Meredith Fitzmaurice had never run a full marathon before. She was working her way up to that when she entered the half-marathon at the Run for Heroes Marathon in Amherstburg, Ontario, last Sunday. But the half-marathon and the full marathon were happening at the same time, and she missed a turn on the half-marathon course. Fitzmaurice just kept going with the other runners.
"I just run with my watch, so I was watching my time since I planned to do my half in under 1:28," she said. "I was doing the race as training for my first full marathon in Detroit. But I'm looking at the time and wondering where the finish line is."
Fitzmaurice, 34, asked one of the bike officials on the course where the turn was for the half-marathon, although she admits by that point she had her suspicions.
"Once I realized what I had done, I figured, well I'll just run 20 miles and use it as a long run and call it a day," she said.
But as she headed from the turnaround she started to count people ahead of her.
There were only a few men ahead, and no women, so Fitzmaurice kept running, and was the first woman across the finish line, and the tenth overall with a time of 3:11:48. Link -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Dax Melmer/Postmedia News)