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

Letsrunners I know many of you feel this guy should be publicly humiliated and probably fined or put in jail or something.

One Reddit user wants to see him hung... with smoking guns! -

..Which strikes me as at least logistically challenging if not infeasible, but let the punishment fit the crime!

I would be more than happy to pace Mike to prove everyone wrong... But when I start to pull away at something ridiculous like 7-9k I wont be surprised.

Remember 'Austin 3:16' shirts. What about 'Rossi 3:11'? Right up there with the West Wyoming Finisher shirt!

I consider myself the most honest person that I know. I can't say that I never lie, but I do my best to lie as little as I possibly can. In fact, I would say a rule that I have for myself is that I will only lie if I think it would lying would benefit the world more than it would hurt the world (not myself).

Most people wouldn't claim to be more honest than that.

Looking at this from Mike Rossi's perspective (assuming he did cheat), he figured nobody would ever know that he cheated, his kids would get to look at him as a positive role model, their lives in return would be better because they have a more positive dad to motivate them, and most importantly, the world would indeed be a better place...until you LR idiots decide to make the world a worse place!

You can't really blame the guy for actually thinking the world would be a better place if he cheated to get himself into Boston. You can only blame him for being stupid enough to not realize he could get caught (and you can't really blame someone for being stupid - that's genetics).

I'd say leave this guy alone. Why make things worse? If YOU were stupid enough to not realize you'd get caught, I bet YOU would've done the exact same thing too. Why wouldn't you? I would've (if I was stupid enough), and I'm the most honest guy I know!

rojo wrote:

Johnny Two Time, Very good sleuthing. it's a shame that we no longer have the ability to look up IPs. We used to be able to do it, but not anymore.

What do you mean, 'not anymore'?!?

I demand you look up my IP rojo and IF I AM NOT WHO I SAY I AM BAN ME FOR LIFE!

Dude...sounds like you lie quite a bit and just find a way rationalize your own lies. Only a liar needs to reiterate multiple times that they are "the most honest person they know" in one post. Don't leave this guy alone...he most likely lied/cheated and should pay for it in the court of public opinion.

For the record...most of the honest people I know never feel the need to proclaim it. It's never in question.

teacher of lessons wrote:

I'd say leave this guy alone. Why make things worse? If YOU were stupid enough to not realize you'd get caught, I bet YOU would've done the exact same thing too. Why wouldn't you? I would've (if I was stupid enough), and I'm the most honest guy I know!

The end purpose of discipline (and justice) is not merely to make the perpetrator feel bad but as a disincentive to others who would do the same.

You state that one can't blame Mike for thinking this type of cheating wouldn't be caught, and then chastise those who seek to show that it will.

Rather than motivate his kids by finishing a race, perhaps the best lesson might be best to show accountability for something that at this point will be common knowledge, or at least suspicion, for anyone in his family.

teacher of lessons wrote:

You can't really blame the guy for actually thinking the world would be a better place if he cheated to get himself into Boston.

Yes, you can blame him for that. That's a pathological level of narcissism. If that's actually true, it's a lot more disturbing than just cheating for the hell of it.

Only a liar needs to reiterate multiple times that they are "the most honest person they know"? That is not true at all. How about someone who is trying to logically prove a point? How about the fact that nobody on here has any idea who I am, and I feel no need to proclaim honesty, because I'll never meet any of you in person anyway.

I'm simply giving you a logical explanation of why it is best to leave this guy alone. However, if he already has been exposed and it's too late, then he should probably own up to it which would serve everybody better, most importantly including his family.

All I'm saying is stop trying to f*** everyone over and make things worse than they already are. What benefit are you doing for the world by outing this guy? The bad that you are doing, is you are ruining this guy's life and his kid's too. Of course, it was his fault assuming he cheated, but what's done is done - why make it worse?

If the world is benefiting by what you're doing, then okay. But I don't think this is the case.

I agree that this guy definitely cheated, however, I qualified for Boston at the 2014 Detroit Marathon with a 3:09. I would not be able to give GPS data as I choose to wear a normal stopwatch or no watch when I race. I do train with GPS though and, of course my race history would corroborate my ability to run said time. Also, the race has photos, splits, etc.

I guess my point is that GPS data is not always available. I had GPS failure at The Qualifier in 2012...zero data, running by myself.

And furthermore, Krizzy, these days, I probably lie around 5 times per year. To be honest, it's probably less than that number, but I'll give myself a little breathing room. That includes any "little lie". A lie is a lie. Only about 5 times in a year.

If you say you can beat that, I'm going to call you a liar.

