9-year-old Kade Lovell was supposed to be running in the St. Cloud, Minnesota 5k race, but a volunteer told him to go the wrong way.
That wrong way led Lovell on a longer course, the course for the 10K. Lovell told CNN that he was a little confused, but he was just going to listen to the volunteer. He only had realized what happened when he saw a 10K sign at the turnaround area.
Lovell pushed himself through because he wanted to get to the finish line. Meanwhile, his mom had been waiting for him to finish the shorter race and was getting more and more worried as the minutes passed. Since Lovell set a 5K record for his age group at last year’s race, she knew he should have finished by that time.
People began looking for Lovell after his mom grew more and more worried, but finally someone said they spotted Kade on the 10K course and he seemed to be running really well.
When Lovell’s mom saw him just ahead of the finish line, Lovell started bawling and told his mom that he didn’t do it on purpose. Lovell had never run a 10K before or even practiced for one, but they were shocked to find out Lovell won the race with a time of 48:17.4
