Somerville resident Beth Kaufman, right, will be running the 2014 Boston Marathon as part of the YMCA of Greater Boston’s team. All funds raised by Y Marathon team members will support the YMCA of Greater Boston’s teen programs.

Somerville’s Beth Kaufman considers herself one of the lucky ones. Last Marathon Monday, as she stood on Boylston Street, a block away from the bombs that struck Boston, she was able to flee from the scene of the tragedy physically unscathed.

She remembers seeing the fear, chaos, destruction and injured runners; things that can never be unseen.

“It’s hard to describe,” Kaufman, 36, said. “Although I wasn’t physically injured and no part of the bomb actually touched me, weeks after the event I was still terrified to leave the house.  I wouldn’t take the T because anyone that had a backpack seemed suspicious to me. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to be physically injured in the attacks.”

Weeks went by, and Kaufman slowly regained her confidence and trust in the city. An avid runner, who had taken on the Boston Marathon in 2004, she decided that she needed to take control of the situation, take back the celebratory event, and she became determined to run this year’s Boston Marathon.

She signed up for the Twin Cities Marathon, a qualifying race for Boston, and included sections of the Boston Marathon route into her training runs.

“Running down Boylston Street was therapy for me,” Kaufman said. “It helped me heal immensely. I would stop and stand where I stood last April, and it felt like I was standing up for my city.”

She laced up and took on the Twin Cities route this past October, turning around all of fear and emotions to propel her forward. Despite her efforts, she missed the qualifying time for the Boston Marathon by just 25 seconds.

“I was devastated,” she said. “All of that training and I thought I wasn’t going to be able to fulfill my goal of running for Boston.”

Then, just a week later after submitting an essay about her personal experience at the Boston Marathon to the Boston Athletic Association, and despite her 25-second timing miss in Minneapolis, the BAA granted her a bib to run.

Though Kaufman is not required to fundraise for her run, the director of operations at the YMCA of Greater Boston’s Waltham branch will run as part of the YMCA’s team, hoping to raise $3,000 for her employer.

“I am not running so that I can eat a large pizza with no guilt,” she says. “What will be driving me to run this April is supporting Boston, the community, the families, and everyone who was affected. The YMCA is so closely interwoven into the city of Boston and surrounding communities and makes a significant difference in the lives of hundreds of families, and so I thought it was the perfect organization to dedicate my run to.”