RACINE, Wis. (CBS 58) -- Runners are frustrated after a Racine race Saturday, June 20, was interrupted when the Main Street drawbridge was raised, stopping the top runners in their tracks.

It happened despite race organizers paying the city to keep the bridge down for the morning.

The 48th annual Lighthouse Run had stepped off at 8 a.m.

The top runners had been racing for more than an hour, and the finish line was within reach, just on the other side of the river. But that's when runners started to hear the bells and the drawbridge went up.

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Eric Kashian finished in the top three. He told us, "I thought someone was ringing a cowbell because we were getting close to the finish line."

Kashian and more than 850 fellow runners from around the country were on the course.

But then a problem arose: the main street drawbridge went up about a half-mile from the finish line.

Kashian said, "I'm training for a marathon. And I was feeling so great. And then for that to happen made me so upset."

Racers bunched up at the raised bridge for a few minutes, effectively turning the hour-plus, 10-mile race into a half-mile sprint.

Conall Lynch is a project manager with Festival Park, which helps organize the race. He told us, "The 10-mile runners that got stopped were actually second to fourth place. So, it affected the podium, as well."

Lynch went to the bridge tower, rang the doorbell, and spoke with the bridge tender. "I explained that we had paid to have the bridge not go up at all," he said.

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It had never happened before in the race's 48-year history.

Lynch said the bridge tender "expressed that he would not do it again until 11 a.m."

Organizers had paid the city of Racine $1,300 to keep the bridge down from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.

But a few hours later, the bridge went up again, this time interrupting the four-mile and two-mile finishers.

Lynch said, "We spend months making sure every detail is accounted for. And then when something like this happens, I don't know what we can do."

Messages to Racine Mayor Cory Mason went unreturned Tuesday.

Kashian said he can laugh about the situation now. "Now, looking back, it's not that serious. But I take my training seriously and I was having a great race, and for that to happen, it was definitely upsetting. But it is what it is."

Amid that frustration from many of the hundreds of runners, conversations between the race organizers and the city continue.