Bobby O'Donnell was scarred by the Boston Marathon bombing two years ago, but he is seeking salvation this weekend in the Blue Mountains bush.
The 21-year-old American will take on The North Face 50km run and hopes it will give him the peace he has been seeking since that terrorist act killed three spectators, including an eight-year-old boy, and left 17 people amputees, maiming another 243.
Bobby O'Donnell was a 19-year-old college student when on April 15, 2013, he embarked on his first Boston Marathon.
"I knew it would be a day that I would never forget, unfortunately it was a day everyone in America wouldn't forget," he said.
"I come from a very small, safe town and I never had to fear much growing up. I know now what fear is - I thought my family and friends had been killed."
The two pressure cooker bombs were packed with nails and explosives and hidden in backpacks behind rows of spectators, which included children, near the popular race's finish line.
O'Donnell was just 1km from the finish line when the two bombs opened up. Chaos followed and a spectator running away from the finish line told him the grandstands had been blown up.
"My family was in the grandstand, my girlfriend Jess, my mum, dad, my nanna ... I thought I'd lost all of them.
"I later found out the spectator was misinformed. My family escaped physically unscathed and when I was finally able to hug them that feeling of fear that I felt did not go away." He continued to be "haunted" by the event.
Despite last year re-entering and finishing the race he said the "act of terrorism" has left him "looking for peace".
"Fear is the obstacle that challenges us, it's the villain in our story that makes us quit."
The North Face 50km race is a cross-country marathon which starts and finishes at Scenic World and includes some of the most spectacular clifftops and valleys around the Upper Mountains including the Jamison Valley, Kedumba Pass and Kings Tableland.
"I am excited to get out and run The North Face [50km] to finally reach peace with running again. I think trail running in Australia is just what I need to clear my head and reflect on what running means to me after my experiences over the last two years."
O'Donnell, who is working as a paramedic and training to be an emergency room doctor, said he has "always loved Australia and the natural beauty ... of the country. I feel that some time spent on the trails in the Blue Mountains is the perfect way to rediscover my true passion for running and set my mind in a peaceful state."
At the time of the bombing the chief of emergency services at Massachusetts General Hospital, Alasdair Conn, said: "This is something I've never seen in my 25 years here ... this amount of carnage in the civilian population. This is what we expect from war."
The world's longest continuously staged marathon [started in 1897], it attracts half a million spectators each year and some 30,000 runners. It is always held on Patriots' Day.
O'Donnell said: "Almost every day since April 15, 2013, the marathon bomber has been on the news. Myself, and mostly everyone that was touched that day, is ready to move on."
O'Donnell said luck really was on his side the day of the marathon as an injury slowed him down, putting him out of the bombers' path.
"Around 32km I strained my hip flexor and I began to walk through the water stops. I was on pace to be running right by the bomb when it exploded. My father was tracking me and had his cell phone camera video recording because he knew I was due through any time. Incidentally, he captured the explosions on film. It was the luckiest injury of my life."
The bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was found guilty last month on all 30 federal counts in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing case.
His lawyers had argued that his late brother was the mastermind in the attack but jurors disagreed. Seventeen of the counts carry the death sentence.
O'Donnell said after running in Australia his goal is to run a marathon on every continent.
