If not for a change of plans, Tammy Ferreira and Mike McQuede both say they would have been near the finish line when two bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon on Monday, leaving three dead and more than 170 injured.

Ferreira, a Mattapoisett resident was running the race for the fourth time and had stopped at the 20-mile marker to talk with her family and run with her daughter the rest of the way.

“The last three times I’ve run it, they’re always at the finish line,” said Ferreira of her family. “It was just coincidence that my daughter wanted to run with me.”

Ferreira said she and her daughter were taking their time as they ran up Heartbreak Hill.

“We were laughing and talking, and then it was just horror and shock,” she said. The two were at mile 24 when the blasts went off.

After hearing about the bombs from other runners and bystanders, Ferreira happened to see her sister-in-law and a friend who were also in the race.

“The four of us went a block over and hopped in a cab. We took it out as far as we could,” said Ferreira, who met up wither the rest of her family outside the city.

McQuede, also of Mattapoisett, was even closer to the explosion. “I got to 25.5 and saw all this white smoke coming out of Copley Square,” he said.

Monday was McQuede’s first time running the race, and he said he was making good time. Only about a quarter of a mile from the finish, he said he saw police officers running to the site.

“You go from a runner’s high to panic mode. My wife and my kid were down at Copley,” he said. “The race was over for me at that point.”

McQuede hopped over a fence and ran into a college student who let him send a text message to his family, telling them to meet him at their hotel in the Financial District.

Only blocks from the bombings, McQuede said he would have been much closer if he hadn’t pulled a hamstring on Heartbreak Hill and chosen to walk it off.

Both Ferreira and McQuede were saddened and still shocked to have been so close to the tragedy.

“All this joy went to tragedy,” said McQuede. “My 11-year-old had to witness that.”