A 12-year-old western New York girl wound up running 10 extra miles after she got into the wrong road race.
LeeAdianez Rodriguez had registered for the 5K race that was part of last Sunday’s Rochester Regional Health Flower City Challenge. She thought she was arriving late at the starting line when the race started, so she began running with the rest of the runners.
It turned out she was actually running with the half-marathoners on the 13.1-mile course and not in the 5K, or 3.1 miles. Rodriguez says she realized about halfway through that she was in the wrong race but decided to finish.
She completed the half-marathon in 2:43:31.
Her mother became worried when her daughter wasn’t among the finishers of the 5K, but they were reunited when Rodriguez finished the half-marathon.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
First, it is NOT unusual for kids to run a 1/2 marathon (12.1 miles).
Second, if mom didn’t think that her child was trained enough to run the
distance she should have stopped her once she was found continuing to
run after the 5K. My son ran 5& 10K’s since the age of nine and trained
twice weekly with adults in an 8 mile jog. At the age of 12 he and a friend of
the same age were entered in a MAJOR 1/2 marathon and at 12.1 miles my
son finished , tired, but happy, in 1:37 while his friend’s father pushed that
child to continue for the FULL marathon. That boy never ran (in competition)
again!!! This mother should be cited for child endangerment.
Did I miss the part were the mother told her child to run the half marathon ?? Or to go ahead and Finnish running it now that she was in it ??? As I read this item the child made a mistake and after discovering what she had done made her own choice to go on to the finish line after she had past the 5k distance !! That she could stop then was a option as she had run her planned distance and no one would have said a thing about her stepping out of the unplanned extra distance !! So how is the mother guilty of child endangerment ???