gerdeweds wrote:
up dog wrote:
Solar powered helicopter
You can cut some switchbacks. You can also have more than one person running it and handing off bib/chip to make it appear to be a single runner. Or have an actual registered runner carrying two bibs/chips for all/most of the route.
That's why I was looking for photos of Pike's Peak. There are no photos of FM on the course, so how do we know he ran it himself?
Perhaps?? wrote:
Dude, The wrote:
Why is this poster being so strange and vague?
I am not sure but you will realize that some runners missed "some" timing mats. Perhaps the poster would like to show this. Anyway, I can't see any "familiar" name.
I'm still not following. Why are you guys being so vague? Are you referring to runner "21246" missing the 15.4 mi mat? If so, I don't find that to be compelling evidence of anything.
Seriously, help me understand.
UnTramposoEnElBarrio wrote:
someone left the cake out in the rain wrote:
It's only about a mile or so from Dodger Stadium to Echo Park.
Thanks, I think people who are good at this should look to see if there are instances where a bike would not have worked.
He had to get the 5k mat as well though which was Southeast. I'm guessing he has refined his methods over the years. Maybe he drove on the highway and parked at the hospital, who knows.
Monsieur Hulot wrote:
Two things stood out to me in the Frank-on-a-bike photo: He's in an extremely low gear (small chainring up front, large cassette cog in back), indicating he was riding slowly and was in no hurry (at least at the time this photo was taken), so he was way ahead of schedule at this point.
Also, I can't see a bike lock of any type, either on the bike itself with a frame clamp or pannier, or in the form of a chain wrapped around the top tube, or on Frank's person either. Before this photo was discovered, the cheating-with-a-bike scenario had me wondering how Frank secures his bike to ensure it's still there when he returns to it after crossing a timing mat. In most urban areas an unsecured bike, even a crappy one, will vanish in seconds if it's not locked up, or even if it's locked up with a less-than-sturdy device. Frank would also have to ensure that there was something in the vicinity of a timing mat, such as a fence, lamp post, etc., that he could safely lock the bike to. With no lock in sight in that photo, I say he either had a confederate to monitor the bike for him while he dismounted to cross timing mats, or he was so brazen that he left the bike so close to the timing mats that he could keep it in sight while just running a short distance to have his chip recorded. Given Frank's character, or lack thereof, I wouldn't rule out the latter.
And as other posters have mentioned, other courses where it wasn't possible to cycle so close to the race would have required different cheating strategies, not necessarily using a bike.
As mentioned a few pages back, looks like he cycled most of SF2014, which is why there's only a couple of photos of him at the finish.
Why wouldn't he cycle most of it?, it's a bike friendly course, why would he pull up short of a timing mat, take off the track suit pants, run over the mat, run back, put the pants back on, rinse and repeat?, there's no need. Anyway, if he was doing that he wouldn't do it wearing track pants he had to keep taking off and putting back on, he'd just wear his heavy baggy shorts he's seen finishing in.
So, he ran across the mat with crowd four minutes after the gun, probably with the track pants on, ducked off the course shortly thereafter and rode the bike virtually the whole way, except probably for who knows how far, and ran it to the finish. This would have been an easy one for Frank.
He's probably done a solo trip from LA to SF and done a solo bike cheat, whether he anyone with him on the trip, who knows, wife maybe? Hard to be believe he could have done a solo cheat on some of his other 'marathons' though.
Running Programmer wrote:
UnTramposoEnElBarrio wrote:
Thanks, I think people who are good at this should look to see if there are instances where a bike would not have worked.
2019 LAM
Frank “ran” a 20:50 gun time at the 5K. Couldn’t find any photos of him near the 3 mile mark but to be fair I didn’t find every runner who posted similar times. By the 4.4 mile mark near Dorothy Chandler Pavilion I was able to find photos of all the runners except for Frank.
BTW his times from LAM 2019 are expunged.
He had to get the 5k mat as well though which was Southeast. I'm guessing he has refined his methods over the years. Maybe he drove on the highway and parked at the hospital, who knows.
