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

For F*** sake wrote:

...you guys are STILL talking about this Frank guy?

Yet here you are, still posting. You seem highly interested enough to comment, why?

You guys are incredible. Think you're smart enough to get away with cheating? Try out smarting the wisdom of the crowds.

You guys just put on a clinic for future cheaters. Come clean early, or THIS can happen.

This is as good as it gets wrote:

[quote]maybe this wrote:

Then FM remembers he needs to show his bib:

https://iconic-imagecdn.azureedge.net/MFT2017-01/04/817104/1011/0013.jpg?preset=p

Is he intentionally trying to cover his number with his hands when he spots the photographer?

He's trying to show that not only can old people run WR marathon times but fat people can too. It's all about fun and inspiring people by embodying Thrive.

Dufus wrote:

This is as good as it gets wrote:

[quote]maybe this wrote:

Then FM remembers he needs to show his bib:

https://iconic-imagecdn.azureedge.net/MFT2017-01/04/817104/1011/0013.jpg?preset=p

Is he intentionally trying to cover his number with his hands when he spots the photographer?

He's trying to show that not only can old people run WR marathon times but fat people can too. It's all about fun and inspiring people by embodying Thrive.

Well to his credit, at least he's not cheating on the carb loading.

What's hilarious about that photo is that Frank managed to photobomb Susan Loken, who really is one of the best age group runners in the US.

Pickled Eggs wrote:

You guys are incredible. Think you're smart enough to get away with cheating? Try out smarting the wisdom of the crowds.

You guys just put on a clinic for future cheaters. Come clean early, or THIS can happen.

Agreed.

I had been thinking that it would be fun to announce that I was going to cheat in a race, proceed to cheat, and then challenge anyone to prove it. But after reading this thread, there is absolutely zero chance I would win that challenge. I just throw up my hands and say, "I give up", before even starting.

Hats off to you folks.

We’re learning that he gets within a near vicinity to the mats quite early and has to kill time. So, who’s ruling out the “lone man with a bike, busting tail around the course” theory?

I’m 100% done with that for the races with an abundance of photos. I think there’s an accomplice for sure.

Put a tracking device on his car!

The curious programmer/runner wrote:

I've created a program that could allow anybody to download a large amount of finisher pics for analysis so that not just us programmers are able to do this. Would anybody be interested in me posting the code and instructions? I can make it very fool proof.

If you can post the code to github or something, I'd be interested in seeing it. Great work.

And +1 on the great job to so many posters on this.

RossiCheated wrote:

We’re learning that he gets within a near vicinity to the mats quite early and has to kill time. So, who’s ruling out the “lone man with a bike, busting tail around the course” theory?

I’m 100% done with that for the races with an abundance of photos. I think there’s an accomplice for sure.

Bingo. Calm and cool and collected before each mat. Doesn’t miss one. He was being driven around for sure.

Too bad there isn’t better footage from start of LA. He likely ran less than a minute before jumping in and getting a ride. That first 5K had to be the toughest part of the race. Logistically got easier from there.

RossiCheated wrote:

We’re learning that he gets within a near vicinity to the mats quite early and has to kill time. So, who’s ruling out the “lone man with a bike, busting tail around the course” theory?

I’m 100% done with that for the races with an abundance of photos. I think there’s an accomplice for sure.

People keep throwing around those bike/scooter/e-bike theories, all of which are possible, but this is a guy who has other people going on record to lie on his behalf. Using a bike or a scooter, or even driving himself just doesn't seem like his style.

Great work!

This is so great, you guys are incredible. Are there also photos showing the car parking and Frankie hopping out of it? That would be an amusing addition to the montage.

Might as well close the thread now. wrote:

Mark’s Thoughts2 wrote:

In the 2019 LA Marathon he has photos in the same locations as most other runners. It looks like photos at: 10k mat (3017_046277); ~12 miles (3017_221489); 25k mat (3017_246511-5) and finish. There are different photos of him on other runners’ pic pages (bib 1108 for example).

You can look at a course map in link below to see the buses/cabs he would need to take to meet up with the photographers:

That's it then, innocent just as I thought.

Also, wearing his number on the side means he's not getting picked up by the scanning technology of FinisherPix.

This aged well.

The Phoenix Marathon has free hi-resolution downloads of all race photos. There aren’t a ton of Frank (surprise). I scrolled through some pictures around timing mats to see if I could find any shadowy figures in he background, but I didn’t really have any luck. Unfortunately I don’t see gun times, only chip times, so it’s more difficult to guesstimate where he might appear it he photos. There might be some evidence there if someone has the time and inclination to scrape the photos off the web for offline analysis.

The Phoenix Marathon photo page also has a “show before/after photos” button that will show 5-10 pictures before and after a selected photo. I tried that using that on the runners who had similar splits to FM, but could not find him. Again, no gun times, only chip times are available as far as I can tell. FM doesn’t really show up in any photos except near the finish line. But he hit all the timing mats...

Rosie Ruiz didn't have helpers wrote:

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Using a bike or a scooter, or even driving himself just doesn't seem like his style.

That would take far too much effort for him to complete a marathon.

Rosie Ruiz didn't have helpers wrote:

RossiCheated wrote:

We’re learning that he gets within a near vicinity to the mats quite early and has to kill time. So, who’s ruling out the “lone man with a bike, busting tail around the course” theory?

I’m 100% done with that for the races with an abundance of photos. I think there’s an accomplice for sure.

People keep throwing around those bike/scooter/e-bike theories, all of which are possible, but this is a guy who has other people going on record to lie on his behalf. Using a bike or a scooter, or even driving himself just doesn't seem like his style.

Indeed, Frankie seems like a "It takes a village", inclusive type of guy. Or more like, "It takes a carpool".

I think the person standing in front of the car now might be with Frank? Was this ruled out? Maybe the sequence taken a few more runners back will show if the car left right after that or what that person did?