Chicago Marathon October 13th, 2024!
- Tucson Richelson
- Oct 12, 2024
- 2 min read
The Chicago Marathon is tomorrow! Yen is feeling good about it. She's glad it's not the first if the season. The Sydney Marathon was essentially a warm up. Which she took 3rd in by the way! Congratulations, Yen!
The Australia Marathon was extremely challenging, and not just because of the other participants. The course featured a:
Loop-de-loop
Jump over crocodiles
One of those hot wheels crosses
Just kidding!
The course DID have:
Countless turns, including hairpin 180 turns
Turns along a cliff edge (they added a guard rail this year!)
Numerous curbs, cobble stones, and pot holes
It didn't help that on the course dry run the day before, the bus driver initially went to the wrong start line, and that part of the course was closed off to traffic. Yen took copious notes, but it was tough to try to remember everything when you're focusing on, you know, trying to go faster than the person next to you.
The curbs were a unique challenge. In America, we have, "curb cuts" which are ramps built into the curb so you can go up and down. It's nice and gradual, but if there's no curb cut, you're kinda stuck. In Australia, all of the curbs are gradually sloped to the road. That make pretty much all side walks accessible, which is great! But they are terrible for a race! Imagine going 15mph and coming up on one of those. You pretty much have to come to a stop. Now imagine the race course goes up along the sidewalk at 45 degrees. Now you really have to stop. Unfortunately, another participant didn't look up in time, popped her front tire, and didn't finish the race. Ugh. I feel bad for her.
Yen is very glad she went. She had a great time.
There Chicago Marathon is mostly flat with lots of straight aways and minimal pot holes, which Yen likes. This is her 9th time doing it. Good luck Yen!!!
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