Runner’s World Editor’s Races Under Scrutiny

SeattleSilver wrote:

Kilometre15mat wrote:

Every time this type of thing comes up, the counter to publicising this basically boils down to "why does it matter?"

I think in this case especially, but in most others too, it matters for a few reasons:

1 - None of this matters on the surface. Who cares which normie runs which race at which speed? In simple terms, it doesn't matter at all. But take a look a bit deeper: the reason sport matters at all is because it instills ideals of hard work, honesty, fair play, the challenging and betterment of oneself, and the satisfaction with a job well done. There are health benefits as well, both physical and mental. All of those things largely reply on the sport being completed honestly. If someone, or many people, are cheating, then the only reason why sport matters is neutralised. Why are we even here, whether we agree with what Derek does or not? Honest participation is at the soul of what we love doing.

2 - In this case, the alleged perpetrator writes about her exploits for a largely very-amateur crowd. She apparently claimed that she ran a 3:18 marathon with no fuelling strategy, only one long run of 16 miles in January (everything else just "regular" runs), plus the no chip, no watch nonsense. It's a baaaaaaad idea to put out the notion to inexperienced runners that this is doable. For reference, the Instagram post talks about her lack of a fuel strategy, and the rest came from her notes/comments on the now-deleted Strava entry. That's dangerous, for a journalist to be putting out in the world. I do not want to see a mostly untrained, under-fuelled newish runner attempt a marathon on the back of a journalist telling them that she ran that time like that. And people do read this stuff.

3 - Journalists shouldn't lie. Doesn't matter if it's about sport; none of them should do it. They do, I know, I know. But they shouldn't, and if they're caught, they should be held to account.

4 - Running is a hard sport. We might find it easy in some ways now, but it's generally something that the average person struggles to do well for a long period. It's plain rude to cheat others out of what they've earned via training, given that many amateurs start from a place of finding running extremely challenging. I'm one of them: when I went on my first run, aged 22, I made is about 2 miles before I nearly threw up. Years later, so far I have a sub-40 10k and a sub-90 half, and I plan on working more to get faster. I am in Kate's gender and (almost) age categories, I am running roughly the times she's run, or is claiming to have run (her fake 1:32 at the Landmarks Half is close enough to my PR to give me pause). I don't think any of us should be cheated out of placings by cheats.

"Why does this matter?" demeans the dedication and work ethic of everyone who does this stuff honestly. That's why it matters.

I think honesty matters and if she cheated she deserves negative consequences. But I think you overstate the danger of her description of preparation and race. Most newbies consult a number of sources, so one outlier doesn't matter much even if she is an editor of RW. Moreover, everyone is different. I ran my first marathon at age 28 on a base of 33 miles a week and one "long" run of 17 miles. I had no fueling strategy. I ate sushi the night before and drank water during the race when I felt like it. My gun time was 3:08. Many people would have done worse with that prep, but I suspect a number of people would have done better.

Let's Be Realistic wrote:

Eh maybe fair criticism wrote:

I don’t see a problem with giving her a week, trying to follow up, and giving her another week. You never know what might occupy someone’s attention at a given time, regardless what their habits are generally.

It’s not like this is highly time-sensitive breaking news, is there some great malfeasance could occur in the intervening period, or that Derek has to worry about really losing out by being scooped by somebody. That’s not to suggest that he’s really at fault; I’d just expect him to err a little more on the side of caution.

Umm, he wrote she was provided four days to respond. She's a member of the media, an industry in which communication is the foundation.

I graduated from university with a communications degree and was a print journalist for eight years, internships included. If I went four days without checking my email, social media, I'd have been booted really fast. It was my job to stay on top of my beat, which involved communicating by social media.

Kenster42 wrote:

It appears that with every post about a runner cheating and a mention of Marathon Investigation we get the people brutally condemning Derek for his coverage of Dr. Frank Meza. That's unfortunate, as all Derek did was report the truth, and his coverage was 100x better than the hundreds page Letsrun message board coverage, which was truly dark.

It is an absolute tragedy that Dr. Meza committed suicide, but outing him for his obvious marathon cheating over a decade while being a respected health professional and coaching his amateur track team and a local high school team is 100% appropriate. Let's also not forget that Meza unofficially holds the record for fastest marathon by a 70-74 year old.

