Many Runners—Even Some Pros—Say the Edmonton Half Marathon Was Long. The Race Disagrees.

Rory Linkletter left Edmonton on Sunday with the Canadian Half Marathon Championship win, along with a fairly major question about how far he had actually run.Linkletter told Canadian Running that he believed the course was too long, enough so that he backed off over the final two kilometers rather than keep chasing the course record.Olympian Natasha Wodak knew something felt off, too. With less than a kilometer remaining, she glanced at her watch and saw a slower time than expected. She knew she wasn’t having her best day, but the final time still didn’t quite add up.Afterward, Wodak and other runners concluded the course must have been too long, according to CBC News.And once runners started looking at their watches, Linkletter and Wodak hardly looked like outliers. Half marathoners reported distances around 21.9 to 22.1 kilometers (a half marathon is 21.1K), while participants on Reddit pointed to strange chip splits, kilometer markers, and even the pacers.“The pace bunnies were even off time,” one runner wrote. “That should be an indicator right there.”There was also an obvious place to start looking, as construction had forced a detour along Jasper Avenue.Race director Tom Keogh said that change added roughly 712 meters to the route, with approximately 690 meters removed near the turnaround to make up the difference. Organizers continue to stand by their word that the adjustment was done correctly.“Our courses are annually professionally certified and are measured by a World Athletics/Athletics Canada Grade A certified course measurer, the highest level of professional qualification in road race measurement,” Keogh said in a statement. “The course measurer was present on race day to confirm that all courses were correctly set up to their certified distances.”Athletics Canada also supports the process, with Chris Winter, the governing body’s director of domestic programs and safe sport, expressing confidence in the Edmonton Marathon’s course measurement and certification.“While GPS devices can record distances differently based on the route taken, certified road race courses are measured using an established physical measurement methodology,” Winter said in a statement.In a thread on X, Linkletter argued that organizers shortened the course by only about 345 meters in each direction at the turnaround, when they likely needed to remove roughly 690 meters in each direction to fully offset the construction detour.He also said some athletes have arranged for people in Edmonton to physically measure both the detour and the adjusted section of the course.“To be clear, this is an honest, embarrassing mistake, but the right thing to do is to let the athletes have the peace of mind of knowing what their TRUE efforts were worth on Sunday,” Linkletter wrote.He pushed back on GPS error as the explanation, too, questioning why a course with only a few changed turns would suddenly produce such a consistent 700- to 800-meter difference from the previous year.“I’m mad for BQ athletes, I’m mad for any athlete that had a specific time goal,” he wrote. “I am not mad for personal reasons, this didn’t affect me financially or any of my goals, I’m just disappointed in the way it’s being handled.”That frustration extends beyond the runners competing for medals. Wodak told CBC News that an inaccurate course affects everyone paying an entry fee and showing up with a personal best in mind.“It really is the most important thing of a race, besides safety,” she said.By that point, runners weren’t exactly hiding their frustration. Calgary running pro Polly Cunes wrote on Instagram, “Mess up the porta potties, mess up the pacers, mess up the music at the aid stations,” she wrote. “Mess anything up BUT for Pete sake measure the course properly!!”Edmonton Marathon officials say the distance was right, but Linkletter thinks the turnaround math shows otherwise. Runners have now commissioned their own measurement of the altered sections, so there may be a more concrete answer than just competing GPS files and race-day recollections.Sean Abrams was the Senior Editor, Growth and Engagement at Men’s Health. He’s a former hip hop dancer who likes long walks on the beach and large glasses of tequila. You can find his previous work at Maxim, Elite Daily, and AskMen.