How Would You "Properly" Cheat in a Marathon?

My. EPO injections will beat your silly shoes any day.

I would enter a steeply downhill course, throw on my favorite pair of Heelys and laugh all the way to the bank.

I would get a doppelganger with a faster PR to bib mule.

Contact Mike Rossi for advice

Rev Canyon 'thon with a luge-skateboard at the top of that sweeping 6000' net elevation drop to about the halfway point. After completing the first half in maybe 20-30 minutes, I'd hobby-job the backhalf out and pick up my pro card

Isn't it obvious?

1. Map out to position of timing mats and photographers. If the info is not available, check out the previous editions to see whether they are consistently in the same places.

2. position several bikes (use code locks) along the route past the timing mats/photo points and use them to ride the sidewalks/back streets between the checkpoints. It is imperative to run through all timing mats, but you are free to miss some photo points.

3. wear sport-casual clothes, someting like long shorts, cotton t-shirt. Wear your bib on a removable belt, so you are not too obvious to the bystanders. For good measure you can switch headwear (baseball cap, hat, bandana) or sunglasses on/of.

4. run like hell from the start to your first bike so that your first split is not too off. Run like hell from the last checkpoint to the finish.

Might shop around for the right marathon to pull this off, but perfect crime requires perfect circumstances.

hsddvh wrote:

I would get a doppelganger with a faster PR to bib mule.

The problem with this is that my doppelganger is the same 280 pounds as I and would probably also have a hard time running a 3:30 marathon.

Easy. Bib mule.

I know this will not go over well on LRC, but some us view bib muling like banditing. Not that big of a deal. Before you rip banditing just remember Boston has a long tradition of bandits.

I've never cheated in a marathon myself, but I have helped a few friends get QTs for hard to get into marathons by carrying a bib. Got a running partner a BQ last week.

Great research and thought. But, the mats pick up within 35 feet, so if I rode my bike past, in a small marathon with no photographers, why would I need to get off the bike when I rode past the mats? I would only need to be off the bike for about 5 miles. Maybe the first 1+ mile then the last 3 or 4 miles to make it look good.

As for the downhill marathon, the original Las Vegas Marathons were all downhill. What they forgot to tell everyone was that it started at 4:30 AM and had high winds that time of year. Very high winds. They had so many people drop out after 10 miles, that they decided to change the course to it's current course

Now this is a topic that interests me.

Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. I am always surprised how greedy people are when they cheat in a marathon. The first rule of marathon cheating should be to keep your cheating within the realm of possibility. If you have never run under 2 hrs for a half, do not go for a marathon cheat where your half splits will be well under 2 hrs. It is also surprising how cheaters are oblivious to the huge difference in their splits when they cheat.

If I were to advise someone on cheating, I would tell them to be ready to run all out for 18 mi. Then, have a bike or car ready to skip from one timing mat to the next and then to the finish. Keep your splits even. If a photographer misses you between mi 18 and 26, it won't be a big deal because there will be pics on the rest of the course. You just have to be careful that no one sees you enter the course to run across timing mats and the finish. Best to jump on the course after a 90 degree turn and walk a bit so it looks like you bonked and are just trying to get it done.

This strategy could easily yield a BQ for most people who are within 15-20 min of a BQ. Anyone looking to break 3:05 who currently has a PR of 3:20-25 can easily do 18 mi at BQ pace in a race. It is the last 8 that ruins everyone. So, skip that part of the race while carefully measuring splits.

This is a rough approximation of the Litton method.

Wise One wrote:

If I were to cheat on a marathon, I would get a set of spring loaded shoes and use them to bounce my way along. How often does anyone even check your shoes in a marathon?

And the Marathon Investigator would be clueless because I would be in all the correct photos and timing mats.

The honorable way to cheat is to be in shape to run and then run your own marathon clean. The cheating is that you are banditing the race with a phony bib and etc. The sneak into the race is still cheating but honorable.

Send a couple hundred dollars to doublr to keep quiet about it. Then use whatever cheating method you prefer, no one else will look into it.

here's a cheating tip. If you are going to cheat, at least cheat to win. Most of these recent stories are people that cheated for a mediocre race result. What is the point in that? If you want the glory of being a mediocre runner without the work or talent, isn't it easier to simply lie about your PRs?

Well. here's how I inadvertently "cheated" in a marathon earlier this year.

I had signed up to run this race about 5-6 months ago thinking I would use it as my Spring marathon. Training over the Winter didn't turn out as planned, so I decided to use it as a long run. Ran about 18 miles and then cut across the course to wait for friends to finish. I must have tripped the timing mat at the finish at some point because the Tuesday following the race I got a call from a friend who ran and knew I didn't finish telling me that I had gotten 3rd in my AG. I emailed the RD, but as of a few days ago I was still in the results online. Got a decent PR out of it too.

All you course cutters have no ability to learn from history and are easily caught based on splits and photos. You have to try so hard to get everything right and it is too easy to mess up.

Now, here is a fool proof plan. Pay a Kenyan to pull you through the race. What you do is attach a short fishing line to a small harness that your Kenyan and you each have. The fishing line is practically invisible, like movie fishing lines. The Kenyan just runs and you follow, using much less energy. An easy sub-3 hour finishing time and you will be at all the timing mats and in all the photos.

I've never run a marathon before, as that seems like an awfully long time to be on the track, but would it be possible to just allow yourself to be lapped a few times, but pretend that you had been running with the lead pack the whole time. It seems to me that it would be almost impossible for officials to count laps for every single athlete over a 100+ lap race once the pack starts to string out.