For the record, I don't think he had an accomplice, but it's certainly possible.
Has anyone checked into other members of his running club? Specifically one that has run fast times, but never seems to enter the same race as Frank.
If I was driving someone around a marathon course, I'd expect him to return the favor sometime.
FM just made it to drudgereport.com. Now, it's truly international.
UnTramposoEnElBarrio wrote:
RossiCheated wrote:
We’re going to disagree on what is common sense.
Again, he cheated for a decade, on relays, with friends in the races, etc.
Common sense says:
People knew. For sure. They were accomplices or enablers but people definitely knew. And there could be reasons he received such vociferous support from a few people who he coached with.
Or...
He was so good at this and at faking his running ability even as he was coaching a very good HS team that nobody knew.
I’ll go with the former.
Also, I’m not the one suggesting one of those other three people is an accomplice. Another poster stated that as fact. I’m asking if we should blow past that.
I’ll ask you this: If a photo later emerges of a man in a black coat holding that bike along the course or posing with Frank at the finish, would you be surprised? I’m not expecting it but I wouldn’t be surprised.
If we want to eliminate an accomplice theory, feel free to share with us who SMU Guy is, who ran along with Frank (without a bib) and posed with him after a race.
I haven't caught up on the aspect of the debate regarding who knew/who helped.
My two cents.....going with the "common sense" theme started above:
At least 5 people very close to Frank knew about how he does it including knowledge of the use of Bikes or multiple bikes and any other alternate ways he may have used to get between mats. I wouldn't mind guessing that this number could go to 10 people or more. Frank could only lie about taking a bike to an out of town or in town marathon so many times. I believe several in this group besides keeping him company while he cheated with their knowledge, materially helped him cheat, ( not positive or course but that's what it looks like so far)
Secondly, The school coaches who were probably in the 5 or 10 mentioned above who had first hand experience, definitely would have concluded he cheats and some shilled for him knowing that he's a cheater who brags about and exploits social capital garnered from his fake accomplishments. There are many many people in this category, maybe some of them didn't shill too much, but they knew and kept the secret for personal comfort and to protect Frank if nothing else.
Finally , many people just knew but maybe blew it off laughing , or you know, if you don't have something nice to say don't say anything. Maybe some fear of rocking the boat, that could be Loyola Runners, competitors, co-workers etc.
There are hundreds of people like this.
Anyway to me that all stands to reason based on inference from how the story and bust unfolded here on LRC and on MI . I still want to know why the closer group, adults, took the cover-up and or hyping Frank approaches that they did.
This is the really big story just waiting to unfold. So far, this is only about one man, but if others were involved, and it certainly appears that they were at least knowledgeable and chose to be part of the coverup, then this is a MUCH bigger story. Enabling a cheater would be grounds for firing school administrators and coaches if they were involved.
If I were a parent of a Loyola student, I'd want the school administration to be held accountable to get to the bottom of this.
I think this is why we've seen so many "He cheated, end of story... move on" posts recently. Friends of Frank want this to go away with only Frank getting disgraced.
A word of advice. Someone is eventually going to crack and tell the whole messy story. He'll come out okay as the whistle-blower seeking redemption, but everyone else... well, you'll be disgraced... and most likely fired.
Only the first whistle-blower gets this deal so you'd better act before one of your buddies does.
Three of those involved in some way are medical doctors, so not just coaches.
You’ve really lost perspective.
This is entertainment. It’s just a show. The whole world is now laughing at runners in general for caring enough to cheat at something so trivial. No one in the world truly cares about this because it’s unimportant and ultimately meaningless to them. It’s a footnote that supports the consensus that running sucks and people who run marathons are crazy. There’s a lot more that parents are concerned about than that stupid race and some dumb old retired doctor cheating.
Step away. Go out for a run before you get any loonier.
Trollometer registered 1/10.
deadesq wrote:
Is there a way you can look at the 2014 San Francisco photos and find a way to be able to either scrape or view sequentially? They're using some Unix timestamp on the photos that makes it impossible to change one digit and see either the previous or next photo in the series. Example:
6555945_race_0.5948109768047379.display.jpg?1406636962
I recognize the last set of digits starting with 1406 as Unix time, which would convert, in this case, to 07/29/2014 @ 12:29pm (UTC). The date of the race was 7/29/2014. The other digits are still a mystery to me.
