A Runner Making His 10k Debut Last Week Missed The Start Because He Was Going The Bathroom – He Still Broke 27 Minutes

Are you a new runner nervous about making your 10k debut? Don’t fret. It’s natural – everyone gets nervous. Last weekend, a top Ethiopian pro missed the start of his 10,000m debut after he decided to try to make a quick run to the bathroom. That came after one of the fastest runners in NCAA history delayed the start because he realized he’d forgotten his race bib. Rookie mistakes from two of the world’s best runners.

This is how it happened.

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One of the most badass 10,000m races in recent years would never have happened if Habtom Samuel hadn’t forgotten his bib. Samuel knows a thing or two about badass races, having finished 2nd at the NCAA cross country championships in November despite running the final 5,000 meters with one shoe. Samuel had both shoes on just minutes before the start of the elite 10,000m section at The TEN on Saturday night at JSerra Catholic High School in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. But neither he nor his University of New Mexico teammate (and eventual race winner) Ishmael Kipkurui had a bib.

Kipkurui received his as he was walking to the line, but seeing Kipkurui with a bib in his hand reminded Samuel that he was not wearing one himself. Instinctively, Samuel went AWOL to retrieve it, setting off a chain of events that would lead to two runners, France’s Simon Bedard and Ethiopia’s Telahun Haile Bekele, to miss the start of the race. The mishap derailed Bedard’s race, as he would finish 21st in 28:20.99, well off his 27:42 personal best. But Bekele, making his 10,000-meter debut, hung on to finish 4th in 26:52.79, hitting the 2025 World Championship standard of 27:00.00 despite running taking 11 seconds just to cross the start line.

“That’s one of the most baller things I’ve ever seen someone do on a track,” said Jesse Williams, meet director for The TEN.

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“Stay close”

Though Samuel had forgotten his bib, he didn’t actually need it to start the race – Oklahoma State’s Denis Kipngetich ran the entire race without one. But before Williams had a chance to tell him, Samuel had run off.

“We were about to sound the gun and Habtom was just gone,” Williams said. “Somebody was like, Oh, he forgot his bib. We were kind of yelling, he doesn’t actually need it. It just has your name on it, it’s for the announcers, it’s for pictures, it’s for sponsors. Like, he’s fine.”

Williams did not want to start the race without Samuel, the reigning NCAA 10,000-meter champion, who by now was on the other side of the infield. But he didn’t want the rest of the field to tense up waiting for him on the start line, either.

“I told the athletes, ‘Stay close, take 30 seconds, we’re waiting,’” Williams said. “So people did what you do in that situation, a 50-meter stride, jump around, walk down.”

Update: One of the runners in the race emailed LetsRun.com and claimed Williams told the athletes to take two minutes, rather than 30 seconds. The race started about 75 seconds after Williams’ instructions. “To me it was the organizer’s/starter’s fault,” said the runner, who requested anonymity. “If you give us 2 minutes, you have to give us (at least) 2 minutes.”

When Samuel returned with his bib, the rest of the field returned to the start line.

“There’s 30 guys on the line,” Williams said. “It’s not like there’s 10. There’s 30. (Note: There were actually 27, including pacers.) And so we’re looking down the straightaway, there’s nobody…So we’re like, okay, everybody’s here, nobody’s saying anything.

“Could we have counted them or something? 100%. But it was only one minute, so to lose two people wasn’t something that crosses your mind. And all of the rest of our races went right on time. So we’re now three minutes late. So I’m like, everybody’s here, obviously. Honestly, it wasn’t a thought on whether everybody was there.”

Seventy-five seconds after he sent the runners off for a stride, Williams took one last look down the home straight. He didn’t see anyone. The starter called the runners to their marks. Williams said, the starter was no longer scanning for stragglers. He was looking straight ahead, focused on starting the race correctly. Everything looked good. So he fired the gun.

In actuality, as the field was taking their marks, two runners — Bedard and Bekele — were hustling toward the start line. You can see them way down the homestretch in the picture below.

You can see Bekele at the very start of the straightaway

They had missed the start.

