By Mile 22 or 23, she expects it all to start rushing back, the confusion, the chaos, the questions, the fear.
“There comes a point in the race where you want to stop running,” said Alison L’Heureux, a New Yorker running in Monday’s Boston Marathon.
“But I think at those moments when you want to give up, we can reflect on what happened last year. I know I’ll focus on the people who survived and their stories of overcoming the tragedy and their stories of triumph, and it’ll give me an extra adrenaline rush. I feel like it’ll be that way for everyone.”
L’Heureux, 26, a Massachusetts native, is one of more than 1,700 people from New York state competing. Only Massachusetts and California have more runners.
It will be her sixth Boston Marathon, and no race has ever meant more.
L’Heureux had about a mile left to go last year when the first of two bombs exploded near the finish line, where her parents and friends were waiting. No one in her crew was injured, which is not to say they weren’t shaken.
“I was so happy they weren’t hurt,” L’Heureux said. “But then I was hit with such heartbreaking sadness for everyone affected that day. Families lost their loved ones and so many others got hurt. So, it’s a wave of emotions I’m experiencing now just thinking about it.”
John Honerkamp, 38, from the Upper East Side, is in the race for the first time.
“I’ve always wanted to run a Boston Marathon, and this is the perfect year to do it,” Honerkamp said. “It’s a rebirth for the event. This will be an extra-special day.”
Thirty-six thousand runners are set to compete in this year’s race — 9,000 more than last year.
Among them will be Myles Fennon, 35, of Manhattan, a commercial real-estate broker.
“I’ve been trying to qualify for Boston for the past few years and I finally qualified, so I’m extremely excited to be running it this year,” Fennon said.
“Last year’s bombing and the insanity afterwards was so tragic and really rattled me. I live in a big city and I run the New York Marathon every year. So you have this confidence that you’ve seen it all and are aware of everything.”