Wicked Fast Poconos Race Director Says the Turnaround Was Not Where She Placed It

Marathon Handbook reported on Monday that the Boston Athletic Association had started emailing runners from the Sept. 13 Wicked Fast Marathon in the Poconos, a race billed as a Boston qualifier, to tell them the course came up short of the marathon distance and their times would not count for 2027.

The race’s director, Lee Ann Yarbor, whose company USA Endurance Events runs the Wicked Fast series, has now answered Marathon Handbook’s questions in an email, and says the post-race review is pointing to a turnaround that is not where she put it before the start.

“I personally placed the turnaround cone/sign before the race. The turnaround location that is now being identified in the post-race review is not where I placed it,” Yarbor wrote. “I can say that with confidence.”

Yarbor said she could not say how or why the marker ended up somewhere else, when that might have happened or who might have been involved, and she was firm that she “will not accuse an individual or speculate about someone’s actions without evidence.”

About 40 runners may be affected, by her count. She would not put a figure on how short the course was until it has been independently verified, and said the runner GPS files being reviewed only go so far: “individual GPS watches are not the same as an official course measurement.” She is working through it with Diana Bean, the USATF measurer who certified the course, and if it comes to that, she says she will fly in from the West Coast and mark the spot on the trail with Bean herself.

Bean has also raised the possibility, Yarbor said, that the wrong waterfall or landmark was used to set the start line. If the start had ended up too far back, though, runners would have covered extra ground rather than less, so the turnaround is still a central question for the organizers.

Questions Over the 2025 Race

Runners from last year’s edition have been told their times will not count either, which Yarbor confirmed, and it has raised more questions of her own. The 2025 race was held on consecutive days, Friday, Sept. 12, and Saturday, Sept. 13, on what she describes as the same physical course. Friday’s finishers fell inside the qualifying window for the 2026 Boston Marathon, and she said their times were accepted. Saturday’s only came up for review this cycle, because the window for 2027 opened on Sept. 13, 2025.

“Nothing was intentionally changed overnight between those races,” Yarbor wrote. She has asked for the factual basis behind the decision on the 2025 times, and said that if there is evidence the course was set up wrongly that weekend, the organizers want to see it.

On the certificate numbers that runners had spotted online, Yarbor said the marathon’s correct certificate is PA24006DNB, and the older PA24004DNB stayed up on parts of the race website and on RunSignup because of “an administrative error” that has been fixed wherever the organizers have found it.

What Happens Next

Some runners have been told the B.A.A. considers its review closed, according to Yarbor, but the organizers are still looking at photographs, the certification paperwork and runners’ GPS and Strava files, and intend to keep passing anything useful on to the B.A.A.

“I cannot promise runners that the B.A.A. will ultimately reverse its decision. That decision belongs to the B.A.A., and I don’t want to give runners false hope,” she wrote. She added: “The runners did nothing wrong. They had no control over the precise placement of a turnaround marker or other course markings.”

The deadline to send the B.A.A. a different qualifying time passed at 5 p.m. ET on Monday, and decisions for the 2027 race started going out on Tuesday, with qualifiers needing to be 5:17 under their standard to get in. The window for the 2028 race, which uses the same qualifying standards as this year, opened on Sept. 19, and Yarbor said she will share more as Bean’s review goes on.