Runner Who Couldn't Complete Boston Marathon Will Finish The Job In Chicago

(CBS) -- By Saturday, the 45,000 runners participating in Sunday's Chicago Marathon will stop to pick-up their race packet.

Many of the participants ran in Boston. There are some who finished this year's race and others who didn't get a chance.

Among the latter is 25 year-old Laura Wellington.

CHICAGO MARATHON WEBSITE: GET THE LATEST

"I remember stopping, and I heard an individual say they stopped the marathon," she tells CBS 2's Courtney Gousman. "I was running along like, 'You don't stop the Boston Marathon, you just don't.'"

But she soon learned of the two bombs set off near the finish line.

"It's tough. I mean, you get 25 and a half miles and all of a sudden you're stopped. And the whole 25 miles, you're thinking of crossing that finish line," Wellington says.

Fast forward six months. This Boston native is now in Chicago ready to finish what she started at home.

"I'm excited. I'm nervous. This is the first one since Boston. That was traumatic," she says.

Family and friends are here to cheer her on. Her father, Parker Wellington, who was on the sidelines in April, will run alongside his daughter on Sunday.

It will be his first marathon in 32 years.

"I'll never forget," he says of the tragedy in Boston.

The father and daughter say the 26.2 miles they'll run here in Chicago will get them ready for next year's Boston Marathon.

"I'm doing it. I'm going to finish it, and I can't wait," Laura Wellington says.

A fellow runner and stranger gave Laura his medal after the Boston Marathon.