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

There is a risk of making things too complicated and assuming too great of a burden. I would encourage the race director to shift the burden of proof to Rossi. That is, based on the evidence assembled to date (e.g., no photos, no race results consistent with 3:11 marathon time, etc.), the race director should write to Rossi and give him something like 72 hours to produce evidence showing that he ran all 26.2 miles between the start and the finish or be subject to disqualification.

This is not a civil nor criminal case. The race director does not have the burden of proving that Rossi ran the race - or that he cheated - by preponderance of the evidence (Deflategate), clear and convincing evidence, or beyond a reasonable doubt.

Any runner can be disqualified at the sole discretion of the race director.

Raysism wrote:

But doesn't he have a foot pod (or something) on the other shoe?

Or a shoe-wallet thing? I've seen people with those, but I think Rossi is a spibelt guy, so maybe more likely a pod.

could be a foot pod, my Suunto is black and about that size, but why would it matter if he's wearing one?

NewRunner41 wrote:

I am surprised that people are questioning his 5K time. I am 41 and am fairly new to running. I started the summer of 2013 and I ran two sub 22 minute 5Ks. (21:23 and 21:34) My one half marathon was just under 1:47 and I could NEVER run a full in 3:11. EVER. A sub-22 minute 5K on a flat course is actually not a difficult task.

That was a terrible post on so many levels.

There are plenty of 47 year olds who can run sub 20 minutes for 5K, just like there are plenty who can run sub 3 hours for the marathon. However, if you have a runner who clearly cheated in one race, then it elevates the possibility that he cheated at other races. And just because you can easily run sub 22 minutes for 5K does not mean that Mike Rossi can.

How long until someone does this?

Make it really impactful. Use the first photo as your first frame and then index through them in real time. That is, show the photo that was taken one second later one second later in the video. If there is a gap in the photo record, make the frame blank for whatever the gap is. It will become absurdly obvious that no one could sneak through without getting photographed.

The Nike+ watch can also be used with a foot pod. If we know his email someone can try to login to his Nike+ account. The password is probably mikerules or boston2015.

yes-- looks identical to a suunto or garmin footpod, which is confusing because Rossi trains with a rebranded tomtom nike+ http://www.suunto.com/Global/ProductImages/Suunto-Foot-POD-Mini/Suunto-Foot-POD-Mini-3179.png?width=570http://images.evanscycles.com/product_image/image/920/3a2/f29/47577/product_page/garmin-foot-pod-for-forerunner-running-range.jpg

Raysism wrote:

CyberCop715 wrote:

Ummm, have you ever actually run a road race? That band is a timing strip with a chip embedded, ummm, for timing. It's not a foot pod.

But doesn't he have a foot pod (or something) on the other shoe?

It would honestly take about 5 minutes to make in Windows Movie Maker of you had all of the files on your computer. I did it with some pictures of my son not long ago. Just sort by date created then upload. Set them to 1 per second.

I'd do it now, but in the words of Krusty the Clown, "I'm a lazy, lazy man"

What should we use as the background music (using proper license from the artist of course)?

I like TLC's "Creep", or maybe since Rossi is a country guy:

Conway Twitty, "It's Only Make Believe"

I got my left and right wrong. I know the red strip is a timing chip. I even wrote on the spreadsheet next to the entry " (Please note, not the red timing chip, other shoe)"

MarathonMind wrote:

could be a foot pod, my Suunto is black and about that size, but why would it matter if he's wearing one?

he has said on facebook twice at least that he doesn't use any technology in races, his watch is a watch and his phone is a phone. He doesn't listen to music (But wears earphones?) or track most of his races on GPS. I've seen something on his left foot (Not right, sorry) in a lot of photos but you couldn't make out what it was. In the one I posted earlier it's pretty clear that it's a pod. Why wear one if you don't track your races? It would be redundant.

Lenny Leonard wrote:

It would honestly take about 5 minutes to make in Windows Movie Maker of you had all of the files on your computer. I did it with some pictures of my son not long ago. Just sort by date created then upload. Set them to 1 per second.

