Charleston Marathon Course Goes a Little Long

A wrong turn by the lead vehicle between Mile 1 and 2 caused last weekend’s Charleston Marathon and Half Marathon to be a little long.

Race officials re-measured the course this week and found that, as a result, both courses were .1918 miles too long, or about 334 yards. The runners missed a left-hand turn and instead went down two more blocks before turning left and eventually re-joining the course.

As the Charleston Marathon is a Boston Marathon qualifier, race officials scrambled to determine precisely how much distance the race was long, then adjusted the finishing times according to overall pace. They then posted new results with three columns: Chip time, gun time and official time. Typically, race results have just chip time and gun time.

The official times were submitted to the Boston Athletic Association for review.

So how much difference did it make? For example, the winning runner, Ethan Coffey of Knoxville, Tenn., had 1:15 taken off his chip timing, dropping him from 2:34:16 to 2:33:01. For someone who ran at a 9:00/mile pace, the difference was about two minutes.

Race officials apologized through communications with participants, including on their Facebook page. The runners seemed to take the news in stride, praising the race experience despite the mistake.

“I guess on a positive note, I’m also now an ultra runner,” one quipped on Facebook.