Bombing survivor runs through La Conner

Nothing has dampened Bill Iffrig’s passion for running, not even surviving an event more vividly traumatic than many will experience in a lifetime—the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.

Camera footage caught the moment of explosion, recording a sea of shocked runners, including one 78-year-old man thrown down by the blast a few minutes from the finish line.

That runner was Iffrig, and he will be in town later this month to run in the Smelt Derby 10K, hosted by the Rotary Club of La Conner.

Iffrig landed in the street on his back that day in Boston nearly four years ago. When he looked up, he saw Boston Police officers rushing to the scene. One iconic photo of him was published on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

“All of a sudden, I’m lying on the ground,” Iffrig said of the marathon. “I suppose a shockwave hit my legs — they were like noodles, I had no control over them. As I was going down, thoughts started going through my head, like, ‘is this going to be the end of me?’”

But he got up and finished the race, despite not being able to run straight because his equilibrium was temporarily disrupted. He said he suffered a mild leg muscle injury and his hearing in his left ear was permanently damaged.

The Boston Marathon bombings killed three spectators and wounded 260 people, leading to a major manhunt for the two suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Tamerlan was killed in a shootout with police. Dzhokhar was apprehended and sentenced to death in May 2015.

At the time, Iffrig had no idea two homemade pressure cooker bombs were the cause of the explosion and walked six blocks back to his hotel to be with his family. Reporters were already waiting, the first day of Iffrig’s unexpected celebrity status as a symbol from that race.

“Our room wasn’t very big,” he said, laughing, “And here come the three or four reporters…We still had four days before our flight to home. After awhile, my wife and I leaned to get out of there before they showed up in the morning.”

The people in Boston were unusually good and friendly right after the bombings, which were a horrible event that he’ll never forget, Iffrig said.

Eventually, he returned to run the Boston Marathon again in 2015.

Today, Iffrig is 82, wears hearing aids due to the blast, still receives requests for autographs and interviews and lives in the house he built in Lake Stevens, where he and his wife have resided for the past 50 years.

He keeps busy, running in many local races — including the La Conner Smelt Derby. This will be his fourth time in the Smelt Derby run, which will be held next on Saturday, Feb. 25.

“It’s a nice course, nice and level,” he said. “We’ll be up there for that.”

Iffrig has been a good sport about the fame and media attention and is used to talking about that day, despite the burden of recalling the chaos, smoke and screams.

He keeps a large-sized gifted copy of the “Sports Illustrated” cover that made him famous, ready to show it upon request.

Recently, he went to the theater to watch “Patriots Day,” a movie about the bombings. He said he thinks the producers did a good job, though it has a little too much swearing for his taste.

Throughout his house are many running mementos, trophies, medals and plaques awarded throughout the years. He’s an accomplished runner, despite only having discovered the sport in his 40s.

“Running was right for me. I was good at it right away,” Iffrig said. “It was probably the only thing I was every really good at.”

He estimates that he has run 58 marathons in his life and still runs at least three days a week on seven-mile workouts but says he has to be careful nowadays due to his age.

He’s glad the two perpetrators were caught and considers himself lucky to be alive, he said.

“I’ve more or less just accepted the whole thing the way it happened,” Iffrig said. “I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”