Frank Meza 2:53:10 at LA Marathon (70 years old) unofficial time (just finished)

Good find! Another nail in the Meza coffin.

woah, is this the evidence that is needed? also, why would anyone attach their bib to a belt and not their shirt without the purpose of being able to easily hand it off... that seems incredibly suspicious in itself

Awesome!

It's certainly something weird, but I don't think it's a smoking gun for him cheating. Perhaps more-so a smoking gun for giving his bib to an unregistered runner. Look at the photos in the below link:

https://freephotos.finisherpix.com/findnear/100457/1005009616

That shows the time Frank was running through a section of the race where a lot of photos are taken. In some of them, you can see orange cones blocking off a side street in the background. Now look at the photos in the below link where the woman is seen wearing his bib. She appears to be running through the same section, and he's with her.

https://freephotos.finisherpix.com/findnear/100457/1005011155

That tells me it's the same section of course, and he ran it twice. Once for his results that you can find per his finish, and once to double-back for whatever reason to run with that group (and apparently, give his bib to her so she could finish).

come again?

TBoz wrote:

come again?

It looks like he ran the same part of the course twice. He ran it once during his "real" race, then went back and ran it with that group in order to eventually give his bib to the women someone noted above, since she's wearing it when she crossed the finish.

Did she take a finisher medal? Did he aid her in stealing a finisher medal? Did the bandits he ran with register for the race?

Did he not give his bib to someone else? Did he remove the timing tag for her. Seems dishonest and against the rules. this needs looked at further. Someone should inform the race.

Who's the other guy. Whys he looking around so much.

Was he paced by non registered runners? That's also cheating. You know...

InsertNameHere wrote:

TBoz wrote:

come again?

It looks like he ran the same part of the course twice. He ran it once during his "real" race, then went back and ran it with that group in order to eventually give his bib to the women someone noted above, since she's wearing it when she crossed the finish.

I get what you're saying, but why on earth would he do that? Again, that falls into the category of things that are physically possible, but highly unlikely. For one thing, he just ran a hard race (at least, if he really ran it it would have been a hard race: 1:26 for a 70-y.o.). Then what? He drove back to a certain part of the course because it was so important to him to run that part again? And he gave someone else his number (that he had presumably already used to cross the finish line) so that they could cross the finish line too? Why would they make an arrangement like that? You present it as if this is something that people at races routinely do, but I've never heard of it and can't think of any reason anybody would do it.

They’ve got the whole street & they’re running an inch apart! BS!

I get what you're saying, but why on earth would he do that? Again, that falls into the category of things that are physically possible, but highly unlikely. For one thing, he just ran a hard race (at least, if he really ran it it would have been a hard race: 1:26 for a 70-y.o.). Then what? He drove back to a certain part of the course because it was so important to him to run that part again? And he gave someone else his number (that he had presumably already used to cross the finish line) so that they could cross the finish line too? Why would they make an arrangement like that? You present it as if this is something that people at races routinely do, but I've never heard of it and can't think of any reason anybody would do it.[/quote]

Oh, I get that it's weird. I am a big skeptic of this guy's full marathon times. But I don't have an explanation for it based on the timeline of the photos. Granted, this is without knowing what spot that is in the course compared to a distance split. However, how else would you explain this combination:

1) his pictures at that spot with other runners who have similar finish times

2) then his finish pictures with the bib generally around said runners

3) his reappearance at the photo spot next to the group

4) her going through the finish with his bib at a much slower finish, when he's already been photographed there?

Here's the course map:

https://www.pasadenahalf.com/assets/uploads/phm-course-map-2019-v1b.jpg

Here's photos of the guy who finished ahead of him:

https://freephotos.finisherpix.com/gallery/2019pasahalf/8415/1

He's got the same thing. He has two sets of photos at the finish, and it looks clear he went back and finished with someone who ran slower. Based on the course map, it doesn't look too hard to walk from the finish over to the 10-11 mile stretch to jump back in. Again, I don't have an explanation for the bib-swapping, but this doesn't appear to be evidence that he's a course cutter. I'm dubious of his marathon times, but this doesn't appear to be evidence to use against that.

I’m just glad he hired those two people to guide him, they’re so close he must be blind & deaf!

If you look at the photos on this page, there may be a smoking gun. The photos appear to be sequential. Comparing the results to the pictures, the two runners before Meza and the two runners after Meza in the sequence all crossed the finish line within 12 seconds of each other as shown by gun time. However, their gun times were all about two minutes faster than Meza's gun time. (They all also had a much smaller chip/gun differential than Meza.)

You're right - that is confusing. But what does that mean? If he finished 2 minutes behind those guys per gun time, what do the photos reveal? Part of my confusion is I think the photos are taken place here:

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1632963,-118.1657927,3a,75y,333.3h,79.62t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sDWb972nkPTdvEV2Gu7-ukw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

But if that's the case, what explains how he could be near those guys so close to the finish with such different finish times? Perhaps the photos are jumbled up a bit.

sounds like a DQ wrote:

Did she take a finisher medal? Did he aid her in stealing a finisher medal? Did the bandits he ran with register for the race?

Did he not give his bib to someone else? Did he remove the timing tag for her. Seems dishonest and against the rules. this needs looked at further. Someone should inform the race.

Who's the other guy. Whys he looking around so much.

Was he paced by non registered runners? That's also cheating. You know...

The bandit girl clearly finished the race. There is reasonable suspicion and/or probable cause that Dr. Frank Meza aided and abetted a bandit. Can anyone identify the female bandit?

Can we at least agree that a bib belt wearer is more likely to cheat than a non-bib belt wearer?

mahmood wrote:

Can we at least agree that a bib belt wearer is more likely to cheat than a non-bib belt wearer?

Yes. ?

Also, has anyone contacted this fella for an explanation about what's actually going on in these races of his❓

InsertNameHere wrote:

You're right - that is confusing. But what does that mean? If he finished 2 minutes behind those guys per gun time, what do the photos reveal? Part of my confusion is I think the photos are taken place here:

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1632963,-118.1657927,3a,75y,333.3h,79.62t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sDWb972nkPTdvEV2Gu7-ukw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

But if that's the case, what explains how he could be near those guys so close to the finish with such different finish times? Perhaps the photos are jumbled up a bit.

I don't think they are jumbled because you can identify trailing runners, including Meza, in some of the photos.

If I am reading Google maps and comparing it to the Course map correctly, is this about a half mile from the finish? If so, Meza may have walked/jogged some of this to make his finish time more believable because if he would have kept pace with these guys, his chip would have shown a sub-6:00 pace between 15k and the finish.

The tall guy in a red shirt, dark shades and no bib looks like a probable bandit too. He looks like he could dial in a nice 40:00 10k split when needed. FYI

It looks like there are three bandits running the race together: red shirt/shades guy, yellow hat/white shirt guy, and white hat/grey shirt woman, who is carrying the bib in some photos.