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THIS JUST IN:

Reports are coming in of a bewildered trio of runners who, early Saturday morning, accidentally ran an entire marathon-length race, which is just over 26 miles, instead of the 10k race (about 6.2 miles) that they had actually trained for and planned to run.

The event was held at the Spicewood Vineyard just outside of the small town of Spicewood, TX.  At the three runners’ request, we have changed their names in this article to Alisa, Christie, and Bill.

According to Alisa, the group of three friends had started running regularly in their neighborhood and area running paths to prepare for the race, going as much as 5 miles in recent practice runs.  “I fully expected to arrive here and run a fairly challenging 6.2 mile race, having run almost that distance in recent practice runs… but I never would have imagined we would run over 26 miles in one stretch today, and accidentally at that!”, she said.  Christie, on the other hand, denies that the group ran any further than the original distance of 6.2 miles, or 10 kilometers, that they planned to run.  When presented with several facts about the morning’s incidents, including the time of their run, various eye-witness accounts of the distance, and the distance meter on her own ankle, Christie became defensive: “Yes, I know the run took us over 6 hours, but we also knew that our pace was slightly slower than the average runner, and our running companion Bill was keeping track of where we were at and how much further we had to go at all times.  We fully expected this run would take us more than an hour; what’s an extra 5 hours or so really matter?”

After being alerted by concerned citizens living on Burnet County Road 409 near the vineyard, reporters arrived on-scene about 1 hour after completion of the incredible, accidental 26+ mile run.  Despite the time elapsing since they stopped running, one of the runners (Bill), was still short of breath.  However, between breaths, he confirmed they had indeed run a full 26 miles, by accident.  “What happened, you ask?  Well, all I know is that my contacts were itching, and so for the first mile or so I did a lot of rubbing of my eyes.  At that point, it all became a blur.  The two girls with me were busy talking about the runners dressed in Santa or Elf outfits as well as new racing ‘gear’ they wanted to buy, and so I was left with the task of tracking the path and progress of our run.  At one point, I thought for sure I saw a sign that read something like the 10k midpoint, but it apparently was about the 10 mile mark of the half-marathon that was going on this morning.”  Bill went on to describe hours of running with no one else in sight, hallucinations experienced by various members of the group (“we just thought it was the effect on us of rotten, fermenting grapes in the fields beside us”, he says), people in the distance, far so as to be barely perceptible and yet clearly waving at them as they crested various hills on the sprawling vineyard property, and even a long period of time just past the midpoint of their run when dozens of cars were passing them on the road, clearly leaving the area “as if everyone had somehow finished before us.  Now I know, of course, what happened… apparently, the half marathon on-site had apparently finished a while before we saw those cars passing, and as I know now we were only halfway done with our ‘accidental’ marathon”.

Race officials were flabbergasted by the incident, and confirmed that there was both an organized 10k  and half-marathon race held that morning at the Spicewood Vineyards, but said there was not even a marathon section of the race organized or a course of that length laid out on the premises.  Commenting on the the unlikely run by the three confused runners, race organizer Johnny Chase said “I’m completely dumbfounded by the whole thing.  The only scenario I can imagine is that they missed the 10k turnaround point, and then must have run the half-marathon route twice, mistaking the finish line of the half-marathon as their race’s midpoint–because at one point we saw the group of three jogging very slow towards the finish line much later than anticipated for their 10k finish, probably because they ran the half marathon route instead.  My staff ran from the finish line towards them, hollering words of encouragement, but the three runners apparently misunderstood them as fellow runners just having reached the midpoint and turning back around, and so they followed suit and turned around and started running back away from the finish line again.  We didn’t see them again for about 3 more hours, and so my guess is they had just completed the half marathon route on our property at that point and in their confusion turned back to do it all over again.  Still, they must have turned off the path at some point on their second trip around, because the search effort we launched yielded nothing, when to our surprise they eventually crossed the finish line, coming from the back of the property out of the grass and woods”.

Other runners and various bystanders who witnessed various segments of this so-called accidental marathon described the scene as “painful”, “a joke”, and “a disgrace to the vineyard”.

Still, the biggest mystery of all is how the three runners had the stamina to run a marathon, even in 6 hours at that, when none of them had run more than 5 miles in recent months.  Christie, still not willing to admit the group had indeed run a marathon-length distance, instead bragged to our reporter about her extremely lightweight Spira shoes, and Alisa emphasized the “slow, steady pace we were running”.  When we attempted to question Bill further on this issue of the group’s incredible stamina, he responded with some mumbling about the “below-freezing, disorienting early morning temperatures” and “getting my vision checked and tweaking my brand of contacts”.

One thing is certain: race organizers and nearby rancher/farmer neighbors are absolutely adamant about preventing a repeat of this type of episode in the future, or at least limit the fallout from such incidents.  Late this afternoon, an especially concerned neighbor called a community meeting to be held at the vineyard in the coming days. According to the organizer’s urgent email, the agenda will include, among other things, talk of how to better accommodate police on their next search and rescue attempt in the area as well as a vote on the erecting of several no trespassing signs along the boundaries of the typical route of the annual race.  Various local officials and businesspeople have also been invited to speak, including a local game and wildlife official who will coach residents on how to construct fences properly to prevent runners from entering heavily-hunted wooded areas on their property, as well as a local insurance broker who will give a presentation on liability insurance available to the property owners to protect them from claims filed by wayward runners in the future.

And if you believe this story, my friends, well then clearly you weren’t there…or it’s just too late (or too early) for you to be up reading my blog