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

why bother wrote:

Furtive Frankie. wrote:

Seems 3:19:59 2009 Pasadena is the earliest of his fraudulent marathons to be covered by a photo company.

As usual Frank is overdressed compared to everyone else and 3:19:59 is damned impressive even for a shorts and singlet wearing, skinny, highly trained 60 year old, so definitely not ligit coming from Frank.

If it's possible for the super sleuths to scrape MarathonFoto's for off course shots of Furtive Frankie this would be a good early one to start with:

https://www.marathonfoto.com/Proofs?PIN=T48R36&lastName=MEZA

he actually looks like he's striding out in a couple of those photos. it's the best form i've seen from him so far. perhaps a 3:19 is possible?

although the amount of chafing after running 26.2 miles in the rain wearing that clothing would be horrendous.

Not a chance.

Furtive Frankie. wrote:

Seems 3:19:59 2009 Pasadena is the earliest of his fraudulent marathons to be covered by a photo company.

As usual Frank is overdressed compared to everyone else and 3:19:59 is damned impressive even for a shorts and singlet wearing, skinny, highly trained 60 year old, so definitely not ligit coming from Frank.

If it's possible for the super sleuths to scrape MarathonFoto's for off course shots of Furtive Frankie this would be a good early one to start with:

https://www.marathonfoto.com/Proofs?PIN=T48R36&lastName=MEZA

Joe Ogata was the true 60/64 age group winner at the 2009 Pasadena, Joe was also moved up to third in the 70/74 age group at the 2019 LAM where serial cheaters Meza and Robert Lautz were DQ'd.

Joe Ogata (M60)------Time: 3:45:23 Net Time: 3:45:22

Frank Meza (M60)----Time: 3:22:18 Net Time: 3:19:59

Note the Time/Net Time differentials, Joe managed 1 second, Fraudulent Frankie 2 minutes 19 seconds.

Golgi Body wrote:

Interesting that he's run Santa Clarita 9 times without a sub-3 on that course. That includes 3 times he's "run" it since he started breaking 3, often by healthy chunks of time. I wonder if there is a logistical problem on the course that causes his slowing, and if so, why he keeps doing the race and sullying his reputation as a reliable sub-3 man.

If you look at the Santa Clarita splits for his Meza, he always slows down uncharacteristically after the timing mat at 21.5 miles. At least, that's what happened in 2013, 2015, and 2017 (I haven't checked the others).

Hmm. I looked at the Santa Clarita marathon map. At 21.5 miles, the course is on the opposite side of the river from the finish. There are only two nearby roads to cross the river: McBean Parkway (which the marathon crosses at mile 25) and Bouquet Canyon Road.

There must be some logistics problem with riding a bike across either of these two bridges that forces Frank to run all the way in from the 21.5 mile mat. I'm guessing McBean would be out because he'd be riding along the course for about a half mile. Too many people might recognize him. I can't see any reason why he wouldn't ride across Bouquet Canyon Road, though.

HS stepped up? wrote:

what are they hiding? wrote:

there's something going on and i believe there's coordination between frank's camp and the LAM (and the LA times). there's enough evidence to ban him for life and dq him from years worth of racing, but they didn't.

Is it likely that the LAM reached out to Frank and came to an agreement?

Something along the lines of "If you agree to never enter any future Conqur events, we will allow you to save face by DQing you in 2019. Try this again, and you're banned for life."

...AAAANNNNDDDD we'll forget about all the other years.

Oh, wait.

FRANK—THE 10K mat is the OTHER way!!!!

I don’t think he heard me….

LA Marathon 2015. Just before the 10k mat, and about a minute before Frank shows up in the photos on course. By the way, this marathon is the fastest one that shows up on Frank’s Athlinks page at 2:52:47. As if….

No wonder they wanted him to run with an observer the next year. He split 20K-25K at 18:34 and 35-40K at 18:30. That’s good—he picked it up later in the race. Uh huh. Yep. Should have worn two watches.

Because 15K-20K was 25:01. Don’t you wish you could drop six and a half minutes per 5K between 15K and 25K like Frank? But he needs to work on his pacing….

