Hoping to use a half-marathon in Amherstburg, Ontario as preparation for a Boston Marathon qualification event, Meredith Fitzmaurice skipped a step and qualified early...because she took a wrong turn.
Instead of running the half marathon, she ran the full 26.2 miles and finished ahead of the rest of the field, despite never having completed a marathon before.
The Huffington Post reports that Fitzmaurice did realise her mistake eventually.
"I said to myself, 'OK, well, you don't want to turn around now because you're not going to be happy with your time for the half, so why don't you just get 20 miles in for a good training session,'" she told CBC Radio.
Noticing that there were no other female runners around, the 34-year-old asked an official whether her time would count and was given the thumbs up. She won the race in a time of 3:11:48, taking a shock gold medal and qualifying for Boston.
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However, some people are not impressed. From the Huffington Post:
“Her time should either be noted under the half marathon results or unfortunately a DQ (didn’t qualify)," wrote one Facebooker, as pointed out by Steele. "One must ask the question ‘How would the Boston Marathon view this finish?’ The Amherstburg Marathon -- a sanctioned Boston Marathon qualifier -- should also be held to the same rules and standards as that of the Boston Marathon if we are to hold Boston as the gold standard.”
