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

As a hobby jogger, I am grateful to this thread for taking the LetsRun Forum attention away from hobby joggers for a while.

You're right. OK rojo this is the headline if he's DQ'ed:'Photos Prove Disqualified Runner Mike Rossi, Who Outed School Principal, Cheated His Way Into Boston Marathon'

ben is tired wrote:

One of the clinchers for me that he cheated is the finishing photo. Yeah, I know it's circumstantial, and I also know that a non-runner wouldn't "get it", but even the slowest hobby jogger can tell that is not a man who just ran 26.2 miles in 3:11, a 40 or whatever minute PB, in 65 to 70 degree temps. Besides being too large and not being 100% drenched in his all black outfit, the sheepish celebration is clearly that of a phony who is thinking, "Did I overdo it with this crazy fast time?" Fatigue should be etched in his face and body; clearly it is not.

Anyone who has run even a ten mile run in 65-70 degree temperatures in humid Southeastern PA realizes that Rossi's shirt would have zero dry areas. It would be 200% drenched.

Also, Rojo, you should have SaraB fact check your article and maybe get some scientific data on the effect of heat/humidity on performance and what his "3:11" would be on a 45-50 degree day. I'm guessing maybe 5 minutes faster.

Headline is waaaaay too long. Why not write the whole article in the headline?

Rojo, please, get this article proof-read. Please.

Ackley wrote:

Anyone who has run even a ten mile run in 65-70 degree temperatures in humid Southeastern PA realizes that Rossi's shirt would have zero dry areas. It would be 200% drenched.

Also, Rojo, you should have SaraB fact check your article and maybe get some scientific data on the effect of heat/humidity on performance and what his "3:11" would be on a 45-50 degree day. I'm guessing maybe 5 minutes faster.

Rojo, don't count on the "maths" performed by Let'sRunners to be correct. This guy is claiming an impossibility: 200% drenched. What in the world is that supposed to mean? 100% drenched wouldn't be wet enough?

If you're going to use statistical analysis of the picture data, you better turn to one of your Ivy league buddies who actually did something in college to perform the analysis. If not, you could be made to look like a (bigger) fool by relying on this crowdsourced math.

No, I'm not MR. I believe he cheated based on the evidence and is extremely pompou, based on the letter "leaked" to the public. I'm not Doubler either, lots of people seem to think he's worse than MR. :)

+1 ignore the crowdsourced math. Referencing statistical analysis of an anonymous message board poster is laughable. I could have easily done some funny math and made it look good. But the reality is I would have been just making stuff up. Statistics is notoriously easy to make false assumptions.

If you want stats, use someone with a name and credentials you can cite.

And I thought the memes were funny too, but putting them in an article? Might as well change the site to letsrun.blogspot.com.

Also, please cool it with all the parenthesis in the letsrun articles. It brings emphasis to the wrong things (that should be an aside), is hard to read (because it breaks the readers attention), and can usually be gotten rid of completely (like with a comma, a dash, or just a new sentence).

"We have the Parenthesis disease in our literature, too; and one may see cases of it every day in our books and newspapers: but with us it is the mark and sign of an unpracticed writer or a cloudy intellect,..."

-- Mark Twain

I just took my dog on a walk using Nike+ to test the feasibility of changing miles. It's super easy. Our 2.5 mile walk at about 10.5 minute pace is now an 8+ mile run at 4 minute pace.

I have a pdf of the map that was generated but can't figure out how to attach it here.

Have any of you ever actually read a freakin' LetsRun article? All of this advice makes wonderful sense for a legitimate news source, or even a well written and highly followed blog, but come on, guys, this is LetsRun, not LetsWrite and worry about grammar and wording and facts and stats and...well, you get the point.

I just find it funny that after all the serious track and field news this site has reported with less than average writing and constant clerical and factual errors, you all think it matters how they portray a guy cheating to a 3+ hour marathon.

I love LetsRun, BTW. I am just saying, they are not fantastic journalists.

yeah, I guess we knew nike+ was easy to edit. the question I am still asking is if he edited that workout to use it later as a proof he can run a certain pace. if he did, that would mean he planned this whole thing meticulously. borderline sociopath, eh?

I thought the same thing but isn't the run dated March 2015? That would make it a training run for Boston not Lehigh. Either way it was slow and more consistent with his actual pace.

LR Math - doesn't add up wrote:

Rojo, don't count on the "maths" performed by Let'sRunners to be correct. This guy is claiming an impossibility: 200% drenched. What in the world is that supposed to mean? 100% drenched wouldn't be wet enough?

You must be new around here.

captain sparrow wrote:

Have any of you ever actually read a freakin' LetsRun article? All of this advice makes wonderful sense for a legitimate news source, or even a well written and highly followed blog, but come on, guys, this is LetsRun, not LetsWrite and worry about grammar and wording and facts and stats and...well, you get the point.

I just find it funny that after all the serious track and field news this site has reported with less than average writing and constant clerical and factual errors, you all think it matters how they portray a guy cheating to a 3+ hour marathon.

I love LetsRun, BTW. I am just saying, they are not fantastic journalists.

It's never too late to change. I nearly always like the content, but I cringe at the presentation when they try to report an actual story. It's not even the grammatical errors that get me, it's the writing style that sounds like those "argumentative" papers I scribbled down last minute in freshman english class.

The edit function in Nike+ does not go under 4:00minutes per kilometer.

I have never tried in for miles per hour, but I don't it would be different.

This is going to be an "article" based on a spreadsheet. That spreadsheet was put together by an angry lynch mob. Anything that was posted here was added to the spreadsheet. There was no fact checking. There was no analysis. There was no attempt to be fair and objective.

It's going to be written by a guy who can't string together two sentences, yet he's going to attempt to string together 12,000 sentences.

Oh, and he's going to add memes at the bottom.

All to "report" on a story that people stopped caring about 3 weeks ago.

It's going to be a giant, steaming pile of TL,DR.

Needless to say, I can't wait to read it.

Which is too bad, because I'm guessing I'm going to have to wait another two months to read it.

get it proof-read wrote:

Rojo, please, get this article proof-read. Please.

Yes. For the love of God, do this. Rojo - I applaud what you're doing here, but you are a poor writer. Don't dilute the message due to poor delivery.

Everyone has been after Rojo to write an article since this story broke and now that the article being written, everyone is going after him for his writing abilities. Letsrun is a strange place.

I can't wait either! Letsrun is like that weird friend you love that you get slightly embarrased of in public, and feel that you have to prep people for before they meet them. And inside you're thinking, "if you knew them like I do you'd understand".