We just recently wrote about former Cornellian Max King winning an off-road half marathon. Now comes an even more impressive feat… and it did not result in victory.
On Sept. 25, King was running second in the USA 50k Trial Championships in Bend, Ore., and after covering more than a marathon, race officials directed the lead runners off the course. The trail markings had been vandalized and officials erred in their hasty remarking.
But King knew the course well and didn’t take long to double back and get moving in the right direction. But as he approached the finish, all alone, he did something astonishing. Fellow runner Scott Dunlap takes it from here on his blog:
Approaching the finish, he slowed to a stop and asked what happened. Upon learning of the situation, he waited 50 feet from the finish until the others caught up. They then agreed to cross the finish line as a group in the order they were at the moment the wrong turn was taken – Erik Skaggs (for the win), Max King (voluntarily taking second), Yassine Diboun, David James, Jeremy Tolman, Jason Moyer, Zach Violett, and Kami Semick. It turns out that Josh Nordell, Derek Schultz and me were the first to approach the turn correctly marked.
Said King afterward, “I wasn’t going to finish ahead of [Skaggs]. We just decided to split it up how we were at the last aid station. Nobody was going to pass anybody at that point anyway — we were all pretty spaced apart by quite a bit. I think it would have finished like that.”
Skaggs wasn’t completely convinced he was safe from a strong finish, but King’s honor triumphed over his kick.
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