Emma Bates, a 12-time All-American at Boise State and the 2014 NCAA 10,000m champion, is an exciting athlete to return to Chicago.
Name: Emma Bates
Country of Origin: USA
Standout Race:
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She broke 2:30 in her marathon debut, finishing in 2:28:19 while also capturing her first U.S. title.
More About Emma Bates:
After struggling to find her stride while running professionally in Boston,
she packed up and moved back to Boise, Idaho. She ran her marathon debut by instinct, hitting the half in 1:13 and then slowing slightly over the second half. After the race, she said, “My legs were fine, but I overdid it with fluid intake and started having trouble keeping everything down, so I eased off the 2:26 pace I was running to deal with that. It’s exciting because I know I can run a faster
marathon just by fixing that.”
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And fix it, she did. Bates ran 2:25:27 in her first appearance in Chicago in 2019, and she narrowly missed making the U.S. Olympic marathon team in 2020, finishing seventh on a grueling course in Atlanta. Bates followed that marathon with a PR in the half marathon, and then another strong showing in the marathon at The Marathon Project, finishing fourth in 2:25:40.
Bates’ 2021 season has consisted of a mixture of the roads and the track. Most recently, she finished seventh at the Falmouth Road Race 7-mile in 38:50.