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A risky bathroom break

While most of the field had stepped off the line to do a stride while they waited for Samuel to retrieve his bib, Bekele had a more pressing issue. He had to go. With no toilet nearby, he ran to the opposite corner of the track and found a dark corner where he could go to the bathroom.

“When I was returning from the restroom to the 200m start area, I saw the athletes lining up, so I started running,” Bekele said in a text message to LetsRun.com. “When I was around 100m away, the race started.”

One of the world’s best 5,000-meter runners – Bekele finished 4th at the 2019 World Championships and owns a personal best of 12:42.70, ninth on all-time list – he had been encouraged to run at The TEN by his coach, Nigatu Worku, with the hopes for qualifying for the World Championships in Tokyo. 

The Ethiopian Athletics Federation is notoriously poor for conveying its qualification processes. Sometimes, the federation will go strictly off season’s bests. In recent years, Ethiopia has held a trials race to pick its 10,000-meter team for global championships, but Bekele said the federation has not announced anything yet for 2025. Typically, those trials are rabbitted, with a winning time well under 27:00.

But Bekele was still hoping to test himself at The TEN and hit the World Championship standard – and perhaps more. The Wavelight pace lights used in the race had been set to 27:00, but Bekele’s agent had requested an extra set, set for 26:45 pace, to be activated should he need them late in the race.

It never came to that. Bekele said he was shocked to see the race starting without him, but he resolved to catch up and give the race his best shot anyway.

“I had prepared well and devised a strategy for the race, but my strategy fell apart before the race even started because of what happened,” Bekele said. “I convinced myself that I could still make it, and I had time because it was 25 laps.”

Bekele’s first lap was recorded as 73.63. In reality, it took him 11 seconds just to cross the start line. That means he ran around 70-75 extra meters once the gun fired, though at that point he had already started running toward the start line (you can time it for yourself; it all unfolds in the background of this interview). So he actually covered the first 400m, start line to start line, in about 62.6. He caught the tail end of the pack just after 800m and wound up running his first 1600m in 4:23.12. Or 4:12 when you account for his handicap – that’s 26:15 pace, just off Joshua Cheptegei’s 26:11.00 world record pace.

Bekele rallied well enough to hang with the leaders and even briefly took the lead with a mile to go, holding it until there were two laps remaining. But after the extra effort at the start, Bekele didn’t have much for a final kick, closing in 58.68 to finish 4th in 26:52.79.

That’s what his time in the results says, at least. Anyone who watched it knew it was worth a lot more. In reality, Bekele ran 26:52.79 for around 10,070 meters, covering the 10,000 meters once he crossed the start line in roughly 26:41. Williams says even that undersells Bekele’s performance.

“Between sprinting down there while he had his stress hormone levels jacked through the ceiling and sprinting back, I mean, that’s gotta be a 26:30s effort,” Williams said. “…It’s pretty insane. I’m glad he got the time because we all know to make the team he has to make, the time is the most important thing. But I am bummed that he could have run 26:30-something that day and that [might] have helped his selection.

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Williams said he was frustrated for how things played out and felt bad for Bedard and Bekele.

In retrospect, he wishes he had yelled at the starter to call the entire field back as soon as they realized the two runners had missed the start. But the whole situation was so strange – unprecedented in Williams’ career as a meet director – and had developed so suddenly that he struggled to process it immediately. The race was already running behind schedule, and he had already left the start area.

“Honestly there was no reference for it in my brain,” Williams said. “So by the time we realized what had happened, [Bekele] was probably 15 meters from the start line. If he was 100 meters back, the whole field was 100 meters in. And in hindsight, we still could have called it back, I could have yelled at the starter. But we were so confused at how they were even not there that it just didn’t cross [my mind].”

“It’s our meet so it’s definitely our responsibility,” Williams said. “It’s a freak, kind of weird situation. I’ve never seen it before. At a pro meet, I’ve never seen someone not come back to the line or something like that happen. But it’s our meet. When something doesn’t work right, it’s something that we look at ourselves and try to figure out how we’re going to do better.”

Bekele, meanwhile, does not carry a grudge. He’s already looking forward to returning in 2026.

“The TEN is a great place to run a fast time, and I really like the environment,” Bekele said. “I will run here again next year. I will never forget this place in my life.”