When two bombs exploded near the finish line at the Boston Marathon on Monday, April 15, Sean Sundwall of Snoqualmie, the first of about a dozen local runners to finish the race, was back in his hotel room, thinking about his race time of 2:29:32 and getting ready for the trip home.

Just over four hours into Boston’s Marathon Monday, the explosions killed three people and injured 170.

Within 45 minutes of Sundwall’s finish, another four local racers crossed the line, Dave Latourette of North Bend and Paul Scott, Snoqualmie, a minute apart at 3:01:35 and 3:02:38, then Curtis Pitts of Carnation crossed the finish line at 3:15:02, and Sommer Reynolds of Snoqualmie finished two minutes later.

Sundwall thought most of the 27,000 runners had already finished the race when the explosions occurred.

“It’s huge silver lining of sorts,” he said in a phone call from a plan, minutes before take-off Monday evening. “There could have been a lot more collateral damage, if it had been even half an hour earlier.”

Immediately following the explosions, law enforcement agencies essentially locked the area down, and cancelled flights into and out of the city.

“All we were told officially was to stay in our hotel and not go outside,” Sundwall said, adding that they were concerned about additional explosions or other incidents. He was cleared to fly home in the early evening, when outbound flights were allowed again.

Two bombing suspects were identified Thursday, and one was killed in a shootout with police Thursday night. The second suspect was captured Friday night, after police lifted a neighborhood lock down, and a resident spotted a blood trail that led to his hiding place.