Memorial Mile Draws Hundreds to Haddon Township High School

For 2013 Boston Marathoner Tonia Conover, Tuesday night was a chance to pay her respects to those killed and injured in the finish-line bombings.

Conover, dressed in her marathon jacket, joined nearly 300 runners and walkers from across Camden County at the Haddon Township High School track in a memorial one-mile run.

It was an idea first floated by former American 5K record holder Bob Kennedy and spearheaded locally by Dave Welsh, owner of the Haddonfield Running Company.

A post to the running store's Facebook page and Twitter feed blew up after Welsh, who quickly got Haddon Township's police and firefighters on board, shared it in the morning, and runners from as far away as Trenton showed up to the high school's track.

“It just went viral,” Welsh said.

Under fire engine floodlights, runners—silent but for their footfalls on the rubber surface—looped the track four times, passing 118 votive candles—a nod to next year's race, which will be the 118th running in Boston, the country's oldest marathon.

Conover, a Haddon Township resident and 15-time veteran of the race, crossed the finish line in Boston about an hour ahead of the attacks, but was leaving her hotel near Copley Square when the bombs exploded, killing three people and injuring about 170.

“It was just frantic, calling people, texting people, people calling me, my mom freaking out,” she said. “Your heart's in your throat the rest of the time—it kind of took the whole day away.”

But the bombings won't deter her from heading back to Boston a 16th time, she said, and events like the memorial mile show the solidarity of the running community.

“You just have to pay respect to the people who got sadly taken from us and injured,” she said.

And for Welsh, a distance runner, the attacks may prove to be motivation—though he's run the Boston Marathon course, he's never competed in the event himself.

"Now, suddenly, I'm like, 'Do I want to do Boston?' We'll see—I may do it next year, I don't know," he said.

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