Crawford runs in seventh, final Boston Marathon

BOSTON — Red Oak native Pete Crawford competed in his seventh and likely final Boston Marathon Monday, just a year after ending his sixth race in Boston two-tenths of a mile from the explosion of two pressure cooker bombs.  

A personal account of Crawford’s recent experience in Boston will be published in next week’s Red Oak Express. 

Crawford, 63, has competed in about 20 marathons, and before the bombings, last year was supposed to be his final. 

“Initially, I felt bad for the whole situation,” Crawford said last year after returning from Boston. “I kind of felt bad I wasn’t able to finish but I knew that was very insignificant to what had happened, and I knew that some people had to have been killed from the  one blast that I saw. Not everybody could have survived that, and so it was kind of hard to get all your thoughts together that day.”

While Crawford remained unharmed, three people were killed and more than 200 others injured in the attack. A two-day manhunt led to the capture of Dzhokar Tsarnaev, 19, and the death of his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26.

Dzhokar remains in custody awaiting a November trial; various sources indicate the possibility of the death penalty.  

Despite the traumatic conclusion to the 2013 race, 36,000 runners participated in yesterday’s event, 10,000 more than last year, according to the Boston Marathon website.