5K 20:47

10K 19:03

15K 20:28

20K 25:01

25K 18:34

30K 19:22

35K 21:28

40K 18:30

Aside from the splits, the white stripe on his shorts in these photos, along with his now very recognizable running form, gave it away for me.

But I will say this—I was running today, and I saw someone way down at the end of the street running. It kind of looked like Frank. Time to stop this stuff….it’s like when I used to have Tetris dreams. You’ll get that if you’ve ever played Tetris.

Anyway, here are the individual links so you can see them.

And a circled guide contact sheet for those whose eyes are going. Like mine.

https://imgur.com/a/SceWkS4

Why did Joe Ogata put up with the cheating in so many races? Or, maybe he didn't ? Who knows, what other runners knew about him. Pete M is from Pasedena I think? All those Socal runners , did they know from way back when?

INCREDIBLE.

Well done sir. Please set up a PayPal and let us contribute for your time. I know we can't afford your rate but hey let us but you lunch. WELL DONE. keep them coming when you have the time.

deadesq wrote:

And a circled guide contact sheet for those whose eyes are going. Like mine.

https://imgur.com/a/SceWkS4

The hits keep coming, don’t they?

Brilliant work!

letsrunstacks wrote:

INCREDIBLE.

Well done sir. Please set up a PayPal and let us contribute for your time. I know we can't afford your rate but hey let us but you lunch. WELL DONE. keep them coming when you have the time.

Well shucks. Thanks. But if you're in a giving mood, please send it to Doubler through the PayPal link on his site. I don't know Doubler personally, and I'm not getting any kind of kickback from him for all this. Seriously.

I've been doing all this for my own desire to see Ed Whitlock's times stay at the top of the lists. And tangentially because it's been slow at work the last week and I needed something to occupy my time.

But Derek provides a valuable platform to expose runners who try to game the system. As part of that, Derek buys the hi-res photos, which aren't cheap in the quantities I've been posting this week. But those hi-res photos are crucial in convincing RDs that something is amiss.

Still--I appreciate the sentiment.

Why did he do it? wrote:

There is little on earth so unstable, so reckless, so fragile, and so dangerous as the (male) ego.

Did you made a deliberate choice to correlate the good doctor's gender with his cheating, or are you subconsciously contributing to the us-vs-them narrative?

For every Wedding DJ, Dentist, and Doctor, I'd like to remind you of Gemkow, Seo, Miller, Rosie, Schler, Bre, Tabatha, Parvaneh, and many, many more.

Dufus wrote:

Why did Joe Ogata put up with the cheating in so many races? Or, maybe he didn't ? Who knows, what other runners knew about him. Pete M is from Pasedena I think? All those Socal runners , did they know from way back when?

Joe: I think Frank has been cheating at your marathon.

RD: Do you have any proof? His splits look accurate.

Joe, not being good on the computer just walks away.

Look how long it took for this crowd-sourcing group to get Frank DQ'd from ONE marathon!

Trail races aren't really my thing, but FM ran Dipsea at least 7 times going back to the 90s, most recently in 2013. In 2010 he was just under an hour, in 2013 he was 4th in his age group. I don't know the race well enough to say if that's legit or sketchy.

this is comedy gold. every time another Frank sighting is posted i burst out laughing.

seriously Frank, what the hell were you doing? your brain aint wired right.

it seems to me like the main flaw in Franks grand plan was that he lurked (or skulked as deadesq so eloquently described it) too close to the timing mats given that there is normally a photographer somewhere near the mat.

if he had been prepared (or capable) to jump in from an extra 200-500 metres out he would never have been seen.

Donations tonight A PLUS!!!!!! Thanks...

Ha. You keep this up, I will have to buy a bunch.

Deadesq did give me instructions on how to pull these, I haven’t been able to test it out yet. But it will be very useful in the future too.

Roderick Powell wrote:

Frank Meza 2012 Surf City marathon finish FM appears at 9:15 and is announced at 9:45 of this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLftxB6Fm0w

That is not the stride of an age group winner.

A quick look at Joe's ATHLINKS tell me he loves his running and has been shafted by Meza quite a few times when it comes to age group placings.

Joe seems awesome.

https://www.scausatf.org/say-hello-to-joe-ogata-maximum-mileage-joe/