Any illumination you can provide will be greatly appreciated.
Adding to my previous suggestion, based on the JSON from that web service an alternate URL for the photo in question is this:
https://gameface-upload-testing.s3.amazonaws.com/the-san-francisco-marathon-%28m%29/340-SFOMarathon/Race%202/14-340-506-05776.JPGThe advantage of this URL is that you can add or subtract from the last numeric section to view other photos in sequence (presumably these are from the same photographer). I didn't see Frank in any of the adjacent shots.
Note there are many sequences (presumably from different photographers); I think you'll still need to run the other query to get all of them. Note also that that query is limited in its results, but since the starting timestamp is a parameter your best bet is probably to use as starting timestamp whatever the last photo from the previous query ended with.
It wouldn't surprise me to discover Frank in some other photos here but I don't have the patience to try and find him!
You’ve been staring at geezer pics for too long wrote:
You’ve really lost perspective.
This is entertainment. It’s just a show. The whole world is now laughing at runners in general for caring enough to cheat at something so trivial. No one in the world truly cares about this because it’s unimportant and ultimately meaningless to them. It’s a footnote that supports the consensus that running sucks and people who run marathons are crazy. There’s a lot more that parents are concerned about than that stupid race and some dumb old retired doctor cheating.
Step away. Go out for a run before you get any loonier.
You act like you are getting backed into a corner.
Unless I am mixing up my Loyola Jesuit Schools, it looks like took them 6 or 7 years to get rid of a pedophile after his own brother warned them about him.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-dec-14-me-priest14-story.htmlI don't think there is a record of Linder molesting Loyola students, but it's fair to be concerned if the cover-up culture, unfair to the students for maintaining a fraud(s)as their coach(es) if nothing else, is at play with the school and Meza.
Along those lines, Frank said he liked to take some kids out to meals and whatnot as part of his experience with the team.
I think he said that somewhere. Red Flag. Seeing Red Flags doesn't t make it an accusation, but this situation is weird. Hopefully it's just the running.
I can't help my suspicious mind. Even concern about David Torrence's death comes to mind.
Is this Frank in Oakland in 2016?
Yet another blurry guy with a black hat and black shorts loitering off course. If it's a spectator, he doesn't stay long. Doesn't appear in the photos of any other runners within a few minutes. Franks results indicated he crossed mats ahead of this runner despite starting a minute later.
https://i.imgur.com/CNz4pP9h.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/E1obWvEh.jpg
Here he is with the eventual women's winner. (Her time at the 12.75 mark shows her 15 minute behind Frank and others nearby. Heckuva negative split for the 2nd half.)
https://i.imgur.com/Xttu1F7h.jpg
At the finish, Frank's in his usual outfit.
https://i.imgur.com/5lb4PGyl.jpg
I'm going to be seeing blurry dudes with black shorts in my nightmares.
polyester wrote:
I'm going to be seeing blurry dudes with black shorts in my nightmares.
I wasn’t running the other day and could have sworn Frank was running towards me....
Was running* obviously
Although, it was pretty goddamn slow...
You’ve been staring at geezer pics for too long wrote:
You’ve really lost perspective.
This is entertainment. It’s just a show. The whole world is now laughing at runners in general for caring enough to cheat at something so trivial.
Step away. Go out for a run before you get any loonier.
I am largely unpersuaded by the various conspiracy theories here but the increasing desperation of the "time to stop now" people is giving me serious pause for thought. What exactly are they afraid will come out if people keep digging?
One thing is certain, these posts will have the opposite effect from what they want.
polyester wrote:
At the finish, Frank's in his usual outfit.
https://i.imgur.com/5lb4PGyl.jpg
Poor old Frank, look exhausted after his 2:59:23.
ExpertKipWatcher wrote:
I am largely unpersuaded by the various conspiracy theories...
We know, cos you keep telling us.
