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

Raysism wrote:

m runner wrote:http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mikerossi.blogspot.com/

I just read his blog for the first time. On March 29 he was writing about running a 5K with some back/hip soreness, and he said:

"I even had a pretty decent time (22:19)."

There is no way a 3:10 marathoner is going to say a 22 minute 5K is a decent time. It's almost his alleged marathon PR pace! I've been in and out of shape my entire running career, and I probably couldn't break 3:20 as we speak, and at no point would I ever have been satisfied with a 22:19 5K. That should be a jog for him.

Thanks for the link to his blog. It makes me wonder, did he make up the car accident, that led to his supposed hip injury (from which he miraculously recovered from for the Broad Street race recently)?

I think it is time to put pressure on the race directors, both Boston and Lehigh to disqualify him! I say this because the lack of any photos during the Lehigh marathon is more than enough evidence to show he didn't run it. All the evidence showing he isn't capable of the time is just icing on the cake!

I'm a bit of a recovering narcissist myself, I've gotten a lot better, but I've bought all my race photos at probably 4 or 5 events. They don't miss you at every position, sure maybe one, but not all of them! The more photos they have of you, the more likely it is that they have enough to motivate the runner to buy the cd which is how they've gotten me.

And when a runner is as obsessed to BQ as this guy, plus he likes photos of himself, he's going to ham it up for every official photographer on the course and there should be a bunch of photos of him, he didn't run it!

So, sometime tomorrow I'll post the email addresses of the race directors and suggest people contact them and pressure for his DQ! Have the balls to do the right thing.

Just had a thought, is there any possibility of a legal case against Mike? Maybe something along the lines of mail fraud? I remember seeing a letter he has on his blog from Boston Marathon, do you have to snail mail proof of your qualifying to get in to Boston? Maybe we can put some teeth into the punishment to deter other BQ cheaters with some legal punishment? Anybody have Travis Tygart's contact info... :)

This tool deserves all he gets after posting a letter on line to out his kids school principal for doing her job.

'Outing' is like being a whistle blower, if you're going to do it you've gotta be squeaky clean yourself, this fella isn't, deserves all he gets.

Oh my God, he is so delusional that he thinks he's inspiring people with his 30 miles a week of training. What's wrong with this guy?

Is it true that the start of the VIA marathon was late by 10min? This was said once (I believe) in this thread.

doctor nick wrote:

I bet the injuries are made up, or at the very least exaggerated.

Which would make him just like most runners. I swear, every race report starts with "I hadn't taken a running step in six months because I had ITBS, PF, PTSD, three broken legs and Lupus..."

But he promoted the injury angle in every story to make himself sound more heroic.

534 wrote:

runner_woodworker wrote:

The funny one is May, look at the very last post of the month:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mikerossi.blogspot.com/2014_05_01_archive.html

Oh my God, he is so delusional that he thinks he's inspiring people with his 30 miles a week of training. What's wrong with this guy?

I like how he immediately transitioned from "I'm a beginner" to giving sage advice to all the little people out there.

Here is a link with some good random pics of the marathon with some crowd shots. Maybe someone with a better eye can spot something. At the least the source may have more photos.

Lack of photos evidence enough wrote:

I think it is time to put pressure on the race directors, both Boston and Lehigh to disqualify him! I say this because the lack of any photos during the Lehigh marathon is more than enough evidence to show he didn't run it. All the evidence showing he isn't capable of the time is just icing on the cake!

^^^ This

How can anyone want to go and use the LVM as their first shot at a BQ now? This race has been built up over the last few years about being one of the fastest BQ courses around, and now it looks like a sham because of this guy. They need to DQ him to show they are taking this sh*t seriously.

Yes, totally agree. If he did pull a Rosie Ruiz, I wonder how far ahead he planned it, and how/where he got the idea. Personally I think cheating on your qualifier should mean losing the medal from both runs. If he was too slow for Boston in 2015 he could've waited and trained for another year, instead of treating an annual race as "once in a lifetime" or he could've signed up with a charity spot and run to raise money for the Boston Strong foundation, or the Jimmy Fund. Seems like he was all about bringing glory to himself.

Maybe the marathon's facebook page is a good place to start:

https://www.facebook.com/ViaMarathon

you think that guy would ever give that Boston medal up?

And he realized as the race drew near that he had vastly underestimated the amount of improvement needed to BQ and hatched a plan to get to Boston by hook or crook.

CSU-1959 wrote:

Pi R 2 wrote:

If you watch the finish video, he never went for his watch after the finish line. Odds are the watch was never running (similar to him for the most part of the previous three hours.)

If he had turned the GPS on, it would have tracked him driving from one end of the course to the other. He won't be sharing any GPS data with the RD. in the interview, they asked him if he had GPS data from his training and Lehigh. He answered yes - because he has data from his training.

Also, if he did start the race with his GPS on and then paused it until the 'Jump In' point then started it again, the route line will be skewed or show a straight line as the bird flies (lack of better terms), from the previous marked point. This happened to me one time after leaving where I had finished my run, I realized I never hit the save, so I pressed the button but did not hold it long enough to save so it just started again. So, when I downloaded it later on it showed a straight line from the parking lot where I finished at to where I pressed the start button again - across a dense forrest, and a lake...looked like Jesus took my GPS and ran with it! LOL

Da cheat wrote:

you think that guy would ever give that Boston medal up?

no, just like Martti Vainio refused to give his Olympic silver back. However, the results do have a DSQ by his name.

Is there a way to see his blog post immediately after the Lehigh marathon? I am just curious to see how his commentary compares with the Philly marathon which he ran 30 minutes slower. I know he barely tweeted about Lehigh, but was wondering if the blog had a similar low key tone to it.

Living in the past wrote:

Is there a way to see his blog post immediately after the Lehigh marathon? I am just curious to see how his commentary compares with the Philly marathon which he ran 30 minutes slower. I know he barely tweeted about Lehigh, but was wondering if the blog had a similar low key tone to it.

I've been looking for the same thing, and as far as I can tell, he just never blogged about it. It first comes up in his October post about being accepted to Boston.

Raysism wrote:

Living in the past wrote:

Is there a way to see his blog post immediately after the Lehigh marathon? I am just curious to see how his commentary compares with the Philly marathon which he ran 30 minutes slower. I know he barely tweeted about Lehigh, but was wondering if the blog had a similar low key tone to it.

I've been looking for the same thing, and as far as I can tell, he just never blogged about it. It first comes up in his October post about being accepted to Boston.

That's the sinker right there. A guy like this would have blown up his Twitter and Blog. There is no way he lets that fly under the radar. Everyone and their dog would know that he hit the BQ. This stinks of guilty.