Runners of a recent half-marathon in England shared more than just a road.
According to the BBC, participants ending up drinking from paper water cups that had been previously used and washed after race workers ran out of new ones.
“Towards the end of the race one of the our [sic] water stations ran out of paper cups for a short period of time, and under pressure made an error of judgement to wash and reuse cups to meet demand from runners for water,” organizers say in a statement.
The statement notes that the runners “were told the cups were being reused at the time,” but nevertheless maintains, “We do not condone any sharing or reusing of cups.”
“We take this very seriously and will now be speaking to our teams post-race to strengthen our processes for the future,” the statement concludes.
As gross as that sounds, if given the choice between running over 13 miles straight or drinking out of a used cup, option two doesn’t sound too bad.