Sad News: Frank Meza Found Dead In LA River

Why? The Lance Armstrong threads were never locked, were they? Or threads about other cheaters either.

You are assuming everything, while knowing essentially nothing.

I am not rationalizing anything, I am just humbled by the enormity of his action, and recognize that I am in no position to sit in judgment.

I extend that status to pretty much everyone.

His apparent suicide is something to contemplate, and not something to judge.

Ernest wrote:

^ "I have no idea if he cheated or not. "

You might as well have posted, I have no idea if the Earth is round...

IMHO, there were some close to Frank who assisted in his cheating, or at the very least, were well aware.

I read only the early part of the LR thread, and nothing else. The only thing I know is that at that point his reputation seemed to have been damaged, and that he had, apparently done nothing about it in the thread.

I still have no idea if he cheated or not.

Your line of thinking is leading to an epidemic. Throw in mortality for Opiate addiction and we have a serious problem in this nation. I have witnessed several students take there life at the HS where I teach -- over SAT scores, GPA, not getting into the college the want. This is a serious matter to me, and to hedge, and say it is a "reasonable" alternative does not sit well with me. Suicide is never okay. Euthanasia is a different story.

"Their"

I was speed typing...woops...without proof reading. My bad!!!

It really sounds like he staked his identity on these false accomplishments. When those crumbled, what was he left with? It's sad for sure. But how are you going to blame MI or any of the outlets that ran with this? It became news and they reported the facts. Meza had control of the facts. It's a sad story, but there's one person to blame here.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

Ernest wrote:

^ "I have no idea if he cheated or not. "

You might as well have posted, I have no idea if the Earth is round...

IMHO, there were some close to Frank who assisted in his cheating, or at the very least, were well aware.

I still have no idea if he cheated or not.

If multiple DQs for course cutting, lack of corroborating workouts/races (not counting a couple other improbable marathons), or obvious impossibility of laying down WR-pace 5K or 10K splits during a WR-pace marathon result weren't obvious enough....

If you can't see the mountain in front of you, you've got your eyes closed.

*mic drop*

Toobs wrote:

Suicide is never okay.

Yes, that is the current official US mantra, but it has not been and is not universal, especially in different cultures.

Maybe we just have different definitions of suicide. Without having thought about it much, mine is something like one is the primary cause of one’s own demise, when there were alternative courses of action that were known, available, viable, and rejected, and where the likely ultimate consequence of one’s action or inaction was appreciated as otherwise-avoidable death.

Working 18-hr days at a desk and dying of a heart attack can for some IMO be a form of suicide, albeit not one with a sudden and singular final volitional act.

Pushing someone out of the path of an oncoming truck and getting killed yourself can IMO equally be a form of suicide.

The bottom line here for me is not to leap to condemnation. The issue is not so simple as officialdom may make it, for sake of understanding and convenience.

I understand and applaud efforts at suicide prevention, and I wish Meza was still alive—but I refuse to sit in judgment of his actions in death.

en·dur·ance

/inˈd(y)o͝orəns,enˈd(y)o͝orəns/

noun

1. the fact or power of enduring an unpleasant or difficult process or situation without giving way.

Also, there is a significant difference between condoning it before the fact, and contemplating it after the fact.

I am doing the latter, and obviously never do the former.

Ernest, if you hadn’t cut out the majority of my post, maybe you would understand.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

Ernest wrote:

^ "I have no idea if he cheated or not. "

You might as well have posted, I have no idea if the Earth is round...

IMHO, there were some close to Frank who assisted in his cheating, or at the very least, were well aware.

I read only the early part of the LR thread, and nothing else. The only thing I know is that at that point his reputation seemed to have been damaged, and that he had, apparently done nothing about it in the thread.

I still have no idea if he cheated or not.

I usually don't post on topics like this but the last sentence that you wrote in your post is demonstrative of purposeful and defiant ignorance and is really quite intolerable, especially when people are trying to remain respectful of your statements.

You still have no idea if he cheated or not, you've said more than once. Yet you've been invited to view overwhelming amounts of evidence including photographs that show cheating, reports by sleuths who found overwhelming evidence of cheating. It probably takes less than a minute to "have any idea" whether or not its true. So you can keep saying you have no idea if he cheated or not until you're blue in the face. What it looks like from outside is you do not want to have any idea that he cheated because it'll hurt your image of this guy.

Imagine telling someone that they ran over your cat two blocks back. You happened to videotape it. The carcass is still on the road and the blood is still on the tires. Instead of acknowledging this they refuse to even glance at the evidence and just keep repeating "I have no idea if I hit the cat or not." Then you start playing the video in front of their face and they close their eyes and repeat that they still have no idea. That's similar to what you're doing except it's on a digital scale. At the end of the day it's dishonest and childish.

This thing is so sad.

Just a few quick points related to poster above. I don't want this thread to get of course about moderation. Feel free to email me

if you have suggestions.

1) LetsRun.com did not publish a story on Frank Meza. We allowed people to discuss whether he cheated in multiple races. I guess one could argue without the discussion on LetsRun, Frank's cheating wouldn't have been exposed, and Access Hollywood would never have gone to his house, but I don't see a connection between us and LetsRun.com. I have no problem with Frank's cheating being exposed. I definitely don't think Access Hollywood needs to go knock on his door.

2) We do have some filters in place, but do not prescreen content. We do not claim to read every post. We do have a "Report a post" feature where people can report posts to us that will be read by a moderator.

3) I may go back at some point and read the original thread and its deleted comments. (Nearly 150 comments were deleted from that thread) to see how we can improve our moderating. Until then I encourage you to use the "report a post" feature.

Ruggo, I don’t have the time. Just about to start another workout!

Sprintgeezer wrote:

Ruggo, I don’t have the time. Just about to start another workout!

Can't see your head because it is buried in the sand. We do see your tail. Maybe change your handle to Ostrichgeezer.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

I read only the early part of the LR thread, and nothing else. The only thing I know is that at that point his reputation seemed to have been damaged, and that he had, apparently done nothing about it in the thread.

I still have no idea if he cheated or not.

Well, I wonder if the photos I just saw on the "I'm Done" thread, when coupled with the bike photo from MI, might change your mind. Relinking here.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

Ernest, if you hadn’t cut out the majority of my post, maybe you would understand.

And if you had read more than 1/20th of the thread before pontificating, maybe you would understand. Sorry to say, you're way off base here Geezer.

And this just in from Inside Edition..........and the meta narrative, for those whose attention spans aren't long enough to follow this whole story is Frank's daughter claiming her Dad was cyberbullied by "comments that were mean and distrustful"...https://www.insideedition.com/media/videos/family-accused-los-angeles-marathon-cheater-says-he-was-cyberbullied-54277