Fredericton Marathon finishers run an extra 3K after course marshal shows up late

Each year, New Brunswick’s Fredericton Marathon attracts hundreds of eager distance runners from all over Atlantic Canada and beyond, to run the flat and fast Boston-Marathon-qualifying course. But this year’s marathon on May 12 was considerably longer than 42.2K for around a third of the finishers. The course marshal for the turnaround point at 14 km showed up more than an hour late, leading many participants to run an extra three kilometres. More than 150 runners in the marathon and the half-marathon were affected by the mistake.

On Monday, the race sent an email to participants and issued a statement. “The Fredericton Marathon volunteer organizing committee knows mistakes were made during Sunday’s portion of the event and we sincerely apologize to all of the affected participants. Our committee has started reaching out to the 21.1k and 42.2k finishers to issue a formal apology and explain the mistake.”

“We are just devastated,” co-race director Christine Little told Canadian Running. “We understand the gravity of this error and want to fix this.”

Little says the Fredericton Marathon team has been responding to emails nonstop since Sunday. “All these folks had goals in mind, and we feel for them,” she said.

Race director Bruce Macfarlane says he and Little were not aware the course marshal was not present when the race began. “We got a phone call, saying that people were showing up to start the second loop turnaround way too early.”

According to the race, the group of people who were affected by the mishap were not the runners at the front (who were following a cyclist) or near the back (because the marshal was now present); it was mostly the folks in the middle.

“I didn’t see a sign or pylon at the first turnaround,” one runner wrote. “I just continued, thinking it has to be just up ahead. “I had to turn at the second turnaround, with the mat. Coming back, I passed a volunteer, finally putting the sign in place.”

“I ran 15 minutes extra (around 2.6 km),” wrote another. “There was no sign indicating we were supposed to turn on loop one, and the volunteers there were silent. So, many of us went down, believing it was the right way.” Runners were not supposed to reach the second turnaround point until 33K. The finishers who went the distance ended up running 44 to 46 kilometres.

Outside of the course mishap, Macfarlane and Little said the event was a success in terms of numbers, seeing a huge increase in participants–2,800 runners in five races over two days, similar to pre-pandemic numbers in Atlantic Canada. “We saw a 75 per cent increase in the marathon distance alone,” says Macfarlane, crediting the unusually warm winter on the East Coast for the boom. “Mother Nature gave us beautiful conditions and we did not expect this many to show up.”

In the women’s race, U.S. marathoner Sarah Mulcahy of Fort Kent, Maine, ran a new Fredericton Marathon record of 2:50:07, breaking her previous record from 2023. In the men’s race, Canadian joggler Jean-Marc Doiron came up just a minute and a half shy of the joggling (juggling while running) marathon world record, finishing in 2:52:39. Both athletes ran the correct distances, as they had officials on bikes accompanying them.

Despite the mix-up, Little and Macfarlane are committed to making sure this doesn’t happen again. “The planning for next year has already started,” says Little. “We want to make this the best race we can. Our team consists of 12 volunteers and we are proud of that–doing the best we can each year.”