Dr. Bruce Shephard spent the afternoon thinking back to April 2013, when his run in the Boston Marathon ended in tragedy.
"You would never have expected anything to happen like what happened last year," he said.
Shephard was at mile 26, just two blocks away when the second blast happened.
"The first one went off and it was a shock," he said. It was hard to react to because it didn't fit into anything, but when the second one went off, that was it. All the runners stopped in their tracks and reversed course going back the other way."
Bay News 9 spoke to Dr. Shephard and his fiancée Coleen Christensen last April, as soon as they returned to Tampa from Boston. They spoke candidly about what they saw and heard.
"I went in my room, looked out the window and I could just see all the carnage," Christensen said last April. "It immediately happened right across the street. I could see everything going on. Everybody was trying to help everybody. The whole sidewalks were covered with blood. All blood in front of the area where the bombing was."
But what the couple experienced won't stop them from supporting the marathon. Dr. Shephard will run again on Monday.
"We want to support ‘Boston Strong,’ we want to support the families, the victims," said Dr. Shephard. “We want to be there to show support for all the folks who were injured and lost loved ones."