Could an Uncooperative Union Pacific Kill Sacramento’s Marathon?
You’ve trained for months and got up at the crack of dawn for the big race. You waited in Folsom for the start, shivering in the dark, with thousands of your friends.
Now, 25 exhausting miles later, you can almost smell the finish line as you pound your way down L Street.
Suddenly, a half block ahead of you, lights flash and bells clang as the guards drop at the railroad crossing. “Can this really be happening?” you wonder. It is certainly possible.
At last year’s Sactown 10, this very thing happened, despite assurances from the railroad that it would not. Subsequently, race management made the prudent decision to re-route the course to avoid the crossing.
But the California International Marathon, finishing at the Capitol, has to cross these tracks. Without completely changing the 30-year old race, there is simply no other way to get from the start to the finish–and Sacramento has no railroad overpasses in Midtown.