Emma Bates was widely considered a top contender to make the U.S. Olympic team in the marathon this year. But over the weekend, she announced she won’t be lining up at the Olympic Marathon Trials Bates personal best of 2:22:10 at the 2023 Boston Marathon, where she.
Bates, 31, tore her plantar fascia during October’s Chicago Marathon. On December 12, she posted that she had been healing well and was back to running on the ground for an hour at a time when she developed another injury, posterior tibial tendonitis.
around mile 14. She Instagram video posted Saturday night, Bates said that while she had returned to workouts with her Boulder-based training group, Team Boss, “we just know that there’s not enough time to be where I need to be.”
Bates’ personal best of 2:22:10 at the 2023 Boston Marathon, where she placed fifth, was the third-fastest time by an American last year.
Emma Batess Training and Recovery Tips hopes—saying she was in shape to run 2:18 to 2:19 pace—but stepped in a pothole Races & Places finished 13The Best and Worst of the Trials wheelchair. How to Coach Yourself to Peak Performance.
She put on a boot and began cross-training on the bike, knowing the buildup to the Trials wouldn’t be easy. With the new setback last month, she and coach Joe Bosshard decided it simply wouldn’t be possible.
th in 2:25:04 and left the finish line in a, won her marathon debut and the USATF Marathon Championships with a 2:28:18 at the 2018 California International Marathon and has steadily improved since. In her second marathon, the 2019 Chicago Marathon, she finished fourth in 2:25:27.
Those performances made her a contender for the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials, where she ran 2:29:35 to place seventh. But her next big breakthrough was around the corner. On a hot, humid day at the 2021 Chicago Marathon, she ran a personal-best 2:24:20 to place second.
Olympians Advice on Good Training Partners produced top-10 finishes at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon—she was seventh in 2:23:18, between Sara Hall (fifth in 2:22:10) and Keira D’Amato (eighth in 2:23:34).
Bates was clearly disappointed not to line up with the likes of Hall and D’Amato again in Orlando; “this one hurts a lot,” she wrote.
“It’s another four years to wait for another Olympic team,” she said in the accompanying video. “I’ll be OK. I’ll be OK.”
Cindy is a freelance health and fitness writer, author, and podcaster who’s contributed regularly to Runner’s World since 2013. She’s the coauthor of both Breakthrough Women’s Running: Dream Big and Train Smart and Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries, a book about the psychology of sports injury from Bloomsbury Sport. Cindy specializes in covering injury prevention and recovery, everyday athletes accomplishing extraordinary things, and the active community in her beloved Chicago, where winter forges deep bonds between those brave enough to train through it.
