CHAMPAIGN — Saturday’s Christie Clinic Illinois Marathon will be Katie Coffey’s first.
It will also be her last.
Not that Coffey intends to quit running. Half marathons are still in her future, and she’ll keep up her weekly runs ranging from 5 to 13 miles depending on just how many laps she takes around the 6-mile loop near her home in the country outside Mansfield.
But 26.2 miles in one day is something Coffey can’t do again. The toll it takes on her body is too much.
Coffey was diagnosed with a relapsing-remitting form of multiple sclerosis in 2011.