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

R U Cereal? wrote:

Stinky McCheesefart wrote:

Nice of you to stop by again Mike, keep trying, this will all blow over soon!

Oh, I see now. Trying to make your accusers look so unintelligent that no one takes them seriously. Mike, I must say that is a very interesting strategy!

Nice job asshat. That most pathetic of trolling techniques - stealing other folks' handles! You must be so proud!

There are many intelligent posters on this thread. Unfortunately there seem to be quite a few others who lack all integrity (sort of like Mike Rossi).

R U Cereal? wrote:

Stinky McCheesefart wrote:

Nice of you to stop by again Mike, keep trying, this will all blow over soon!

Oh, I see now. Trying to make your accusers look so unintelligent that no one takes them seriously. Mike, I must say that is a very interesting strategy!

You say you know nothing about the guy.

You don't understand the obsession.

Do you not understand that he couldn't have run the race because there are no photos of him and his profile does not support a 3:11 performance? Have you read any of the previous posts? do you understand the argument? Why are you following along?

WWRD wrote:

You offer no substantive rebuttal to any of this. Thus you are doing fine all by yourself looking unintelligent.

R U Cereal? wrote:

Oh, I see now. Trying to make your accusers look so unintelligent that no one takes them seriously. Mike, I must say that is a very interesting strategy!

1) I never suggested that Mike was innocent. So why would I offer a "substantive rebuttal" to that which I believe to be true.

2) The fact that you could not recognize that the poster to whom you responded was in fact an imposter who stole my handle kind of makes you look...what was that word again?...oh, unintelligent. No?

CSU-1959 wrote:

R U Cereal? wrote:

Oh, I see now. Trying to make your accusers look so unintelligent that no one takes them seriously. Mike, I must say that is a very interesting strategy!

You say you know nothing about the guy.

You don't understand the obsession.

Do you not understand that he couldn't have run the race because there are no photos of him and his profile does not support a 3:11 performance? Have you read any of the previous posts? do you understand the argument? Why are you following along?

1) Yes, I do understand that he most likely cheated and his profile does not support a 3:11 performance. I never said otherwise. Are you having trouble understanding this?

2) Yes, I have read quite a few posts. Not all of them but quite a few. And yes, I do understand the arguments being made. Indeed, I agree with most of them. Are you having a difficult time understanding this?

3) Why am I following along? I saw a very active thread so I checked it out. Is that odd? I read through enough of it to get the gist. Does that seem difficult? I can see that Rossi is guilty as charged. Does that trouble you? I also see several here who are liars (much like Rossi himself). Are you unable to see this as well?

Stinky McCheesefart wrote:

R U Cereal? wrote:

Oh, I see now. Trying to make your accusers look so unintelligent that no one takes them seriously. Mike, I must say that is a very interesting strategy!

Mike, you can end all of this by simply posting the GPS data from Lehigh. Do it. Do it.

Not even intelligent enough to recognize an obvious handle thief.

Sad, really.

Just because I think this obsessiveness to ruin the guy is a bit much doesn't mean I'm his friend just as if I speak up against the death penalty on a convicted murderer doesn't mean I'm the murderers family or friend. A comment that isn't vicious enough for you guys doesn't have to mean we think Mike is innocent.

This thread now has several pages of "nice try Mike" that only takes away from the thread and adds to the ridiculousness.

Instead of Rojo doing a complete recap (that is now worthless because it's several pages back) this thread could be trimmed by 2/3 if we just delete the multiple posters using multiple names.

Raysism wrote:

[quote]

Great work. I think I suggested this a dozen or so pages ago, but Wejo needs to find Rendall. He is the smoking gun.

A simple search and seems easy to find. Looks like the perfect person to ask as well.

Anyway, it's been fun.

Rossi cheated. That is clear.

Many of you are intelligent folks who have done some good homework here.

Some of you lack all integrity - much like Rossi himself.

Have fun - I'm out of here.

