Bear Detour Causes Marathoner the Lead

[Fast Eddie]

Brendan Morphet did not have a good race, even though it started off well.

"I had a sizeable lead," he said.

Morphet was running in the marathon division of the Yukon River Trail Marathon. There was a steep hill on one side of the trail, a sharp drop to the lake on the other and two bears in front of him.

"I yelled and yelled. They wouldn't go anywhere," said Morphet.

They ran into Denise McHale. She was running a full marathon too. At that point, she had been second to Morphet.

"I had just started the first kilometre or two of leg three," said McHale, "Then there were three of them coming back towards me, the runners, so I'm like, 'What are you guys doing? Are you lost?'"

McHale says Morphet was probably 15 minutes ahead of her when he ran into the bears.

"So he kind of got ripped off a little bit," she said.

McHale was the first marathon runner to cross the finish line at three hours, 24 minutes and 52 seconds.  Morphet was second at three hours, 26 minutes and 51 seconds.

Ken Sylvester was this year's race director. He says they don't adjust anyone's time to account for detours.

"Well, it's a wilderness race. There are bears. We've had bears before," he said.

"Try to sneak by it on the race and wait until it's safe to go by," was Sylvester's advice.
 https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/grizzly-bear-steals-runners-lead-in-annual-whitehorse-marathon/ar-BBLzOdP?ocid=spartanntp