How Brittany Moran crossed paths with an Olympic champion mid-marathon

The top Canadian woman at the 2017 Chicago Marathon, Brittany Moran, crossed paths mid-race with a rather notable marathon debutant in the Windy City.

RELATED: 2017 Chicago Marathon race recap.

Moran, who placed 23rd clocking 2:41:58, was in a pack, unbeknown to her, with 2016 Olympic 1,500m champion Matthew Centrowitz during a stretch in the first half of the Oct. 8 race. “I had no clue at all that he was near me,” she says. “What a random coincidence.”

Wow!! That is unexpected.

— Brittany Moran (@TORunningChiro) October 8, 2017

According to the race splits, Centrowitz passed Moran somewhere between 15-20K before the Olympic champion dropped out between 25-30K. Moran says she went through 21.1K about a minute faster than she had originally planned, splitting 1:19:13.

Video

Matthew Centrowitz made his marathon debut today.
Went through half in 1:18:36
DNF after 25K.

(Shout-out to Citwit @bradey_brodsky for sending us the video.) pic.twitter.com/vomqt0dWDt

— CITIUS MAG (@CitiusMag) October 8, 2017

RELATED: Top Canadian results from the 2017 Chicago Marathon.

Interestingly, the 27-year-old Centrowitz’s age in the results is listed as 62, the same age as his two-time Olympian father, who bears the same name. Centrowitz Jr. won the men’s 1,500m at the Rio Olympics and trains with the Nike Oregon Project, the same group as 2017 Chicago Marathon third-place finisher Jordan Hasay and 2017 Chicago Marathon men’s champion Galen Rupp.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BZ_7JFBgu6N/

Though Moran didn’t spot Centrowitz within the pack for the stretch of the race they were together, she says Matt Fitzgerald, the author of How Bad Do You Want It?: Mastering the Psychology of Mind over Muscle, passed her in the last 5-7K of the Chicago Marathon. “It of course had me asking myself how bad do I want it,” she says.