Stop! Turn Back! You’re running the wrong way!

There was a picture in the New South Wales newspapers on Monday of Daniel Robinson running the Newcastle Marathon while pushing a Victa Corvette lawnmower. He finished in just over four hours, raising funds and awareness for an Australian mental health charity.

When Robinson’s story was later shared on social media, he was promptly accused of cutting the course. Somebody, somewhere wasn’t being cheated out of that joke.

These are testing times for distance runners everywhere. Unless they’re similarly accused of cutting the course or, worse still, sent the wrong way, all 50,000 runners in Sunday’s London Marathon will want to have covered exactly 26 miles and 385 yards between the start and the finish. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less. Exactly what they paid for.

No matter what the distance, no runner would easily want to cheat or be cheated out of it. Especially come the finish. It may be lost on some of those running London this time round, but apart from poor Pheidippides and his fatal jaunt from Marathon to Athens back in 490 BC, there’s still no more cautionary tale of distance running than what happened in London 115 years ago, at the climax of the 1908 Olympic marathon.

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[ Frank McNally on Pheidippides  ]

That was the day Dorando Pietri, the young pastry chef from Italy, staggered bow-legged into the stadium like a hopeless drunk before being bundled over the finish line, only to be later disqualified. “It was a spectacle the like of which none living had ever seen,” reported the New York Times, “and none who saw it expect ever to see repeated”.

Pietri didn’t set out to cheat or be cheated. Most early marathons measured around 26 miles, with those last 385 yards in 1908 added, according to running folklore, so that the course could start in the grounds of Windsor Castle, at the request of the Princess of Wales, and finish directly in front of the royal box, inside the mammoth White City Stadium.

When Pietri entered first, after breezing in front two miles from home, he still had those 385 yards to run. He immediately swung right, instead of left. When officials tried to send him the right way, he appeared even more flustered, afraid they were trying to deceive him. He then fell over, and with that the officials intervened, half cradling him in their arms until he fell over the winning line.

And win he did, in 2:54.56, with American Johnny Hayes, a son of Nenagh’s finest, finishing 22 seconds later. Inevitably the American team protested, and later, while recovering in his team lodgings, Pietri was told he was disqualified. There was some consolation in that Queen Alexandra, moved by his effort, presented him with a special cup the next day, at the same time as Hayes was presented with the Olympic gold medal. It wasn’t Pietri’s fault those 385 yards probably cost him that honour.

It’s a matter of debate whether the same should be said of Joasia Zakrzewski, the veteran British ultra-marathon runner who cut the course of the 50-mile race from Manchester to Liverpool earlier this month, and nearly got away with it. It was only after race officials reviewed her race data to discover she’d run one mile, mid-race, in one minute and 40 seconds, that she was exposed. She’d taken a lift in a car.

Zakrzewski says she never intended to cheat, and instead had simply been encouraged to finish the race on foot, which she decided to do “in a non-competitive way”. After crossing the line in third place, she accepted the trophy that came with that. “It wasn’t malicious, it was miscommunication,” Zakrzewski told the BBC. Mel Sykes, who was later promoted to third, thought otherwise, adamant “a fellow competitor cheated”.

For an accomplished runner like Zakrzewsk, no way was the lift in any way premeditated, and although widely joked about on social medal, there is no way would she want to cheat herself out of the full distance. Would she?

It was the same with the 2,000 or so runners in Sunday’s Great Ireland 10km Run in the Phoenix Park who, through no fault of their own, were misdirected early in the race and ended up finishing some 1.5km short of the distance. No wonder so many felt so disappointed afterwards, especially those who’d travelled up the night before, this race being their spring target from several months out, and over three-quarters of whom had paid the full entry fee of €30.

As in recent years the event also incorporated the Athletics Ireland National 10km road race championships, staged over a well-worn route in the Phoenix Park, and hosted by Dublin City Harriers. The problem arose shortly before the 3km mark, when the runners were misdirected and, with that, missed out on the second of the smaller 1.5km laps; as the race progressed from there it was evident they were running the wrong way, backwards around what was the intended route.

Stop! Turn Back! You’re running the wrong way! If only someone had to nerve to shout that.

It was clear once the lead runners reached the finish that this had gone beyond a joke. Jake O’Regan from St John’s AC was the first man home in 26 minutes and eight seconds, which would have smashed the world 10km road record of 26:42 set by Kenya’s Rhonex Kipruto in 2020. O’Regan, of course, had only raced about 8.5km. Likewise with the first woman home, Karen Blaney from Navan AC, who finished in 29:12, a time which also would have improved the women’s world 10km road record of 29:14.

The event, which had a 10am start and went off in three waves (at three-minute intervals) also had several of the top clubs in Ireland racing for the National 10km team title. Around lunchtime on Sunday Athletics Ireland issued a statement of apology, having cancelled the prize-giving, saying they would “continue to engage with the race organisers on the matter and update national 10k championship participants when further information becomes available”.

That was that, until Friday morning, when Athletics Ireland confirmed that they would, after all, award medals and placings in all categories for the National 10km Championship: “We note that this decision was made following robust discussion and consultation. Note the race result will be recorded with an asterisk next to all references to highlight the shorter distance of the event.”

Athletics Ireland also decided that only the 465 registered entrants for the National 10km Championship, who as club members paid a €28 entry fee (non-club members paid an additional €2 Athletics Ireland race levy) “would be offered a complimentary place in any one of the upcoming 2023 National 5k, 5-mile, or 10-mile road race championships”.

Still no confirmation on what it all means for the rest of those who ran 1.5km short of their intended distance on Sunday, at a cost of €30.