I lose about 5 pounds during a 200, but I gain back 7 in the next couple of days!
I lose about 5 pounds during a 200, but I gain back 7 in the next couple of days!
I suppose this is the trollery I was warned about. I tried so hard to post messages that reflect the real me. Where did I go wrong?
It should be pretty easy to prove, I guess. How about if I post something to my timeline on Facebook? No, wait, the trollers will think I've been maintaining a bogus facebook page for years just so I could do that!
What's so suspicious about the LA splits? They all look completely reasonable to me (basically between 20:00 and 21:30). What am I missing?
Both physically and mentally, that was the hardest thing I've ever done. I really doubt if I could ever do that again. I certainly don't want to!
JustGene wrote:
It should be pretty easy to prove, I guess. How about if I post something to my timeline on Facebook? No, wait, the trollers will think I've been maintaining a bogus facebook page for years just so I could do that!
Yes. just do that simple thing. Forget the Trollers, the rest of us will know you are not fake.
However, if you won't even give that simple surface show of authenticity a go, then how can you
ever expect anyone to suspend their disbelief?
Post that timeline!! Dare us to doubt!
A man with nothing to hide will sell his soul to be transparent. (Hrexes C: 2000bc).
You just have to post a link...
Ffs, someone alert poor Gene about this faker, sh!tting on his good name.
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FYI, impersonating someone is strictly forbidden by the rules of this forum.
Also, I don't know if it is really him or not, but impersonating someone will get you in real trouble.
That said, if it is really him, he doesn't have to prove it to anyone. Stop trolling the guy either way.
JustGene, if you are really who you say you are, ignore this BS.
The splits from LA Marathon 2018 are the ones in dispute. https://www.trackshackresults.com/lamarathon/results/2018/mar_results.php?Link=14&Type=3&LName=meza&FName=frank&City=south%20pasadena&State=&Country=
JustGene wrote:
About Long Beach. It might be sanctioned and certified, but for some reason it doesn't show up on the list of IAAF approved marathons. I would be leery of attempting a world record there. (I should have consulted this web site before attempting the record at Jacksonville)
https://media.aws.iaaf.org/competitioninfo/01664bab-af0a-44d6-a014-cd603492f592.pdf
The IAAF list only includes marathons measured by IAAF-certified measurers. Many marathons in the US are measured by people without the IAAF certification. If we’re talking USATF (national) records, whether a race has an IAAF and/or USATF certificate doesn’t matter; either one is valid as long as the race is sanctioned. If we’re talking world record, I’m not sure what body keeps that list? If it’s US-based I’m almost sure they would accept a USATF certificate, whereas if it’s not based in the US it’s probably worth asking them. Hell, it’s probably worth checking if they’re US-based, too.
I looked at the splits as they are shown on the Los Angeles Marathon web site, and they are clearly different. Do you have some reason for believing that TrackShack splits are more acccurate than the official LA web site?
Stop the trolls wrote:
FYI, impersonating someone is strictly forbidden by the rules of this forum.
Also, I don't know if it is really him or not, but impersonating someone will get you in real trouble.
That said, if it is really him, he doesn't have to prove it to anyone. Stop trolling the guy either way.
JustGene, if you are really who you say you are, ignore this BS.
So, don't troll him if he's a troll?
Excellent analysis. Thank you.
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Oh, my bad. I was looking at the 2019 results.
Gene: look, you are an admirable runner and all that, and an inspiration to masters and beyond. No offense, though, but please don't come on here and try to turn this into a thread about 1) what you're up to, or 2) this kind of "aw shucks, i believe in this guy, because I believe anything's possible for the older crowd". I know you didn't set out with that aim in mind, but that's what it's turning into.
Here's the deal: nobody is questioning that some (very few) 70+ runners can run 2:52 or 2:54 or whatever for the marathon. After all, SOMEBODY is going to have the best time, and the best time by definition is going to seem impressive. I don't doubt Ed Whitlock ran the times he is said to have run, and I have no reason to doubt your times either.