Even furthermore, I would say over 90% of the lies I have told in my life were to the one person that "can't handle the truth", my crazy mother unfortunately. I love her more than anyone else, but she is too crazy and illogical to be able to handle the truth sometimes. I'll say that I've learned how bad it can be for her to know certain things that she would be better off not knowing.

Wanted to weigh in on a couple of things here.

1. Just because the dude has a family doesn't mean he should get off easier than if he didn't. Someone criticizes the President every day and he has kids, so stop with this stupid argument. We're not going after his family, we're going after him.

2. The thing about this guy that really rubbed me the wrong way is that he tried to use the power of the internet to publicly shame and ridicule the principal at his kids school for a bogus self-centered reason. There is a certain amount of poetic justice now that the internet has turned on him. As they say, you reap what you sow.

3. He can issue an apology right now and this will all go away pretty quickly. The ball is in his court, and hopefully for his sake his lawyers will talk some sense into him.

4. People who cheat like this obviously have issues they need to deal with. Hopefully this ordeal will force him to confront those issues. If not, can't say I'm going to lose any sleep over a cheater being caught and punished accordingly.

5. lol at the attempt by Mike (or one of his buddies) to defend him with those weak pro-Mike posts on this thread. Son...just don't

I needed under 3:25 to BQ, but went out with the intent to break 3:10 en route to 3:09. Wanted no chances of being squeezed out for 2016. My running partner was forced out by 4 seconds, after the one minute adjustment for 2015...likely due to asshats like Mike Rossi.

fasterthanyoudbag wrote:

Absolutely NO proof he cheated. Why don't you do something constructive with your time instead of trying to destroy someone of their accomplishment.

Focus on your on running and goals. You are pathologically obsessed with Mike.

Whatever you say Mike.

R U Cereal? wrote:

Are you guys serious? How many pages on this?

I don't know anything about this guy. But it is really weird that so many obsess over whether or not he may have cheated his way into Boston.

Hi Mike!

soccer moms wrote:

He knows he was wrong and he's sorry. Expect to see a big apology to that principal.

Sure Mike.

soccermoms wrote:

Who cares if you couldn't find his picture. He ran a great time of 3:11. Get over it already.

Who cares, right Mike?

BostonBQ wrote:

Sorry, pal you can't prove he cheated. You have NO proof. Are you jealous of his accomplishment.

You should celebrate others successes rather and criticize them. Perhaps if you put more work into your training you might be able to qualify for Boston.

Thanks for the advice Mike.

There's a lot of intriguing stuff above. To see whether Mikes performance in the LV race fits with the rest of his racing record, I looked at all of his races (except the 2013 R&R 1/2, and the 2014 T-Day 5k, both of which seem way out of line with his record). To get a sense of his overall performance, I looked at Pace by Distance. I expected that pace would go up with distance, but that there'd be some variation.

If you look at the list below, you'll see that is pretty much what happens. And if you do an "ocular" regression (ie, eyeball it), you'll in see that the relationship is pretty smooth -- there aren't a lot big jumps in pace as distance goes up. There is one exception -- the LV race. No matter how you define "big," LV is a big exception.

I have a real life, and I don't know much about marathons or hobby-joggers. So someone else is going to have to figure how "big" this exception is, and whether there could be an innocent explanation for it.

Distance is in miles. Pace is in minutes/mile.

Dist -- Pace

3.1 ---- 7.02

3.1 ---- 7:05

3.1 ---- 7:13

3.1 ---- 7:16

3.1 ---- 7:17

3.1 ---- 7:44

5.0 ---- 7:10

5.0 ---- 7:33

6.2 ---- 7:40

10 ----- 7:28

10 ----- 8:03

10 ----- 8:09

13.1 --- 7:41

13.1 --- 8:05

13.1 --- 8:10

13.1 --- 8:34

26.2 --- 7:19

26.2 --- 8:32

26.2 --- 9:14

26.2 --- 10:10

I got the data from Athlinks, and from the Boston Marathon website, and the report above in this tread about this year's Broad Street Race.

thank you for some reason. guessing this is an older runner.

i don't condone what he did at all. it pisses me off as much as anyone. but then i take a step back and say, this is not my problem. he has problems, not me.

it makes me think the people who want to humiliate him so much are only a few steps away from being a person like him. it's when you value so much the external validation that he achieved through cheating, that's when you get pissed off that he got it in an unfair way.

if you are secure enough in yourself not to need to be in the news or have your PR flashed in front of people to boost your ego or even to need to declare you are a BQ qualifier to all your facebook friends, but instead run for yourself and find value inherently in yourself, that's when you just think, this is not my problem.

but i know you all find value in yourself through these sort of public displays of accomplishment, so i can understand why it pisses you off when someone gets external validation unfairly.