Did Mike Rossi (viral marathon dad) cheat his way into Boston?

Triathleteguru wrote:

So this tool probably cheated there too! Wow...

I'm not sure. I would need somebody to check my math. I haven't taken an algebra class since freshman year in high school and that was 15 years ago.

Maybe a test run to practice the art of deception?

Since the RD ar Lehigh won't disqualify him without an eye witness, maybe the next course of action is to check all his times and see if there is a history of cheating. Maybe is the RD of the RnR Marathon determines he cheated the RD at Via will change her mind.

List of runners close to Rossi, according to chip time (not clock time):

Do you know another website with race pictures?

I am curious why you would make the effort to check out this race (or any other of his races) and after finding something potentially suspicious, you wouldn't just email the Race Director of the Rock n Roll Race yourself. You obviously can type so sending an email is no harder than posting here.

In the 2013 Rock N Roll Marathon he seems to have kept a consistent pace of roughly 8:00/mi over all the timing mats and the finish. Don't normal runners slow down as the race progresses? I know I get tired the longer I run.

http://running.competitor.com/cgiresults?eId=4&eiId=152&seId=477&pId=158401

I just checked 20 runners with about the same chip time as Rossi (about 02:20:00).

1 out of 20 has no 10 mi split either, a couple of runners have no 5 km splits.

But all of them have consistent paces, their 10 km split is roughly their 5 km split multiplied by 2. None of them have splits like Rossi (24:55 - 1:13:35).

While there can be legitimate explanations for this, it is suspicious.

This HM was 2 weeks after the Via marathon, maybe he wanted to try it one more time?

I don't think he cheated here. I would assume he's capable of a 10 minutes per mile pace for this race. The timing mat probably just failed and rossi went out too fast at the 5K split. You'd be giving him a chance to attack your credibility if you were wrong. Plus, who really cares if he cheated for a 2:20? That's a very fast walk.

Youtube wrote:

TinWhistle wrote:

Seems PaulPillow's video is disabled...wonder how that happened and what it cost

PaulPillow wrote:

Let me know what you think. It's not the best, but it is something to show people without having to pull up hundreds of pictures on their own.

https://youtu.be/pcLc6_X9Ubg

It is still up. Thanks Paul!

How many photo sites were there on the course, was it 3-4.

So if about 5% are missing per site and there are three photo check points, what is the probability that he'd be missed at all three?

That would be 0.05 X 0.05 X 0.05 (X100) = 0.0125

Is that right? It would make a good GRE question.

So using probability theory, if there are 3 photo check points with an error rate of 5%, there is still a 99.9% likelihood that his image would be captured in at least one set of photos.

LoserMikeRossi wrote:

Triathleteguru wrote:

So this tool probably cheated there too! Wow...

I'm not sure. I would need somebody to check my math. I haven't taken an algebra class since freshman year in high school and that was 15 years ago.

If my math is correct, that is one strangely paced run:

1st 5K: 8:01/mile

2nd 5K: 15:40/mile

10K-finish: 9:43/mile

This looks like a picture of Rossi at mile 11: http://www.marathonfoto.com/Catalog/List/180881226?PIN=60V863&LastName=ROSSI

I am curious as to who you are and how you know that about abingtonrunner's alleged ability to post again?

What did Rossi write on his blog about the Rock 'n' Roll Philadelphia 2014 Half Marathon?

Things that make you go huh wrote:

I am curious as to who you are and how you know that about abingtonrunner's alleged ability to post again?

I read about some other guy doing that in another thread, many months ago. Who am I? Just a runner who used to be fast, and now gets his jollies reading the letsrun forum.

I don't get it Mike - I thought there were only 9 people talking about this. Apparently there are running clubs thousands of miles from PA talking about it. There are runners in Canada talking about it. On FB there are people from the UK posting on VIA's page. And the one thing they have in common besides running is believing you cheated.The VIA RD really needs to get a set of stones and do the DQ. What a joke.

weird paced race wrote:

LoserMikeRossi wrote:

I'm not sure. I would need somebody to check my math. I haven't taken an algebra class since freshman year in high school and that was 15 years ago.

If my math is correct, that is one strangely paced run:

1st 5K: 8:01/mile

2nd 5K: 15:40/mile

10K-finish: 9:43/mile

Splits that are way too slow and not a good sign of cheating. Usually it means the person stopped for a potty-a-john or something or to stretch out a cramp. In this case it looks like Mikey went out a little too fast and probably stopped somewhere in the second 5K section for whatever reason. Then started going again and slowly jogged it in. The missing split time raises my eyebrows a bit, but there are malfunctions from time to time. Overall, not worth investigating this race, I don't believe. If he ever blogged about it or posted GPS data from this race I'd be interested in checking that out but it's hard to imagine how someone could cheat so poorly.

Blog wrote:

What did Rossi write on his blog about the Rock 'n' Roll Philadelphia 2014 Half Marathon?

Nothing. He had no posts between October 2nd, 2014 and November 6th, 2014. But in his Philly race report at 20 miles he thought ha was "not far from another BQ". His 30K split was 2:34:32, 8:17/mile. Just another piece of evidence how delusional and completely ignorant this guy is about paces and times. He is completely clueless. And so were his readers/fans. All 9 of them.

I am a fairly advance mathematician and I have studied the training trajectory of Mike Rossi's training/racing data and fully believe he had the capability to perform at the 3:11 marathon level. This does assume that all factors came together to peak at the specific race day. In addition he needed to perfectly time his passing of the photo stops to not be captured on any of the pictures. While this instance is a very remote possibility (on both counts) it is still a possibility.

CASE CLOSED!!

weird paced race wrote:

LoserMikeRossi wrote:

I'm not sure. I would need somebody to check my math. I haven't taken an algebra class since freshman year in high school and that was 15 years ago.

If my math is correct, that is one strangely paced run:

1st 5K: 8:01/mile

2nd 5K: 15:40/mile

10K-finish: 9:43/mile

Those splits don't look all that strange to me. He starts out at a pace that he thinks he can maintain (8 min) but then finds out that he can't. He stops and walks the next several miles (15 min). After the rest he finishes by running a pace that works for him (10 min).

Nothing to see here.