If I recall, there have been statements made by this fellow that he trained his butt off to the tune of 1000 miles over 18 months, up to 50mpw for Boston.

1000 miles in 18 months is only 55.5 per month or 14 miles per week.

This is no where near enough training for a 3:11 marathon (unless the person is extremely talented I suppose, which Rossi is not as evidenced by all the other races).

seriously... wrote:

This thread now has several pages of "nice try Mike"

Yup, the idiots have taken over the thread.

Greg, I see you posted VO2 max scores as well as the age grade in your table. What's interesting to see is that the summer of 2014 he was improving and got as high as 45.2 for the 10 miler in May. What's also interesting is that he seems to have plateaued at 45 since his best 5ks around the BQ date are at 44.9 and 43.5. What's not credible is that he rocketed up to a 49.7 VO2 max for Lehigh!

For those who haven't seen it here is Greg's chart:

https://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/2017/6186/original.jpg

For those who do not know theirs, below is a VO2 max calculator: What's amazing to me is how consistent my score is across all my PR's at every distance. Try it yourself:

http://www.rajeun.net/vo2max.html

And again, I say let's ask Mr. Rossi to do a VO2 max test. We'll pay for it too.

I do think this guys a cheater but mostly because he has no race photos at Lehigh and seems like a jerk. I do disagree that his training times are out of wack.

I ran my last long run prior to a marathon at 7:13 pace (21 miles) then ran 6:17 pace at Boston three weeks later. I think this is pretty standard. No one is doing their long runs at as fast a pace as their marathon's. Maybe it's different for slower marathons? Either way his training paces aren't strong evidence that he cheated.

He had a qualifier bib number and started in Wave 2. Charity runners get much higher bib numbers and start in Wave 4.

I just realized something (sorry if I'm late to this).

When you get to the photo page, you can "Browse Event" and then pick where in a camera roll you want to start. So I just started with Roll 62 and Frame 6121, which is a photo of the first guy on the spreadsheet (Bib 1436), somewhere near the end of the race. So then I started clicking through the roll - and If you do it fast enough, it looks like a little movie of everyone who ran through there. You literally see everyone on the spreadsheet run past that camera...except Rossi.

So his 3:11 strikes you as completely plausible? While others in the race have already come forward and discussed how crappy a day it was this guy goes out and runs an unbelievable PB?

Never posted here before, but ran 2015 Boston, as well as the last four Broad Street Runs, including 13 days after Boston (finishing in 1:05, a few seconds better than this guy's best effort ; )), and there is absolutely no way he ran a qualifying time. I do not race a lot; this guy appears to do a decent amount of racing. Not only do none of his race times reflect someone who could run a marathon at close to seven-minute pace, none approximate the times one would expect from training runs in anticipation of Boston.

Another reason that I post here is that my wife is a teacher and my kids did not go to Boston because they have a little thing called school. I am not going to get into a debate over standardized testing, as that is not my issue. My issue is making choices, and a 3-day absence to watch your dad run a race should be unexcused, especially since you only needed one day for that -- I live in the same county and was back at work Tuesday morning. I took a vacation day and I would have no problem if my kid was charged with an unexcused absence.

R U Cereal? wrote:

I also see several here who are liars (much like Rossi himself). Are you unable to see this as well?[/quote]

So that's your problem? Geez.

jt2gt wrote:

Raysism wrote:

[quote]

Great work. I think I suggested this a dozen or so pages ago, but Wejo needs to find Rendall. He is the smoking gun.

A simple search and seems easy to find. Looks like the perfect person to ask as well.

could be:

from elsewhere looks like he is a USMC Captain

wonder how ticked he'd be if someone passed him at the end

Great find.. we still need the race director to comment and look into this. They'll have the power and means to dig in further. This thread is full of evidence, all the leg work is done.

surprised more isn't being made of his suspected cheating in the subsequent HM?

has anybody gone through his other races to see if they are dodgy?