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

i'm taking a step back: a lot to be suspicious about based on no photos and statistics, but is there really anything here sufficient to call it???

outliers do exist both in people and in performance

my suspicion is that he is not legit, but I do not see anything to prove it to me:

arguments that it is not humanly possible to improve do not persuade me, most of lets runners are pursuing an impossible dream of their own in times,

isn't that what its all about pursuing the dream against all odds,

what is to say this guy did not make it? is he a jerk probably, but where is the proof to call anything other than suspicion

LastChance wrote:

I'm not a filthy rich business man, but I have been known to throw down big bucks on material things. I would guarantee a $30k prize if Mike came out and ran a 3:25 or faster on any course of his choice in the next few months, with a go-pro attached of course. If successful, I would offer to pay for his reputation clean up online as well. If unsuccessful.. well, then he'd be screwed and I'll manage to make some money out of the publicity either way. Are you man enough to bite?

That is an amazing deal. I suspect this is actually exactly what a narcissistic person like him would want to jump all over. It's like a chance to be in a reality TV show. Imagine, he'd clear up the doubters, would get all the publicity he could ever want and would probably even have enough of a story to sell an autobiography. Dude, jump on this offer before this guy changes his mind!

Guys, c'mon he ripped of Suits, the show. Can't anyone see the irony of his name Mike Rossi, who we are alleging he forged his past to get into Boston to that of Mike Ross, the fictional character from Suits, who forged his background as Harvard Law alumn to work at the show's law firm?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Suits_characters#Mike_Ross

It's too ironic not to be funny.

To those who are concerned about the welfare of his children, please remember it was MIKE ROSSI who did them the most harm by publicly distributing what should have been a private letter to their school principal. He should have been called out on THAT alone--not crowned "Dad of the Year" by reporters too lazy to question why he would need to turn to social media to make his points. MIKE ROSSI invited this scrutiny--and now he's got it. He should have quit while he was ahead.

there is something inhuman about this all, otherworldly

i no longer believe Paula ran her world record, she must prove it to me again

same for Webb, and a host of others with outlier marks, prove it to me by doing it again

[/quote]

You are starting to reach Mike, just admit what you cheated and everything will die down. If you keep the lie going, all you are doing is putting more blood in the water.

You cheated. You know it and we know it. Stop trying to keep you lie going.[/quote]

I would say he should also offer a public apology to the school principal over all the social media channels he used to ridicule her.

On top of my offer, I could get a kick starter campaign going to cover the costs and maybe get him more prize money. Trust me, a lot of people would donate to make it happen.

look at the facts Mulder, look at the facts

I have not read this entire post (yet), but as Next Action suggests, any reasonably knowledgeable runner would admit that someone dropping a 3:11 (and change) marathon after posting a race record like the one that is on-line is HIGHLY suspicious, if not implausible. At the very least, an experienced runner would know that others would doubt the BQ result, without more direct proof of the "accomplishment".

I know some of this is covered by others, but there is plenty of circumstantial evidence here -- and circumstantial evidence is valid:

1) Given the previous race records, from a physiological / fitness perspective, the 3:11:45 result is highly unrealistic. As Next Action states, there is science behind all this. An exercise researcher who runs a research lab called the result "impossible". I'm a statistician (and conducted similar analysis to the one here), so I will conclude that the BQ result is very, very unlikely.

2) Key photographic evidence from the BQ race is missing (e.g., no mid-race photos -- not even observed in the mid-race backgrounds of others who ran similar times!).

3) Personal blog writings and photos show a strong, but relatively recent, interest in running, and a very strong interest (I'm going to do whatever it takes) in qualifying for Boston.

The blog discussions provide no evidence of appropriate training to meet the fitness level required for a BQ. Further, the posts failed to document the BQ race until months after the result -- very unlikely given the stated strong desire to qualify. Detailed race reports are offered for numerous, less important finishes -- including one that presents a highly inaccurate discussion of a BQ pace.

4) The BQ race course, the Lehigh Valley etc. marathon, presents an ideal available opportunity to cheat. On a marathon review website, the race is noted by many past participants to be a “sparse” or lonely running event, without spectators or competitors on the route. The race presents a nice opportunity to cut the course, jumping ahead in the race unnoticed. The lack of timing mats makes cheating even easier.

After all this (1-4), I would need to see some convincing evidence that the BQ result IS valid. Verbal statements are unconvincing.

Would this hold up in a court of law? What if Mike accepted the challenge, is there consideration?

PretendImMike wrote:

[quote]LastChance wrote:

I'm not a filthy rich business man, but I have been known to throw down big bucks on material things. I would guarantee a $30k prize if Mike came out and ran a 3:25 or faster on any course of his choice in the next few months, with a go-pro attached of course. If successful, I would offer to pay for his reputation clean up online as well. If unsuccessful.. well, then he'd be screwed and I'll manage to make some money out of the publicity either way. Are you man enough to bite?

Hawkeye wrote:

I broke down his 5K splits.

Boston 5K splits

1st 5K Split 24:06 7:45 per mile

2nd 5K Split 26:01 8:22 per mile

3rd 5K Split 27:20 8:47 per mile

4th 5K Split 28:53 9:18 per mile

5th 5K Split 27:25 8:49 per mile

6th 5K Split 32:13 10:22 per mile

7th 5K Split 31:45 10:13 per mile

8th 5K Split 31:12 10:03 per mile

Overall pace for marathon 9:14 per mile

For someone who qualified for Boston with a 7:19 per mile pace he started out very conservatively. You would expect he would keep that pace or even negative split the race. An 8:00 per mile pace should be cakewalk for him. He couldn't even hold that pace past the first 5K. Its not like he went out hard and blew up.

