – “not one of my better runs,” said Bennett, an experienced runner who has now competed in 23 marathons.

Times – or even winners – weren’t important to Bennett and his fellow runners on a day when “there were no winners,” he said.

“Each year, there will be something I will remember,” Bennett said, recalling the 2012 Boston Marathon as the hottest on record. “This year, it won’t be about my time, but about the tragedy, a couple of people getting killed and dozens being injured.”

Earlier, Patch reported:

When West Des Moines runner Kelly Sorensen’s phone filled up with text messages and voicemails this afternoon from friends and family members asking if was OK after finishing the Boston Marathon, she was confused.

It had been a rough race, she told them. She had to walk part of it, but she finished in 3:59 and collected her medal.

It wasn’t until later she understood the reason for their frenzied concern, that “something else was going on.”

Just moments after Sorensen, 43, finished the race, two simultaneous explosions occurred near the finish line. The blasts occurred just before 3 p.m. eastern time, according to MyFoxBoston.

Boston Police are reporting more than 100 injured, two dead, according to BackBay Patch.

“It was a pretty darned close call,” the mother of three told West Des Moines Patch in a phone interview from her room in an international hostel. “I didn’t hear or see anything. I missed it by a couple of minutes.”

News of the explosions added perspective to what Sorensen considered a poor performance in a race she’s been looking forward to for a year and a half.

“It was a rough race and a rough day for me, but it’s not about me,” she said. “When a huge tragedy like this occurs, it really puts it in perspective.”

Sorensen said she’s saddened that the most prestigious marathon in the world has been marred by tragedy. “It’s 26.2 miles of streets lined by volunteers and spectators cheering you on,” she said. “To think someone would do this is horrible.”

She said she has been receiving email, text and Facebook messages “faster than I can respond.”

“It’s just crazy,” she said. “I think everybody from the Des Moines area is OK. That’s all we can hope for, and that those who are injured are able to recover. Keep them in your prayers.”

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