I mean, Meza literally used A BICYCLE to cheat at the San Francisco marathon. A bicycle! Additionally, if you followed the excellent reporting on the issue, Meza went to pathological lengths to cheat, meticulously planning how he would course cut, using his timing watches to ensure that went over the various timing mats in a way that made it seem like he was just running fast. He had a clothes changing strategy to disguise his cheating during the marathon, for goodness' sake!

Additionally, and this is incredibly important to note, Meza and his family aggressively denied any cheating at all, to the point that they started threatening everyone with legal action for what people were saying and writing, even though it was completely obvious to anyone with a brain that he cheated.

Think about what that means - this guy spent more time arranging his cheating than running the races, then denied to his dying day that he cheated. If you were a patient of Dr. Meza, how do you think that would make you feel, knowing that a health professional went to such lengths to cheat on second tier amateur marathons? If he were willing to cheat on something so insignificant in the scheme of things, what else would he be willing to cheat or bend the rules on?

Kilometre15mat wrote:

Every time this type of thing comes up, the counter to publicising this basically boils down to "why does it matter?"

I think in this case especially, but in most others too, it matters for a few reasons:

1 - None of this matters on the surface. Who cares which normie runs which race at which speed? In simple terms, it doesn't matter at all. But take a look a bit deeper: the reason sport matters at all is because it instills ideals of hard work, honesty, fair play, the challenging and betterment of oneself, and the satisfaction with a job well done. There are health benefits as well, both physical and mental. All of those things largely reply on the sport being completed honestly. If someone, or many people, are cheating, then the only reason why sport matters is neutralised. Why are we even here, whether we agree with what Derek does or not? Honest participation is at the soul of what we love doing.

2 - In this case, the alleged perpetrator writes about her exploits for a largely very-amateur crowd. She apparently claimed that she ran a 3:18 marathon with no fuelling strategy, only one long run of 16 miles in January (everything else just "regular" runs), plus the no chip, no watch nonsense. It's a baaaaaaad idea to put out the notion to inexperienced runners that this is doable. For reference, the Instagram post talks about her lack of a fuel strategy, and the rest came from her notes/comments on the now-deleted Strava entry. That's dangerous, for a journalist to be putting out in the world. I do not want to see a mostly untrained, under-fuelled newish runner attempt a marathon on the back of a journalist telling them that she ran that time like that. And people do read this stuff.

3 - Journalists shouldn't lie. Doesn't matter if it's about sport; none of them should do it. They do, I know, I know. But they shouldn't, and if they're caught, they should be held to account.

4 - Running is a hard sport. We might find it easy in some ways now, but it's generally something that the average person struggles to do well for a long period. It's plain rude to cheat others out of what they've earned via training, given that many amateurs start from a place of finding running extremely challenging. I'm one of them: when I went on my first run, aged 22, I made is about 2 miles before I nearly threw up. Years later, so far I have a sub-40 10k and a sub-90 half, and I plan on working more to get faster. I am in Kate's gender and (almost) age categories, I am running roughly the times she's run, or is claiming to have run (her fake 1:32 at the Landmarks Half is close enough to my PR to give me pause). I don't think any of us should be cheated out of placings by cheats.

"Why does this matter?" demeans the dedication and work ethic of everyone who does this stuff honestly. That's why it matters.

Kilometre15mat wrote:

oacloer4o20202 wrote:

Can't help by laugh whenever another one of these runfluencers gets caught out by MI. The hobby jogger side of running is filled with main character syndrome. Take a look at any "mummy runs" instagram pages and it's filled with thousands of people celebrating mediocrity and putting these total losers on a pedestal.

If these dodgy operators spent the time they spent editing GPS files and writing instagram captions on actual running, they wouldn't need to fake it.

On the subject of runfluencers and cheating in the London Marathon... have a look at the London Marathon results from the "virtual" race in 2020. Obviously it was a strange time, and none of these results counted for anything. However, one female entrant, entered in the 18-39 age group, stood out. She posted a time just over 3 hours. It turns out that this person was 13 years old in October 2020, and the only evidence of this rather stunning feat for a child was an Instagram post where she "paced her dad" and ran a huge PR. Okay. She is now trying to be a runfluencer, running nearly an hour slower, four years later.

Sure, the virtuals meant nothing, but come on. That didn't happen. It's just grift for socials.