(Photo by Alex Trautwig/Getty Images)

It was Lauren Gabler’s fourth time running the Boston Marathon, and the 29-year-old Logan Circle resident admits that she was disappointed with her performance.

She ran the 26.2 miles in three hours and thirty-nine minutes, knocking off a mile every seven minutes for the first half and a little less than that thereafter. In her age group, she placed 2,320th; overall, she ended up behind 11,000 of the competitive runners that make the Boston Marathon their marquee event.

That disappointment was quickly brushed aside by the confusion, chaos and concern that struck the marathon as two explosive devices went off along the finishing stretch this afternoon, leaving two dead and dozens injured.

“I had just finished the race maybe 20 minutes prior, and I was actually walking a block over from Boylston Street, where the race ends,” Gabler explained on the phone from Boston.

“I was heading back in the direction of the finish line when I felt the explosion,” she said. “I was on the phone with my mom recapping the race, and I felt the first one—and it was like nothing I had ever felt before. And then it happened a second time a couple of seconds later and I immediately told her to get on the Internet and find out what was happening, and that was when I turned around and walked back to Boston Common to get out of that area.”

Gabler was able to get back to her hotel near the Boston Harbor, where she was able to meet up with the friend she was staying with. They had originally planned to celebrate with a post-race lunch near the finish line.

“It’s really upsetting,” she said. “Being from D.C., you know, I’ve been living in D.C. for eight years now—it’s something that’s always on my mind, every time I get on the Metro or headed towards the area I think about the possibilities.”

One-hundred-seventy-one D.C. residents registered for this year’s Boston Marathon, along with 448 from Maryland and 654 from Virginia. (Vernon Loeb, The Washington Post’s local news editor finished the race, and has since been reporting on the incident.)

“I guess what’s most upsetting about this is that this is sort of the World Series of running, it’s such a special event for so many people,” Gabler said. “You work so hard to get here, and to have everything spoiled by what happened is horrible. I didn’t have a great race, I was upset, I was complaining a couple minutes prior…now I don’t care in the least. It’s not a big deal. It really changes your perspective.

“It’s scary—this really shows that this can happen anywhere.”

With additional reporting by Benjamin R. Freed