They’re like people who race onto the freeway, only to drive 45 mph in the fast lane. Or the folks who carry too many groceries through the supermarket express checkout aisle.

They’re Bloomie Blockers.

By exaggerating their estimated finish times on their Bloomsday entry forms, these runners can move up their starting positions. They’re swept ahead with the fast runners when the gun goes off.

But by the first mile, many of them are walking.

“It backs everybody up,” said Karen Heaps, Bloomsday coordinator. “If everybody would just be honest about it, it would be so smooth. It’s kind of like the guy who told me the other day that he’d been running 10 miles a day, and then his face got red.”

They’re members of an elusive group: Everyone complains about them, but few admit to being members.

Kurtis Cogswell, 31, of Spokane, is an exception. He says he low-balls his time because he wants to avoid the strollers and the wheelchairs. “If you lie and tell them you’re going to go a little faster, then you’re not going to be back with that pack,” Cogswell said.

Try a lot faster. Last year, Cogswell estimated his time at 45 minutes. But he “ran” the race in two hours and 37 minutes.

He knows a lot of people have a problem with his fibbing. He also knows a lot of other people do the same thing.

“In a perfect world, if there were no people like me, nobody would lie and everybody would be in their proper position,” Cogswell said. “Everybody does it. Otherwise, you’re going to get stuck.”

Last year, 4,188 people said they could run Bloomsday more than an hour faster than they actually did, Bloomsday computer records show.

Jason McCann is on top of the heap. He was the king of the poor prognosticators.

To be fair, he has an excuse.

The 14-year-old started practicing for last year’s Bloomsday on Feb. 1, 1994. He ran three miles after school every day, six miles on the weekends.

He predicted his time at 55 minutes. That wasn’t unrealistic: He had run the race in slightly more than 58 minutes the year before.

Then disaster struck.

“This one day, I was running,” he said. “My feet hurt really bad. I went home and went to bed. The next day they hurt really, really bad … I ran again, and they hurt really bad. I think I had like a broken bone.”

That was the week before Bloomsday. McCann changed his goal. He decided to walk the race, and to come in last.

McCann couldn’t slow down his hurting feet that much. He finished in three hours and 38 minutes - more than two hours and 43 minutes slower than his estimate. It was a snail’s pace, but still ahead of 12 other people.

McCann isn’t sure if he’s running - or walking - Bloomsday this year. He finally went to the doctor after last year’s race, and he now wears orthopedic supports in his shoes.

Practice has been painful.

“They really hurt,” he said of his feet. “I should just cut them off. Then I’d do OK.”

Like McCann, most people with overly optimistic times have plenty of excuses. The dog didn’t eat their homework, but it may have piddled in their running shoes.

Melquiades Garcia of Moses Lake, 47, blames chivalry. He predicted he’d run last year’s race in a speedy 45 minutes. He finished more than two hours slower.

“I was going to run, my daughter was going to go with us, but she decided not to run, and my wife was going to be by herself,” Melquiades explained. “I walked with my wife. It took forever. She can’t run. There’s so many people. I didn’t want to leave her by herself.”

Greta Gissel of Coeur d’Alene, 24, chose her family over speed.

She said she’d run the race in 50 minutes.

“Wow,” Gissel said when reminded of her prediction. “I’m pretty fast.”

Not really. She turned in a time of three hours and eight minutes. Even her 8-month-old cousin - pushed in a stroller - beat her. Gissel walked the course with her family.

“We walked it all together,” Gissel said. “We just enjoyed it. We stopped before Doomsday Hill and got ice cream.”

Brooke Gaffaney of Elk blames computer error. According to Bloomsday records, she supposedly said she could run the race in 30 minutes. Her real time was two hours, 30 minutes.

“Never in my wildest dreams could I ever run it in 30 minutes,” said Gaffaney, laughing. “I think that’s probably a typo.”

Bloomsday computer technicians sometimes question entrants about large gaps between their finish time one year and their faster estimates the next year. They can’t catch everyone.

“Someday we’ll figure it out,” Heaps said. “But the problem is, how do you know that they didn’t walk with their children that year?”

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: ALL E ARE ON BLOOMSDAY FINISHERS Don’t think anyone pays attention to those official Bloomsday times? Ask Debbie Gunderson. She got plenty of grief last year when her official Bloomsday time of more than 5 hours, 11 minutes was nearly two hours slower than her actual finish. Gunderson thought it was bad enough when she opened The Spokesman-Review’s special section last year and saw the time printed next to her name. Then she went to work as a radiology resident at Sacred Heart Medical Center. “So they publish these times in the paper - I thought, well, no one is going to notice this,” Gunderson said. “I went to work, and everybody saw it. They must have just read through all the lines, looking for me. They took my line and they blew it up and hung it all over the department.” Gunderson and her mother actually walked the race in about 3 hours and 20 minutes. “We were slow,” Gunderson admitted. “By the time we finished the race, there wasn’t anybody on the sidelines anymore. They had stopped the music. But we got our T-shirts.” They had an excuse for the slow going. Gunderson’s mother, Mary Zachrich of Littleton, Colo., had hurt her leg before coming to Spokane. “My mom’s in her 60s, she’s in real good health, but she got off the plane and she was limping,” Gunderson said. “She limped the whole thing.” After seeing her time in the newspaper, Gunderson petitioned Bloomsday to get her time changed. “They actually sent us back a card that said this was your actual finish time,” said Gunderson, laughing. “But by that time, the damage had already been done.” Bloomsday coordinator Karen Heaps remembers the Gunderson mix-up. “It was a computer error,” Heaps said. “I don’t know how that happened. I don’t think anybody’s ever done it in five hours.” - Kim Barker