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

squeakyclean wrote:

trong tong wrote:

think of it this way. Could a 2:4x guy drop to a 2:11 on the "race of his life". Absolutely not. I understand it's different with hobby joggers in the 3-4 hour range but still, the decrease in time is so dramatic it's impossible.

I'm sure the guy cheated, but this is a poor analogy.

Not only poor analogy, but wrong conclusion. I have seen with my own eyes a 46 year old woman go from a 4:10 to 3:42 marathon in one race, after 9 previous marathons between 4:10 and 4:35.

Sigh. Come on people. By page ~19 of the kip litton thread there was not only photographic evidence of cheating, but also proof that several of Kip's marathon and 5ks had forged websites. All you guys have is an implausible time and a lack of photos. WEAK!

Check out photo 134-13327 from the Lehigh Marathon. I see a bit of a smirk and not a drip of sweat. Plus he looks like he just sat around at a coffee shop for an hour, not like somebody would look after running a 30 min. marathon PR.

We need the smoking gun a picture of him cutting the course of hopping in a car mid race.

Mirun wrote:

Is runner 1444 the only runner without pics other than finish line pics?

Actually 1444 has pics in the lost and found according to other posters. So is there another example of a runner without pics?

Found a newer picture:

Just to agree with what others have already said, I don't think it is possible for time to run that time. Here are the best results I can find from Mike to date:

5k - 21:52

35:54 - 5mile

47:40 - 10k

1:40:44 - 1/2 marathon

1:14:48 - 10 mile

I used Merv's running calculator (not completely accurate, but still a good predictor) to see what each of these performances "is worth" at the marathon distance.

http://merv.stanford.edu/runcalc

5k - about a 3:34:15 marathon

5 mile - about a 3:31:24 marathon

10k - about a 3:42:28 marathon

half marathon - about a 3:31:29 marathon

10 mile - about a 3:29:49 marathon

So the 10 mile appears to be his best result, but none of these at all indicate 3:11 is even possible. If he ran a 3:20 I may believe it, but even that would be a huge statistical outlier. Since his Boston time was in-line with his other performances I am not inclined to believe that a miracle happened here.

Basically, if others on this board performed as much better at the marathon (relative to other distances) as Mike there would be a lot of Olympic Champions here and maybe even a few sub 2 hour marathoners.

Well, thanks a lot Letsrun. I go to sleep like a normal human being and wake up to find the thread has exploded! This one is more fun than Kip because I am real time, and Mike is "responding" by folding up with his Twiiter account and social media outlet blocking.

Keep it coming!

ertert wrote:

Check out photo 134-13327 from the Lehigh Marathon. I see a bit of a smirk and not a drip of sweat. Plus he looks like he just sat around at a coffee shop for an hour, not like somebody would look after running a 30 min. marathon PR.

We need the smoking gun a picture of him cutting the course of hopping in a car mid race.

Wow. The lack of photos along the racecourse is obviously damning, but so are these finish line photos. No one who's ever run a 3:10 marathon on a sunny day did it looking and finishing like that.

His local ABC News outlet (which ran a story about the letter) has been notified. We'll see what kind of investigative journalists they have. Do they want to do some real reporting or just report crazy dads bullying a principal?

gatorade&vodka wrote:

One last question. ARe you guys sure he is claiming to be a BQ qualifier? How do we know he wasn't simply a charity runner?

There was more than one Mike Rossi in the race. Does Boston list qualifiers and charity runners?

Here's his twitter before after Lehigh:

http://imgur.com/Qgm3kuS

Also, the Today article (http://www.today.com/parents/principal-sends-boston-marathon-letter-over-family-vacation-t18061) reports that"

"When Mike Rossi qualified to run in the Boston Marathon, he made it clear to everyone at his children's school that he planned to bring the entire family with him on his "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity"

and

"He and his wife knew they wanted to bring their son and daughter to Boston as soon he qualified for the marathon."

He had posts about registering for Boston as a qualifier on Facebook or his blog (both now private).

This cheating scandal also highlights the absolutely pathetic state of mainstream media in this country.

Why, for example, would a major network "news" outlet like the Today show cover his viral response to the school without doing ANY research on the guy? They just accept, at face value, that he's a wonderful, involved dad with nothing but his children's best interests at heart.

Wouldn't such a pompous, self-serving letter raise a red flag? Wouldn't a real journalist say "gee, this guy's a tool, maybe there's more to this story than meets the eye?" Yes, I know the average viewer doesn't give a rat's arse about Boston qualifying times, but surely someone at the Today show is a runner and might take a passing interest in how the guy qualified.

LetsRunners are doing the news media's job for free.

I agree the lack of GPS track is odd given the watch and other usage of it. Yet I wouldn't stake all the evidence on that. I worked my a$$ off to BQ and never owned a GPS watch, nor kept a detailed log. But, even as a pretty quiet person myself (certainly not an active Twitter/FB person nor a radio personality), I definitely had running friends and family that were aware of my training, goals, and abilities that would easily have been able to back up anything. Everything surrounding the BQ performance is odd...

BQ claimer wrote:

gatorade&vodka wrote:

Here's his twitter before after Lehigh:

http://imgur.com/Qgm3kuS

Rossi was assigned to Wave 2. Charity runners are placed in Wave 4.

I'm in the 40-45 age bracket trying to qualify for Boston for the first time. My 5K to half marathon times are better than Rossi's PRs and my best marathon time is 3:21. I agree with others that it's highly unlikely that he ran a 3:11. After running almost every day for the past year or more, I'm hoping to eke out a 3:13:30. I'm the group of runners that he squeezes out when he cheats into Boston.

runner felice wrote:

http://boston.suntimes.com/bos-news/7/119/163973/dad-of-the-year-candidate-cheat-into-boston-marathon

Is that a real media outlet?! That looks like one of the over zealous, angry and/or attack mode posters of LRC wrote it!

Terrible!

...AND FABULOUS!

It was 62 and Sunny at the start of the race and the high for the day was 79. My guess that it was close to 70 at 10:00 when he finished.Did he have injured sweat glands too?http://findmymarathon.com/weather-detail.php?zname=Via%20Marathon&year=

ertert wrote:

Check out photo 134-13327 from the Lehigh Marathon. I see a bit of a smirk and not a drip of sweat. Plus he looks like he just sat around at a coffee shop for an hour, not like somebody would look after running a 30 min. marathon PR.

We need the smoking gun a picture of him cutting the course of hopping in a car mid race.

I hear you, I didn't have a gps for years and I don't always wear it (I didn't for my PR half last year). But if you asked me how I ran that race, my answer wouldn't be to delete all my social media or say "I trained hard!"

Actually, the first thing I would do is make fun of my detractors on Facebook FOR DAYS. Though only my mom would read it.

Here is a video of him finishing his 30 minute PR

http://results.chronotrack.com/athlete/index/e/10510918

oreilly wrote:

Although I'm 95% sure he cheated, those times make me question whether the 3:11 could have been legit.

Apparently the guy also crushed his taper. I guess he's legit.