Joshua, a goat who lives at Taylor’s Pumpkin Patch in Conception Bay South, N.L., in a Sept. 29 handout photo.

He may not have logged the fastest time or even gone the full distance, but residents of a Newfoundland town agree the goat who unexpectedly joined the local weekend half marathon was the event’s undisputed champion.

Partway through Sunday’s T’Railway Trek half marathon in Conception Bay South, N.L., an eager 68-kilogram (150 pound) goat named Joshua broke free from his collar and joined the runners on the route.

He kept pace for nearly a quarter of the race before being rounded up by his owners and now even has a medal to show for his efforts.

Joshua’s half-marathon debut surprised no one more than Heidi Taylor, who woke up Sunday morning to find social media awash in photos of her goat mingling with fellow runners.

“We take Joshua for walks, he listens very well and will follow you,” she said in an interview Sunday.

“So when he’s seeing all the people running, he must have thought: ’I’m going to go too.’ ”

Joshua lives at Taylor’s Pumpkin Patch, the business Ms. Taylor co-owns. Ms. Taylor doesn’t know what time he managed to ditch his collar but estimates he ran about five kilometres of the 21-kilometre race.

She got wind of his unexpected participation at around 9:30 p.m. when she opened her Facebook and recognized him from the photos filling her feed.

Ms. Taylor and her fiancé used the Facebook posts to figure out Joshua’s whereabouts along the race route, and they “took another collar and leash along with a bag of cheezies” – his favourite snack – and went off to find him.