Emma Bates, a top US contender in the Boston Marathon, will try to beat Kenyans and dodge potholes

HOPKINTON, Mass. (AP) — Emma Bates should be extra weary of the Boston Marathon course on Monday when she tries to improve upon last year’s fifth-place finish.

Not the hills or the headwinds.

The potholes.

The 31-year-old former Boston resident stepped in one midway through the Chicago Marathon last fall, tearing a tissue in her foot. She finished 13th but left the course in a wheelchair.

A setback during her recovery forced Bates to withdraw from the Olympic marathon trials in February. So, instead of planning for Paris, Bates is running Boston again a year after she led the pack through Brookline, with the crowd chanting her name.

“That was the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my career, that’s for sure,” she said last week. “Being in the lead and setting myself up for the most success that I could have on that day, it was just really special to know that as long as I trust myself, as long as I go after it, that I can do pretty big things.”