For Matt Johnson, the hurt came first.

Then came the drowning out of the nearly 18,000 runners and endless rows of spectators who crowded the sidelines of Monday’s 104th annual Boston Marathon.

“The first 15 miles I was giving high-fives to people and noticing the crowds,” said Johnson, a Weinberg sophomore. “After that you get into your race more and just concentrate on getting one foot in front of the other.”

McCormick senior Matt Soule, who has run five marathons, agreed. “Your whole body is telling you to stop running, but there’s this part of you that says you’ve got to keep going,” he said.

Johnson and Soule were two of five Northwestern students who ran in the marathon. Terah Donovan, Nathan Pavlik and Lilly Zsolnay joined them for the race.

Although Johnson and Soule ran side by side for more than 15 miles, the two athletes were minds apart.

Johnson, also a five-marathon veteran, left Soule after 16 miles with silent inspiration. His boost: cheers from spectators standing outside the all-female Wellesley College.

“Soule and I were running at 6:45 a mile, but I must have run a 6-minute mile when I saw them,” Johnson said. “That’s when I lost Soule. I lost him in my consciousness.”

Johnson, whose training was sporadic because of a stress fracture in his ankle, said he “got a kick” out of spectators’ fascination with the marathon. He said he remembers crowd members’ faces as they watched 15 runners line up against a wall to relieve themselves before the race.

“(The spectators) came out to see a parade,” he said. “What they got was really ugly.”

Johnson said his next marathon will be “unrecognized” and on a trail. He said he will wait 50 years before running Boston again because he doesn’t like the marathon lifestyle.

“Always striving for more is an unhealthy mentality,” Johnson said.

Goals have motivated Soule, who ran Boston for the third time.

He said he will continue to run marathons until he breaks three hours — eight minutes faster than what he ran on Monday.

“When I finished, I thought I was never doing this again,” Soule said. “Of course, I came back to reality. It’s hard to stay away now, especially since I haven’t achieved my goal.”

While tendonitis prevented Soule from running during the two weeks before the marathon, he said he had confidence going into the race.

“A lot of it is your attitude,” he said. “If you convince yourself you’re not prepared to finish it, you won’t do that well. And you’ll be crying for help.”

Soule said his experience in past marathons made all the difference in the race.

“I felt like I knew what I was doing,” he said. “I knew what I was up against. I wasn’t nervous, I was actually pretty relaxed and confident. In terms of the way I felt, it may have been my best experience.”

Pavlik, a Weinberg sophomore whose first marathon was the Chicago race in October, said he felt experienced but had difficulty pacing because he ran too fast at first.

“I was sort of upset that I tried to go for the faster time,” Pavlik said. “Not finishing was not an option.”

Three days before the race, Pavlik’s doctor told him that an arch in his foot had collapsed, causing cartilage to build up in his knee. He said it didn’t hurt during the race, but that he’s in pain now, as are the other runners.

Weinberg sophomore Lilly Zsolnay, whose first marathon was also in Chicago last October, said she enjoys interesting scenery in marathon courses. While she liked the suburban setting of the Boston Marathon, she said she preferred the Chicago course because she ran through ethnic areas such as Chinatown rather than the suburbs.

“The (Chicago) course had more personality and variety,” Zsolnay said.

She finished first in the 19-and-younger age category in Chicago but did not place as high in Boston because she had to run in a broader age category, spanning from ages 18 to 39.

Zsolnay said a 92-year-old marathon veteran who completed 61 Boston marathons spoke and read poetry before the race — and he motivated her to run marathons for the rest of her life.

“I want to be in my 50s and 60s and running faster than people at that age,” she said.

Zsolnay said the next time she takes part in a marathon may be as a spectator.

“I really want to watch a marathon,” she said. “I’ve never seen the elite runners because I run behind them. I heard they always look calm and confident, like they’re jogging.”

Zsolnay said she wants to run in the Walt Disney World Marathon, where she will bring a tape recorder to conduct interviews with runners and capture the cheers of spectators. She said she also wants to help raise money for charity.

Donovan, a Weinberg senior, was part of the first Illinois Chapter of the Leukemia&Lymphoma Society of America’s Team in Training. She raised $3,700 for the Leukemia Society, 75 percent of which went to research and treatment and 25 percent of which helped pay for runners’ hotel and travel bills.

“It’s nice that I can use my athletic ability to help people,” Donovan said. “I don’t have to find the cure, but I can do my part.”

The most difficult part of the race came before it started, Donovan said. A bus drove the runners to “Athlete Village,” where they waited three hours outside in the cold for the race to begin.

“You’re there, you want to go, and you’re freezing cold,” she said.

But Donovan said that Heartbreak Hill — a series of hills at the end of the race that most people consider to be the toughest part — was not difficult for her.

“I didn’t even know I did it,” she said. “I had to ask someone, ‘Did we just do Heartbreak Hill?'”