Franklin County Boston Marathon runners, JD Snipes, Carol Bishop, Tanya Collum, Emily Borden, Angie Williams, and Buddy Purdue

When Angie Williams began running with her group three years ago her goal was to eventually make it to the Boston Marathon. She said for any competitive runner the goal is always to make it to the Boston Marathon.

Williams and her group of runners not only made it to the 2015 Boston Marathon, but they finished and did so in the elements.

“We had all run in the rain before and the cold, but today was different,” Williams said. “It was rough, but good.

“The weather was definitely one of the toughest things,” she said. “The rain was there and it was kind of cold, but the winds were around 20 m.p.h. It was tough.”

The 119^th Boston Marathon took place on April 20 with temperatures holding in the mid to upper 40s for most of the morning with steady rains and gusty winds. But those conditions didn’t keep the local runners from finishing the race and doing so in impressive fashion.

Williams, who finished the marathon on Monday with a time of three hours and 33 minutes, said the Boston Marathon was like nothing else.

“I have run marathons before, our group has run marathons before, but this one is really special,” Williams said. “Every runner’s goal is to participate in the Boston Marathon. It is one of the biggest ones there is.”

Emily Borden and her husband Chris are part of the local group that traveled up to Boston for the recent marathon. Chris helped the group train leading up to the Monday morning marathon.

Emily Borden said that training helps the runners prepare for the grueling 26.2 mile course.

“We start out the training by working on getting our speeds up and doing some track work,” Borden said. “When we get closer to the time of the marathon we try and have ourselves up to a marathon pace. Workouts start with some easy miles in the beginning and then later on things get a bit more vigorous.”

Borden said no other marathons compare to the one in Boston.

“Everyone there is so proud,” Borden said. “Everyone has had to compete and earn their way in and everyone there is proud and like a big community.

“The whole city is devoted to the runner, to the athlete and they are very welcoming,” Borden said. “They have warm-up runs and breakfasts and gatherings all leading up to the marathon. It is like our own little happy world out there.”

The group arrived in Boston on April 18 and spent a few days leading up to the marathon getting settled in.

“Boston is a great city and the course for the marathon is just beautiful,” Williams said. “All the people that come out to watch the runners and cheer them on is great.”

Williams said even the toughest part of the course was a beautiful and a great experience.

“There is one section of the course—Heartbreak Hill—and it is the toughest part, it really is,” Williams said. “If you can make it through that part, if you can make it all the way to the top and keep going, you know you can make it to the end.”

Williams and her group did make it all the way to the end and did so safely just two years after two men allegedly placed homemade bombs near the finish line.

There was no such incident during this year’s marathon. The only violence was the runners battling the elements during their 26.2 mile run through one of America’s oldest cities.