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An error by race organisers has turned Bangkok into the home of the world’s longest half-marathon.
Instead of a 13-mile run through Thailand’s capital, the Standard Chartered Bangkok marathon on Sunday accidentally extended its annual half-marathon to almost 17 miles.
The bonus miles came as a surprise to runners, who unleashed a tirade of complaints on social media after the event.
The Jogging Association of Thailand, one of two organisers of the race, admitted to the error on Monday.
“The association apologises for the mistake,” Songrakm Kraison, its vice-president, told the Associated Press. “It will not happen again in the future.”
The Athletic Association of Thailand, which oversees athletic events in the country, said it discussed the mistake with the organisers, who “admitted that a technical error happened during the half-marathon event”, said Surapong Ariyamongkol, AAT secretary general.
He said race officials responsible for pointing runners in the right direction inadvertently directed them to make a U-turn at the wrong place.
“It added more than 3km [1.8 miles] to each lap, therefore more than 6km were added to the whole half-marathon,” Surapong said. “We have rebuked the association but we could not do anything else.”
The marathon’s Facebook page filled with comments on Sunday and Monday from runners who described the error as “ridiculous”, a “massive miscalculation” and “incredibly dangerous” for runners who had trained to run just 13 miles.
Others joked that it should be renamed the “super half-marathon”, or as one Facebook comment noted, it could be seen as a byproduct of race inflation: “Hey, they increased the price this year, so you get more kilometres for your money.”
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Rank: Advanced Member
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You have to be careful which races you enter. It could happen to anyone, as Newport Hm showed last year, but 3 miles that is way out.
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Rank: Advanced Member
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Pity - this kind of thing gives "The Jogging Association of Thailand" a bad name
"The Athletic Association of Thailand" on the other hand..
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Rank: Advanced Member
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if you just used the uk where there is a marathon anywhere any weekend there is bound to be mistakes somewhere.
you would only expect errors to occur probably in the first 2 years of any new event starting up.
I don't know what the full extent of a "certified" event means. but perhaps the powers that be could include in it's certificate,
parking, drink stations, baggage, changing, marshals.
so that you have a set standard of expectation for each distance.
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Rank: Advanced Member
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They probably measured it using GPS! Perhaps we could raise enough money to fly Phil and his bike out there to measure the course properly for them next year. 
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Rank: Advanced Member
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Sorry, I now realise I didn't read the post carefully enough  . We'll just all have to fly out there to marshal it for them.
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