Considered Cheating...in a race?

I say go for it as long as you tell us which race you are cheating in so we can try to catch you. All is fair in love and marathons.

No. Sub 3 is a pretty worthless time to cheat over. Any cheating is bad, but you must be pitiful to cheat over a Sub 3. Run what you can, do the best you can, and be happy with doing your best. There will always be someone better than you, so I'm not sure what the incentive is to cheat. Nobody will care about your time but you. Every lay person (which is probably who your target audience is to share your wonderful running time / story) won't recognize the difference between 4 hours and 3 hours. They also won't care about you talking about your marathon completion achievement that hundreds of thousands of other people per year have done.

I'm not saying it's a worthless achievement, but your motives make it worthless.

Wowwwdude wrote:

Anyone else out there somewhat close to this mindset??

No.

I hear that your not saying you are considering cheating (I think). But still, the only pressure those schmucks feel is ultimately self-imposed pressure, right?

To the extent anyone knows of their times is because of their own social media demands for attention, right? But for that, no one other than their training partners would ever remember they're running a marathon, never mind he time they ran, which is meaningless to the lay person anyway.

So while I've done a ton of dumb stuff that's had tough consequences, and can relate to that,

I have trouble relating to those who feel the need to cheat to affirm things that are both of their own creation ("Hey, look at me!"), and completely irrelevant to any average person (someone asked me today what a goo marathon time was ("5:00?").

Generally the people who cheat in races and then get aggressively outed are the ones who stand to gain personally from their cheating. Usually the hobby jogger who bit off more than he could chew or who missed some training due to injury is left alone. The ones who are outed usually fall into one of six groups:

1) Boston qualifiers - cheating to get into the Boston marathon and so denying a legitimate qualifier a spot.

2) Business promoters - use their results to promote their fitness training business, the most recent is a Pilates instructor, or their online blogs etc. For example Gia Alvarez

3) Questionable charities - raising money for a foundation that is a sort of charity but could just as easily be going into their own pocket. See the Amy Hughes thread for a classic example of this.

4) Brand ambassadors - use their results to build up Facebook and twitter followers to get sponsorship from a fitness related company. Amy Hughes again

5) Stolen glory - cheat to get on the podium and gain prizes either overall or in their age group. Kip Litton would fit in here.

6) Serial cheaters - see the act of cheating to be the real challenge. How blatant can I be and still get the schmucks to not spot it. Kip Litton again, the article on him in the New Yorker is a must read.

If you are not in one of the above then probably nobody is going to bother you.

https://www.marathoninvestigation.com/2016/04/popular-blogger-banned-from-boston.html

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=8338355&page=105

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/08/06/marathon-man

Go For It wrote:

I say go for it as long as you tell us which race you are cheating in so we can try to catch you. All is fair in love and marathons.

I probably didn't articulate my thoughts very well, but all I was trying to say was that through my own struggles with injury and age I can begin to have empathy for someone who feels so desperate in their attempt to finish a race that they see no other option but to cheat. On the other hand, the previous poster makes a great point about the notoriety that these cheaters were seeking, totally changing my perspective.

Wowwwdude wrote:

Go For It wrote:

I say go for it as long as you tell us which race you are cheating in so we can try to catch you. All is fair in love and marathons.

I probably didn't articulate my thoughts very well, but all I was trying to say was that through my own struggles with injury and age I can begin to have empathy for someone who feels so desperate in their attempt to finish a race that they see no other option but to cheat. On the other hand, the previous poster makes a great point about the notoriety that these cheaters were seeking, totally changing my perspective.

I didn't think you were serious, which is why I'm encouraging you to cheat. We need a spectacle.

I'm hoping that the OP is trolling

Wowwwdude wrote:Anyone else out there somewhat close to this mindset??

Nope. Not even the slightest hint of empathy for anyone who cheats, for any reason whatsoever.

No mention of Mike Rossi? WTF

yea. My lat marathon....the course left the main area and had this little 1/2 mile addition. It was torture to be running toward finishline and turn to add distance. I almost cut it.

Once you cheat, you're a cheater.

Only cheat if you get given the mega million numbers ahead of time, with a $500 million jackpot.

Let me ask the brain trust of LRC, if I may....

If a bandit runs a race (didn't pay for it and their results don't show up on the official results), and cuts the course, does it matter?

Or put another way, have we just found the first instance where two wrongs do make a right?