Claire Sirmon powered herself up to the top of Monument Ridge in the Gravelly Mountain Range on Saturday. The 21-year-old led the half marathon race, but she had thousands of feet of climbing left to beat.
Behind her, runners crossed the rolling hills in hopes of finishing one of the highest elevation and most difficult road races in the world: the Madison Half and Full Marathon.
âI always tell people to add on an hour to their normal running time,â race director Sam Korsmoe said in an interview with the Gazette. âThe race is brutal and averages over 9,000 feet, but people love it.â
The jury is in on leap years. They suck. The year 2020 was a leap year and it definitely sucked. But was it the worst year in history?
Nah, probably not. According to an article in Science Magazine, the âworst year to be aliveâ was in 536, or so claims medieval scholar Michael McCormick. It was, of course, a leap year.
There has been quite a bit of soul searching and even some research to qualify and quantify just how shitty the year 2020 has been. Pop historians who focus on contemporary issues (as well as goofy ideas on leap years) can be quick to say that anything in front of them qualifies as âthe worst,â âthe best,â âthe biggest,â and so on. But, thatâs pop history for you and it should be taken with a grain of salt.