I'd do it now, but in the words of Krusty the Clown, "I'm a lazy, lazy man"

What should we use as the background music (using proper license from the artist of course)?

I like TLC's "Creep", or maybe since Rossi is a country guy:

Conway Twitty, "It's Only Make Believe"

THIS!!!!!!!!!!1

Living in the past wrote:

NewRunner41 wrote:

I am surprised that people are questioning his 5K time. I am 41 and am fairly new to running. I started the summer of 2013 and I ran two sub 22 minute 5Ks. (21:23 and 21:34) My one half marathon was just under 1:47 and I could NEVER run a full in 3:11. EVER. A sub-22 minute 5K on a flat course is actually not a difficult task.

That was a terrible post on so many levels.

There are plenty of 47 year olds who can run sub 20 minutes for 5K, just like there are plenty who can run sub 3 hours for the marathon. However, if you have a runner who clearly cheated in one race, then it elevates the possibility that he cheated at other races. And just because you can easily run sub 22 minutes for 5K does not mean that Mike Rossi can.

I don't know why you think the post was terrible. It didn't add much to the discussion, true, but there is no reason to question Rossi's very mediocre 5K performance.

It could be a Road ID. The Pod for a Nike+ is white and red

Lenny Leonard wrote

I don't think this moves forward until he gets the DQ.

I also sorta love that it will come from the Yasso family. Imagine if you cheated at golf and Arnold Palmer called you out on it to the entire golfing community.

You either don't know running or you don't know golf.

Yasso is no Palmer. Not even close. Conservatively speaking, Arnold Palmer was one million times better at golf than anyone named Yasso has ever been at running.

And on topic: Rossi definitely cheated.

Yes, I know you had mentioned these rolls forever ago, and I scrolled through them with delight after you suggested it. It is incredibly convincing. But counting the photos each minute was yet another Raysism stroke of genius. The numbers really put this 'photostream' evidence in perspective for people who don't look through the pictures themselves.

So now we can say that either he was at least 10 minutes off pace at the bridge, or else he was somehow missed when 40+ pics were being taken per minute.

Do we know yet how far the bridge was into the race?

Lenny Leonard wrote:

It would honestly take about 5 minutes to make in Windows Movie Maker of you had all of the files on your computer. I did it with some pictures of my son not long ago. Just sort by date created then upload. Set them to 1 per second.

I'd do it now, but in the words of Krusty the Clown, "I'm a lazy, lazy man"

What should we use as the background music (using proper license from the artist of course)?

I like TLC's "Creep", or maybe since Rossi is a country guy:

Conway Twitty, "It's Only Make Believe"

If someone out there wants to take the time but doesn't know how to make the "movie", Just download them and put them on dropbox or something a kind person here would be glad to compile them into a "movie".

I hope someone does this, but I too am too lazy to download all those photos.

I don't know how I missed the timestamp option. I thought I'd been following this thread closely. Anyway, here are all the runners who finished within 10 places of Rossi and the photo showing them going past the first photographer after the start and the time they passed. Everyone goes by between 7:48 and 7:52 AM. There is some question about 2515, but he is clearly visible at the next photographer at the bridge in photo 12-1162. I can check all of the bridge photos next.

1163 6-510 7:48

1880 6-528 7:49

2515 6-532 7:49

1444 6-535 7:49

1823 6-544 7:50

2372 6-544 7:50

2531 6-550 7:50

1255 6-560 7:51

2028 6-563 7:51

1711 6-567 7:51

1933 6-570 7:51

2550 6-574 7:51

2544 6-574 7:51

1242 6-577 7:51

1185 6-581 7:52

1603 6-584 7:52

1950 6-594 7:52

1388 6-595 7:52

1997 6-597 7:52

2233 7-602 7:52

I remember my local running shop selling little pouches that affix to the front of a shoe for the purpose of securing those tiny white and red Nike foot pods-- perhaps one of those?

MRTT_Texas wrote:

It could be a Road ID. The Pod for a Nike+ is white and red

Where the heck is the LetsRun article!?!?!

Does that need to be crowd sourced too? We have a 2 million posts on the topic so far, I think you could probably just cut and paste the article in 15 minutes...