The reasons Frank Meza is being treated with great skepticism are (at least) threefold:
1) DQ from CIM 2014
2) numerous missed timing mats in prior races. Read the whole thread if you want examples. Sure, everybody's got a story of themselves or a friend missing a mat. However, when the same runner misses multiple mats in multiple races in which they happened to run world-class age-graded times with weirdly yo-yoing splits, it demands an explanation.
3) impossible splits. I'll do you a favor and copy and paste from an earlier post the splits from each 5k interval of one of Meza's marathons (LA 2018 I believe) along with a 4 other runners who ran similar times in the same race.
30545 Francisco Quijada (2:53:17) - 20:35, 20:36, 19:47, 19:26, 19:35, 20:27, 21:58, 21:14
30087 Fernando Navarro (2:54:54) 19:51, 19:40, 19:33, 19:36, 20:32, 21:04, 22:28, 22:28
1091 Kevin Purcell (2:53:46) 22:14, 21:41, 20:49, 20:25, 20:11, 20:18, 20:19, 19:36
22137 Danny Connolly (also 2:53:46) 20:20, 20:27, 20:05, 19:56, 20:38, 21:08, 21:21, 21:04
and here are Frank Meza's splits:
1287 Frank Meza (2:52:47) 20:47, 19:03, 20:28, 25:01, 18:34, 19:22, 21:28, 18:30
You, more than almost anyone else, are in a position to comment on the plausibility of these splits. Do you think having 5k splits varying between 18:34 and 25:01 and back to 18:30 in the same marathon at age 70-ish are remotely plausible? I mean, your splits are available in race results, and they look nothing like this. Nobody else in the same race looked like this. No world best ever looked like this. And if you think they are plausible, if you could, kindly present a possible scenario.
So, please don't resort to the "geez, it's tough to say, but I'm a-gonna give him the benefit of the doubt because I'm a nice, easygoing world record-holder". You either think these are possible, or you don't. I appreciate you posting in the thread, but in a way it works against the aim of this thread, because so many people are prone to the Argument from Authority Fallacy that all it takes is for you to say "I think he's probably legit", and all the carefully-prepared arguments from all other posters are for nought in the minds of many.
Delusional perhapsl wrote:
Has everyone had their bullshit filter rerouted through their ass?
It's patently obvious THIS IS NOT GENE DYKES, so why the fck is everyone posting as if royalty has dropped a crap in their lap?
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Very succinctly and articulately enunciated my friend.
Golgi Body wrote:
Do you think having 5k splits varying between 18:34 and 25:01 and back to 18:30 in the same marathon at age 70-ish are remotely plausible?
I don't and I'm guessing Gene doesn't either.
You make a lot of good points. I think you understand that I have never come down on the side that he is legit. I have never disputed the possibly good reasons for doubt, I have contented myself with debunking the obviously bad reasons. Put me in the camp of "the jury is still out", which, I guess, makes me guilty of giving him the benefit of the doubt. I'll let the Marathon Investigation guy weigh in on the missing mats and the DQ's. He's good at that.
I can discuss his splits, though. Here I put his 2018 and 2019 splits together:
20:47, 19:03, 20:28, 25:01, 18:34, 19:22, 21:28, 18:30
20:02, 20:17, 20:33, 21:21, 20:02, 21:23, 20:44, 19:47
Clearly, the 2019 splits are much more consistent, leading one to wonder why his strategy would be so different from one year to then next. His two sub-19 splits in 2018 were both on downhill parts of the course, so I'm tempted to believe they are possible, particularly if he can run a 5K faster than I can. Those are fast, though, no doubt about it. Actually, the one split that gives me the most pause is the 2nd one. That 19:03 on an uphill part of the course seems more suspect to me than the two downhill splits. The 25:01 is a clear outlier, but if all the splits are legitimate, then a stop for a #2 does seem the most likely, and, yes, that would mean he was capable of an even faster time.