He said he had a torn labrum at Boston. I also ran Boston a lot slower than my BQ, fwiw. It was more interesting that he said he was almost on BQ pace at Philly 14 until he stopped for a late-race bathroom break - but he was running 8:15 pace at 10k and 8:10 at the half. If he had at least gone out around 7:30 in Philly and crashed later I'd find him more believable.

Zoom? wrote:

Anyone have the equipment to blow that up, enhance it, and see what his watch is showing?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4E-_J9rBMJ4/VC2MHn1LNWI/AAAAAAAAB1k/FqXVW2WdWEg/s1600/10645233_10203463727808515_5208063563261582270_n.jpg

The photo has enough dynamic range to pull the shadows. You can clearly see that the watch is on, and displays something. However, the resolution is poor, and jpeg artefacts ruin it. I am sure the original higher resolution and less compressed image would clearly show whatever the watch is showing, although I would not be surprised if it simply showed the finishing time of 3:11, or even something close to the correct distance. After all, he clearly made it from the start to the finish in 3:11... just maybe not running.

devil's advocate wrote:

i'm taking a step back: a lot to be suspicious about based on no photos and statistics, but is there really anything here sufficient to call it???

outliers do exist both in people and in performance

my suspicion is that he is not legit, but I do not see anything to prove it to me:

arguments that it is not humanly possible to improve do not persuade me, most of lets runners are pursuing an impossible dream of their own in times,

isn't that what its all about pursuing the dream against all odds,

what is to say this guy did not make it? is he a jerk probably, but where is the proof to call anything other than suspicion

But when you stack the very long odds of having an unbelievable breakthrough race with the very long odds of being the ONLY person around that time that only has finish line pictures, and you get to such an exponentially small chance of it being legitimate, coupled with his actions since that would no fall in line with someone who had actually run 3:11.

1/10 ~ this is not a world beater type of outlier mark my friend. He's being asked to run a 3:25. For someone who apparently ran much faster than that it should be easy cash right there. It's like asking Webb to run a 4:15 mile knowing he could break 4.

I'm not guaranteeing it yet. I want him to come forward and show interest first. Then, I'd happily draw up a contract.

so I'm not saying he will, I don't think he can or did, but if he ran a 3:15 in 2015 would that mean he could have done 3:11 in 2014?

what exactly is the standard of proof for our court of public opinion?

clearly we have met a reasonable standard for suspicion, but beyond that?

Looks like a Nike gps watch.

Torontooo wrote:

Zoom? wrote:

Anyone have the equipment to blow that up, enhance it, and see what his watch is showing?

Not showing anything that I can see. Also, it does not look like a Garmin GPS watch to me.

Done, looks like no one else posted or they are being deleted.

he is a cheater wrote:

post comments here:

https://www.facebook.com/925XTU/photos/pb.33258463888.-2207520000.1430852324./10153093366308889/?type=1&theater

sfdsfds wrote:

but you are hanging him before you even have any legit evidence that he did cheat.

.

False. we have lot of circumstantial evidence. There's much more evidence saying he didn't run that than did.

Let's review. A guy who has a 5k pb of 21:52, a half-marathon pb of 1:40:44 supposedly ran a 3:11 marathon.

You may not be a running aficianoado so it's going to be hard to put this in perspective for you.

His half marathon time averages out to 7:41 per mile. His marathon time - twice the distance comes out to be 7:18.8 per mile. Thus hes' 22.2 seconds per mile too slow for just the half. So if he was running it on a track, he'd be more than 5 seconds per lap to slow. And you think he can improve that much and double the distance? Not possible.

The men's world record for the half marathon in 58;13. That's 4:27 per mile. If the half marathon WR holder ran a marathon 22.2 second per mile faster than his half pace, the men's marathon WR would be 1:47.03.

Or let's take his 5k time. That comes out to 7:02.3 per mile. People can't run more than 8 times as far just slowing down 16.5 seconds per mile. The world record for the 5k is 12:37.35. That comes out to 4:03.8 per mil

If the world record holder for the 5k could run a marathon slowing down only 16.5 seconds per mile, the world record would roughly be 1:53.45/.

The world record for the marathon is 2:02:57. That comes out to 4:41.36 per mile. So a pro slows down almost 40 seconds per mile when you look at their 5k to marathon differential.

So 1) We've established his other running results AREN'T EVEN IN THE RIGHT BALL PARK . But you want people to believe he had the most amazing day in the history of running, yet

2) His results came in a race which conveniently doesn't have intermediate chip timing. Most big marathons nowadays have it. This race did not. How convenient. So cutting the course is very doable.

3) Instead of chips, one would normally rely on race photographs to prove he was out on the course. There are ZERO race photographs of him on the course except at the finish. The 50 finishers before him and after him were all photographed at least 3 times on the course (two other times not counting the finish). He is nowhere to be seen.

4) The guy loves to brag about his times/performances - yet he was very quite about bragging about his supposed qualifier and didn't upload his GPS.

5) He ran over 3:40 and 4:00 in two recent marathons. THe 3:43 came just two months after his supposed 3:11. In two months, he lost more than a minute per mile yet was happy with the performance post-race?

So there is almsot ZERO reason for me to believe he ran the time he claims to run.