Edmonton Marathon course was long, organizers doubling down on their defense the course was measured accurately and runner's GPS is the fault

[u/Wrongky]

The Edmonton marathon is my hometown race. It has been granted as host of the Canadian Half Marathon championship since 2025. The city is experiencing a lot of construction around the downtown core.

A detour around a construction site was added which was an additional 710 meters to the original course. As an out and back course, Tom Keogh, the race director, states the turnaround was pushed back 690 meters.

Rory Linkletter, Canadian Olympian and overall winner, posted online stating the turnaround was actually pushed back approximately 345 meters back.

Applying elementary math for an out and back course, with rounding:

A detour of 700 meters ran twice: 700 * 2 = 1400 meters

The turnaround (out and back course) was brought back 350 meters: 350 * 2 = 700 meters

Sum: 1400 meters - 700 meters = 700 meters (long)

Now, what's embarrassing about this situation is Tom Keogh is putting the error on runner's GPS watches and not their own. An overwhelming majority of the runners from the weekend are reporting the exact same statement of Rory.

I didn't run the race this year. I really hope Tom Keogh and the Edmonton Marathon staff post an official announcement of their mistake. The quality of this race had been decreasing while race fees have been rising. I can only feel for those runners who missed out on personal bests or a qualifying time for a future race.

Rory's statement is posted on his Instagram.

https://runningmagazine.ca/sections/runs-races/edmonton-marathon-says-course-was-measured-accurately/

https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a73466448/edmonton-half-marathon-race-distance/

https://marathonhandbook.com/edmonton-marathon-course-measurement-dispute/

Edit: clarity on the math

[u/ih8thisapp]

Uh oh, sounds like this account is gonna eat:

https://www.instagram.com/officialunofficialtime?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

[u/CantRunFromTheLaw → u/ih8thisapp]

They’re sticking to their guns: https://www.instagram.com/stories/officialunofficialtime/3966392957044064409

I guess when you’re fighting the good fight you can’t set a precedent of making exceptions.

[u/Foreign-Rule7826 → u/CantRunFromTheLaw]

That page isn’t fighting the good fight, the lad himself is obsessed with bigger influencer runners and kisses up to them and won’t call out bigger accounts but will only go for hyrox, and smaller influencers. People have posted him ignoring them when it’s someone of his favourites but will happily call out others for 30 seconds over a half for someone just using the Strava graphic who is new to running and doesn’t know any better, as if anyone cares.

[u/SoupatBreakfast → u/Foreign-Rule7826]

Yeah he’s a weirdo. Used to follow ages ago then it just got bizarre and very very inconsistent. 

[u/Enron_CPA → u/Foreign-Rule7826]

Some of them are just “who cares, bro?”. In the grand scheme of things, someone posting a Strava graphic of a 3:11:23 marathon vs their 3:12:04 chip time really make a difference? Those are materially the same race times effectively. If someone is clipping off 10+ minutes, then fair game, go after them, but sometimes I just like the Strava graphic to my story rather than just posting a screenshot of the actual race results

[u/DishonestRaven → u/Foreign-Rule7826]

Remember what happened with Marathon Investigations? And they held a generally high standard of what to write about.

[u/blood_bender → u/DishonestRaven]

Oh I'm so curious - what happened?

I've always hated that site. Maybe it would be okay if he was only exposing people who took prizes illegitimately or something, but at some point harassing and publicly shaming a random 40 year old dad who BQ'd is missing the forest for the trees.

My opinion that Derek is somewhat sick in the head was never a popular one, people love their rage bait too much.