Celebration Turns to Total Shock for Peabody Marathoner Katrina Gravel

What should have been an exhilarating day, turned into a complete shock for Katrina Gravel and her family.

Gravel, 24, had just run her first Boston Marathon on Monday -- the first across the line from Peabody that day, in fact -- and celebrated with her parents Dave and Cathy Gravel and fiance Dan Vassallo, who were all waiting for her at the finish line in Copley Square.

After hanging around for a bit and collecting her things, Gravel and family left for Peabody before 2:30 p.m. It wasn't until they arrived home and turned the TV on to watch the news that they learned of the two explosions that erupted shortly after they left the race.

"All that I could think was that I was literally just there," she recalled Tuesday afternoon. "It was surreal."

Her parents too had sat in the bleachers earlier that day very close to where the two bombs exploded.

The initial response was shock, trying to fathom the how and why, and quickly followed by urgent phone calls to family and friends they knew might still be at the marathon. She said Vassallo didn't run the marathon this year, but had several friends who did.

Due to cell phone service being down in that area of Boston, what followed was just several hours of waiting, wondering and hoping for the best, Gravel said. Eventually they learned their friends were all safe.

The mix of emotions expressed by runners recalling Monday's events have been far-ranging, with many feeling cheated in a way because the race was stopped before they were able to finish.

Gravel did finish and said it became an "extremely muted celebration" upon learning of the tragedy.

She said there's so much effort and preparation -- mentally, physically and emotionally -- that goes into the marathon, it would be "heartbreaking" not to finish. And yet, everyone also has to deal with the reality of an even bigger tragedy that occurred.

Ever since Sept. 11, 2001, Americans have lived with a heightened sensitivity to this type of tragedy, Gravel said, and she expects this one will be in the back of her mind for a long time to come.

"Every time I fly, it's still in the back of my mind...that it happened," she said, referring to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

[Editor's note: We've fixed a typo on the date for the 2001 terrorist attacks.]