A 12-time All-American at Boise State, she just had impressive Boston Marathon showing
Former Boise State distance runner Emma Bates was confident heading into the Boston Marathon on Monday.
Bates told a reporter from Citius Magazine before the race that she believed she could finish the 26.2-mile course in 2:19.
She wasn’t far off.
Bates crossed the finish line No. 5 overall among women in 2:22:10, which was a new personal record and more than a minute faster than the 2:23:18 that earned her seventh place at the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon, last July.
“I had to walk the walk when I talked the talk,” Bates told Citius Magazine after the race. “It felt so good. I went for it, and it was the last couple miles that the other girls pulled away.”
Bates, 30, was the first American woman to cross the finish line. She led the pack through the first 21 miles of the race, but the grueling course took a toll in the end.
Kenya’s Hellen Obiri won the women’s race in 2:21:38. Evans Chebet, a fellow Kenyan, won the men’s race in 2:05:54.
“It’s tough because I could taste the win at that point,” Bates said. “I had led a lot of the race and I was like, ‘I don’t want to give in now,’ but your legs are on fire, and you’re trying to use your arms as much as you can.”
Bates was a 12-time All-American and nine-time conference champion at Boise State from 2010 to 2015. She won a national championship in the 10,000-meter event in 2014 and was inducted into the Boise State Hall of Fame last November.
The native of Elk River, Minnesota, now lives and trains in Boulder, Colorado, where she and her coach, Joe Bosshard, spent the past several months preparing for the hills on the backside of the Boston Marathon course.
“This whole training cycle, I’ve felt above and beyond what I’ve ever felt before,” Bates told a reporter from Runner’s World. “I’ve been running faster, in all my long runs and workouts, and it’s felt a lot easier as well. It’s coming around at the right time.”
Bates said she dealt with a bout of COVID early last year that hampered her training, but now she’s consistently posting the fastest times of her career.
“Everything felt like an uphill battle,” she told Citius Magazine. “It didn’t feel right until the fall, but now I’m reaping the benefits of all that training.”
Bates hinted after Monday’s race at competing again this fall with an eye toward breaking the American Women’s Marathon record, which 37-year-old Keira D’Amato set last year with a time of 2:19:12.
Bates also said she’s focused on the Olympic Marathon Trials in Orlando, Florida, on Feb. 3, 2024.
