Normally, people train and plan when they’re going to run a marathon, but that wasn’t the case for Ludivine, a dog that accidentally finished a half-marathon in Alabama.
Ludivine, a two-year-old bloodhound, was let out by her owner to go to the bathroom, but the puppy had plans of her own and decided to go for a walk.
That’s when she stumbled upon the starting areas of the Trackless Train Trek Half Marathon. After seeing the humans starting to run, the dog got excited and decided to give it a try herself.
The four-legged puppy ran the whole 21km course in just over an hour and 30 minutes, finishing in seventh!
After realizing Ludivine was in it for the long haul, Tim Horvath, 49, decided to become running partners with the dog and ran most of the race alongside her.
“One time she went over and met another dog next to the course,” Harvath said in an interview with Runner’s World. “Later on, she went into a field with some mules and cows. Then she’d come back and run around our legs.”
During the whole time she ran the race, her owner, April Hamlin, 43, wasn’t aware that her dog had even left the yard!
“All I did was open the door, and she ran the race on her own accord,” Hamlin said to Runner’s World.
Hamlin wasn’t even aware that her dog had left the backyard until she received texts and photos of Ludivine from friends who were volunteering during the race.
“My first reaction was that I was embarrassed and worried that she had possibly gotten in the way of the other runners,” Hamlin said.
It’s not unusual for Ludivine to roam free in the the nearby woods of Elkmont, a town with the population of 400.
She is frequently solo so much that everyone knows who the puppy is, so there wasn’t too much surprise that the dog had gotten out, Hamlin explained.
Hamlin was surprised, however, that Ludivine breezed through the 13.1 mile race.
“She’s laid back and friendly, so I can’t believe she ran the whole half marathon because she’s actually really lazy,” Hamlin said, adding that she doesn’t run usually, nor does her dog.
Fourth-place runner, Jim Clemens, said that sometimes it looked like Ludivine was ready to turn back and go home, but she would always come back.
“I would hear her coming back up to me, and she would race past me up to the two leaders,” Clemens said. “She would run off to romp through streams and into yards to sniff around for a while.”
Ludivine reached the finish line at 1:32:56 and was given a medal for her participation.
