Timed to coincide with the week that commemorates Veterans Day and to honor all those who have served in the U.S. armed forces, Columbia City’s Veterans Marathon & Half Marathon will take runners on a tour of this city of just over 8,000 souls in northeastern Indiana, which lies between the state’s more well-known cities of Fort Wayne and South Bend, the home of the University of Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish. The fall of 2024 marks the race’s 16th annual running, and will start and finish near the center of Columbia City, with the starting line on Van Buren Street, just a block away from the finish line, which runners will cross in front of the Courthouse Square on Market Street.
Those running the half marathon will run first loop of the full marathon course, making roughly an out-and-back loop from the streets of town out into the farmland areas south of town, through residential neighborhoods in the first few miles and along roads that run past wide-open farm fields in the middle and later stretches of the route.
