BUTLER TWP — Jennifer Bole tears up thinking about it.

On Monday in Boston, Bole will see the realization of a goal that was years in the making.

Bole last year qualified for this year’s Boston Marathon at a race in Erie with a time of 3 hours, 31 minutes, beating the cutoff by four minutes.

It has opened up new opportunities for the 31-year-old Butler resident. One of which is that she will ride on an airplane for the first time.

“I’m looking forward to the next week. Meeting a bunch of awesome people, and I’m honored to run with the best athletes in the world,” Bole said.

“It makes me want to cry right now. The whole experience of it, I don’t know. You’re kind of like a family.”

That feeling of family should be more intact Monday with the 118th running of the Boston Marathon. Last year’s event ended when a bomb went off at the finish line and a second one exploded a short distance before the line.

The blasts killed three people and injured 264 others.

A manhunt followed, ending in the killing of one suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and the capture of his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Dzhokhar is to go to trial in November.

Butler resident Amy Formica, 40, was a half-mile from the finish line last year when she was stopped. Without her cell-phone, Formica, who was running in her first Boston Marathon, had no idea what was going on.

“Other people had things way worse than I did. But before I knew what happened, it bothered me I didn’t finish,” Formica said. “Distance runners, we like to finish what we start. It’s eaten away at me for the past year.”

What happened last year wasn’t going to prevent Bole from making the trip this year.

“I wasn’t going to let that stop me from achieving a dream,” Bole said. “Because I wanted to do it for all the people there. I wasn’t going to let it scare me and stop me. It was a dream, and when I set out to do something, I do it.”

Experienced marathon runners expect to see a swell of pride for a race.

Mars resident Joe Church, 62, will compete in his third Boston Marathon. Church also ran in 2007 and 2010 and he feels like with the 7,700 additional people running this year, the race will be more crowded than previous years.

Organizers are anticipating a near-record 36,000 runners.

“Because of the Boston bombings, I think you’re going to see a more intense interest and more intense spectator crowd,” Church said. “If you read the boards the runners pay attention to, you can see the excitement. I can’t wait to get up there.”

Mark Shipley, 38, of Cranberry Township, also is a first-time Boston Marathon participant and shares Bole’s eagerness. What happened last year isn’t a big concern, he said.

If anything, it’s more motivation to make the trip.

“I’m very comfortable going. I’m very confident in the security that will be around the race,” Shipley said. “I think the race will be one of the safest places for us.”

During the year Bole, a single-mother, manages training along with spending time with her 4- and 8-year-old daughters.

“When the bombings happened, I wanted it more,” Bole said. “I work evenings so I get up, go the YMCA and they watch your kids for an hour-and-a-half. I use that time at the Y, or if my mom doesn’t have to work, she watches the kids for me.”

Shipley described his first marathon as a learning experience. He never ran one before he competed in 2003 in the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C..

“The training was fun,” Shipley said. “The race itself was a character building experience. It told me how much pain I could take and helped me understand how hard I could push myself.”

But having the U.S. Army push him to run over five years made Church stop running at 28. He didn’t get back into the sport until he was 52.

“I joined the Army, and they made me not enjoy running,” Church said.

A mountain-climbing trip about 10 years ago changed Church’s mind. During the climb, Church, who was 205 pounds at the time, felt exhausted.

He felt it was time to get back into shape. So he took on a rigorous running schedule and ran his first marathon in 2005.

Church keeps a rigorous schedule, competing in six to eight marathons a year. Now, he’s down to 155 pounds.

He’s careful not to burn himself out during races.

“I don’t run any races so that I’m completely exhausted or spent after I’m done,” Church said. “I hold back. At 62, I’m not beating the Kenyans.”

Formica uses marathons as an opportunity to train for even longer distances.

Her specialty is 100-mile races.

She’s hoping to be able to enjoy the race this year and finish what she started last year.

“Last year, I didn’t take my cell phone, and I was by myself,” Formica said. “I’m going to take some pictures along the course and treat this less like a race and more like a special event.”