Illinois Race Weekend is coming up at the end of the month, and it has that branding right now because the former centerpiece of the weekend, the marathon, has not been happening for the past few years. After disruptions from COVID in 2020 and 2021, the race weekend came back in 2022 sans a 26.2 mile race due to a lack of first responders available to cover the race.
Today it was announced that the marathon will be back for 2024. This time, it will have a brand new route that is meant to cause less disruption to the community. The Urbana portion will remain the same, but the Champaign portion will be altered to veer more to the south, incorporating Savoy into the route. You can find the new map in The News-Gazette.