Canadian half-marathoner misses turn, runs full marathon, wins race anyway

But if it were a marathon on a track someone might come back for the win after getting lapped. I heard it could happen.

The entry was denied unless he had a say in it. That's the key that speaks volumes.

It's obvious that she kipped the course.

Adler wrote:

The entry was denied unless he had a say in it. That's the key that speaks volumes.

???

According to a few commenters on this story at RW (http://www.runnersworld.com/fun/wrong-turn-leads-to-marathon-win), she may not have actually run the full marathon distance.

"I hate to spoil Meredith's amazing accomplishment and a feel-good story featured on Today, RW, and other sites, but the half marathon starting line was approximately 100 meters forward of the marathon starting line. The half runners started on the street; the full runners started under the start/finish line. My friend Gary Godula was a half pacer and he calculated 100m because that is roughly how far off the first 13km markers were off for him while pacing. Therefore, she technically did not run a full marathon."

Digging further, it appears that the race directory acknowledges that the half marathon start line was approximately 40m up the road, see

https://www.facebook.com/karen.perzyk/posts/10201183082673657

His argument is that a 42.2km course is certified at 42.2m long so she actually ran the full marathon distance. Not sure I'd buy that if I'd run the full course and finished behind her, though!

Separate Starts? wrote:

According to a few commenters on this story at RW (http://www.runnersworld.com/fun/wrong-turn-leads-to-marathon-win), she may not have actually run the full marathon distance.

"I hate to spoil Meredith's amazing accomplishment and a feel-good story featured on Today, RW, and other sites, but the half marathon starting line was approximately 100 meters forward of the marathon starting line. The half runners started on the street; the full runners started under the start/finish line. My friend Gary Godula was a half pacer and he calculated 100m because that is roughly how far off the first 13km markers were off for him while pacing. Therefore, she technically did not run a full marathon."

100m? Big deal. You don't think she could have run another 100m if she knew? She clearly is in good enough shape to not be an embarrassment at Boston,

If the HM and M start lines were different, it seems like a really strange decision by the RD to allow her race to count as a marathon if she started with the HMers. That's not the kind of detail you just forget about as an RD.

If the difference really is only 40m I expect Boston would allow an exception, especially with her time so far ahead of the standard for her (or any) women's age groups. Boston does that all the time when races screw up their distance. But Boston is closed for 2014, so are we talking about her qualifying for the 2015 Boston? If so, she got almost a year to get a marathon in under the time standard. Doesn't seem like that would be asking too much.

If I'm the women who finished 2nd, 3rd, etc in the marathon part of me is pretty pissed off. 2nd place only finished 2:16 back, who knows how it would have gone if they were running together from the start. No intermediate chip splits available in their results to be able to tell how close it was during the race, i.e. was 2nd place able to see 1st place at say 15 miles or was it a case where the lead woman was well out in front and out of sight.

given the large positive split of the HM to M runner, I doubt she was within sight most of the race.

Not sure why everyone is getting so uptight about the 'competition'. She won the women's race in 3:11. Not exactly elite competitive women we are talking about here. If any of the women were there with the intent to win then they are cherry picking slow races and don't deserve it anyway.

Nobody saw her "half" bib?

joho, this is not 'Nam. This is road racing. There are rules.

Ultimately it's the race director's call.

So she ran 26.1X miles, may or may not have had the aid of a cyclist, may or may not have paid the extra fee, 2nd place runner apparently did not know that another runner was in the field. These things do add up.

But then again a 3:11 a solid but not great time, not a prize money event (right?), and 2nd was several minutes back. What's the harm?

Nav error. Sort of like wrong-way Corrigan.

http://www.public.asu.edu/~hnesse/classes/sirv.html?Alpha=0.3&Beta=0.9&Nu=0.05&initialS=10&initialI=1&initialR=10&iters=0

I say it had to be the level of fitness she achieved doing all the xfit training on the side that helped her power through.

conspiracy theorist wrote:

Ultimately it's the race director's call.

So she ran 26.1X miles, may or may not have had the aid of a cyclist, may or may not have paid the extra fee, 2nd place runner apparently did not know that another runner was in the field. These things do add up.

But then again a 3:11 a solid but not great time, not a prize money event (right?), and 2nd was several minutes back. What's the harm?

This^ ...except

It's okay that she didn't get penalized by an honest mistake, but she shouldn't get rewarded for it either. I'd give her the BQ, but not the 1st place medal. She didn't enter the race. She didn't run the full distance. She doesn't deserve a medal for making a mistake.