Bottom line - I can appreciate your concerns, but I'm not convinced enough to convict. Maybe I've seen so many weird things when running that I'll believe almost anything. Maybe it would all be clear if we heard his side of the story. Maybe I'm hoping he's the real deal so that we can really duke it out in a future race. Unless he gets injured, all the eyes on his next competitive race will surely tell the tale.
JustGene wrote:
You make a lot of good points. I think you understand that I have never come down on the side that he is legit. I have never disputed the possibly good reasons for doubt, I have contented myself with debunking the obviously bad reasons. Put me in the camp of "the jury is still out", which, I guess, makes me guilty of giving him the benefit of the doubt. I'll let the Marathon Investigation guy weigh in on the missing mats and the DQ's. He's good at that.
I can discuss his splits, though. Here I put his 2018 and 2019 splits together:
20:47, 19:03, 20:28, 25:01, 18:34, 19:22, 21:28, 18:30
20:02, 20:17, 20:33, 21:21, 20:02, 21:23, 20:44, 19:47
Clearly, the 2019 splits are much more consistent, leading one to wonder why his strategy would be so different from one year to then next. His two sub-19 splits in 2018 were both on downhill parts of the course, so I'm tempted to believe they are possible, particularly if he can run a 5K faster than I can. Those are fast, though, no doubt about it. Actually, the one split that gives me the most pause is the 2nd one. That 19:03 on an uphill part of the course seems more suspect to me than the two downhill splits. The 25:01 is a clear outlier, but if all the splits are legitimate, then a stop for a #2 does seem the most likely, and, yes, that would mean he was capable of an even faster time.
Bottom line - I can appreciate your concerns, but I'm not convinced enough to convict. Maybe I've seen so many weird things when running that I'll believe almost anything. Maybe it would all be clear if we heard his side of the story. Maybe I'm hoping he's the real deal so that we can really duke it out in a future race. Unless he gets injured, all the eyes on his next competitive race will surely tell the tale.
Thanks FRANK.
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I hope it really is G.D. posting in defence of F.M. but I have never seen someone defend a possible cheater (with all due respect, F.M.) with as much energy as the 'possible' G.D. on this. It is just weird that G.D. is manifesting himself now, at this critical junction in the 'case.
I have even thought (perhaps with malevolence) that it is in fact F.M. posting in Gene's name, but if I am wrong, may the full wrath of Karma beat down on me.
Ghost in China
Thanks for marking a reasonably well-reasoned response. I suspect you are perhaps a little more skeptical than you are letting on, but don't want to come across as accusatory given the nature of your position. I can understand that. It's a little easier for somebody anonymous, like me, to say exactly what they feel.
Just a couple of brief points about your comments: yes, weird things are possible. People do sometimes genuinely accomplish amazing things. However, I feel you can be too open-minded when allowing for the fabulousness of humankind, because almost nothing can really said to be literally "impossible". If he alternated between 12-minute 5k's and 30-minute 5k's, we couldn't say it was literally impossible, but we would say the chances of it being legitimate were vanishingly small. It may not be literally impossible, but it certainly wouldn't be believable, or true. That is what we are going for here. No point trying to prove his accomplishment is IMPOSSIBLE. Sure, an 18:30 split is "possible," and so is 25:01, and all the other splits. Believable? No.
As to why his strategy would change from one year to the next: that is a good question, but I don't think it somehow adds credibility to his times. Perhaps the biggest takeaway from studying cheating runners in general is, none of it makes sense. It never adds up. Why would a presumably successful doctor, a purported pillar of his community, who probably has some genuine accomplishments to be proud of, even both going to great lengths to cheat to achieve something so (no offense) meaningless to most of the world's population?
Personally, as I said in an earlier post, I think his splits were believable this year simply because he has fine-tuned his means of cheating. He has improved in that area. There is no reason to doubt that, once an intelligent person of some means commits to cheating, they won't do a ridiculously good job of it after some practice.