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   Tracking the Boston Marathon Explosions Online

   Adam C. Engst

   As a distance runner who was tracking the progress of many friends
   running in today's Boston Marathon, I was personally shaken by the
   horrific news of explosions at the finish line that have claimed the
   lives of two people and injured an estimated 100 others (so far).
   Nearly all my friends and other local Ithaca runners have reported in
   safe, and we've shared the information on our club mailing lists for
   the community.

   If you want to check on someone who was running the race, Google has
   started a [1]Person Finder for the catastrophe, though it contains only
   about 800 records right now. (For context, 23,326 people started,
   17,584 finished, 4,496 made it to 40 kilometers but never crossed the
   finish line, and 1,246 never made it to 40K.) Plus, the [2]Boston
   Marathon Athlete Tracking page is still up, so you can see when people
   finished. So far, I've heard from people who finished between 2:43 and
   4:21, with the last guy saying that the explosions came only a few
   minutes after he finished. (There are multiple starts, so finishing
   time isn't solid as a predictor of whether or not a runner might have
   moved past the finish line, but still, it seems likely that those under
   4:21 would be more likely to be safe.)

   I hope this information helps provide some peace of mind, and while
   I've had a hard time concentrating enough to finish today's issue of
   TidBITS, I do want to say that if there's one trait that describes
   marathon runners, it's that we don't give up. I've heard reports of
   [3]runners finishing the race and continuing to run straight to
   Massachusetts General Hospital to give blood. Stories like that make me
   proud to count so many runners among my friends.

References

   1. http://google.org/personfinder/2013-boston-explosions/
   2. http://raceday.baa.org/individual.html
   3. https://twitter.com/NBCSN/status/323902959257808896

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