I am aware of Frank.
He had been DQd from CIM twice in the past - a race I officially partner with.
I do know that there are race directors that do care and they have shared suspicions, but they have not felt they had the evidence to act.
I have not been following this thread as of late. I haven’t done anything site related for the past few weeks. The article I posted yesterday was basically written over a month ago.
I should be able to focus on this over the next couple of weeks.
doubler wrote:
I am aware of Frank.
He had been DQd from CIM twice in the past - a race I officially partner with.
I do know that there are race directors that do care and they have shared suspicions, but they have not felt they had the evidence to act.
I have not been following this thread as of late. I haven’t done anything site related for the past few weeks. The article I posted yesterday was basically written over a month ago.
I should be able to focus on this over the next couple of weeks.
Thank you very much!
doubler wrote:
I am aware of Frank.
He had been DQd from CIM twice in the past - a race I officially partner with.
I do know that there are race directors that do care and they have shared suspicions, but they have not felt they had the evidence to act.
I have not been following this thread as of late. I haven’t done anything site related for the past few weeks. The article I posted yesterday was basically written over a month ago.
I should be able to focus on this over the next couple of weeks.
Excellent Derek. If you can sift through the inevitable trolling and nonsense, there is tons of evidence here that Frank is a serial cheat. Just suspicion at the beginning of the thread, but the evidence gains weight and momentum as various posters start to forensically examine Frank's "performances".
Bear with it, it is worth it.
/
Exellent!!!!!!!!!!!! wrote:
doubler wrote:
I am aware of Frank.
He had been DQd from CIM twice in the past - a race I officially partner with.
I do know that there are race directors that do care and they have shared suspicions, but they have not felt they had the evidence to act.
I have not been following this thread as of late. I haven’t done anything site related for the past few weeks. The article I posted yesterday was basically written over a month ago.
I should be able to focus on this over the next couple of weeks.
Excellent Derek. If you can sift through the inevitable trolling and nonsense, there is tons of evidence here that Frank is a serial cheat. Just suspicion at the beginning of the thread, but the evidence gains weight and momentum as various posters start to forensically examine Frank's "performances".
Bear with it, it is worth it.
/
Could not write better.
Doubler, here's a quick summary before you start reading this thread. The first 20 or so pages focus of splits and whether a bib mule was used. Then, on page 28 of this thread, there is a series of smoking guns. (It's quoted below.) Next, from page 39 is my post positing how it might have been done at the LA marathon. (It's quoted below.) You should definitely read this first because, even if it wasn't done this way, it explains the anomalies could have occurred. That is, either this happened or something similar could explain all the anomalies discussed in this thread. Starting on page 33 is a series of posts that show FM possibly entering the course near two runners less than a mile before a timing mat. In only a few photos, these runners gap FM by several yards. By the mat, in less than a mile, they gap FM by 1:40, yet he finishes on a few minutes behind them at the end of the race. There are also some sequential photos of runners nearing a timing mat. FM is missing from these photos, but he has a mat time in between these runners, implying that he jumped in after the photos were taken but before the mat. I think these photos are in the most recent pages of posts.
Frank Meza Report wrote:
Marathon habits and observations of the good doctor:
1. Bib belt
2. Fanny pack
3. Two tech watches
4. Long baggy shorts
5. Wore half zip and tech T entire 2019 LAM during good weather.
6. Pre CIM 2014 habit of missing timing mats or malfunctioning chip and photo ops during multilole races.
7. Timing chip works perfectly at the finishing line for all those pre CIM 2014 races.
8. Post CIM races with 18 min 5K splits
9. High level performances within 2 weeks (LAM and Carlsbad 2014)
10. Eight high level marathons in 2014
11. World elite performances within 5 weeks (LAM an Phoenix 2019)
12. Avoiding fast marathons outside of urban areas where it’s harder to cheat.
13. Where’s the bib during many of the races?
14. Bib magically appears for finishing pics.
15. Does not have physical stature of an elite runner. Carrying extra weight in some elite “performances.”
16. Avoids track and USATF local and national meets.
fisky wrote:
I love puzzles so when I woke up at 3:30AM and couldn't get back to sleep, I asked myself, how could someone cheat at a marathon year after year and not get caught. Here' my thoughts.
Marathon Cheating 101
Assuming someone wanted to cheat to run a sub-3 marathon. How could it be done over and over without getting caught?
1. Find a suitable course. Become intimately familiar with it, including how the course could be cut or how a runner could be ferried between 5k mats by car.
2. Determine your desired finish time.
3. Determine realistic splits to achieve that time, accounting for slowing at the end and hills.
4. Determine the best exit and reentry points to hit every mat. Ideally, it should be where exits and reentries wouldn’t be noticed much, such as at a corner, near a porta potty, or after a water stop when walking runners would toss their cups and start running again.
5. To facilitate multiple exits and reentries, wear a bib belt and floppy clothing to hide the belt so no one will see it when you exit/reenter the course. Keep the bib hidden except for mats and known photo points. Even if someone sees you, they won’t have a race number to report to the race director.
6. Wear a disguise… a cap, sunglasses, clothing that doesn’t obviously scream “elite runner” when you’re off the course, and clothing to hide the bib belt.
7. Don’t start up front. Wait a while and then get lost in the crowd. More people will be on the course so the first few exits and reentries will be less likely to get noticed. Alternately, you could skip the START entirely and have a mule carry your bib across the start line, exit, and then ferry the bib to you before the first 5k mat.
8. Start your watch when your mule starts or when you start if you actually start the race.
9. Cut the course soon after crossing the start mat. Call your driver to make sure he/she is at the designated pickup location.
10. Have an accomplice who drives you to the next entry point or take a short cut, depending on the course. (Driver leaps forward to next ferry point after dropping you off.)
11. Walk to your reentry point. Check the time of your last split on your watch. Time your reentry into the race to hit the next mat at/near your desired split time.
12. After the mat, exit again. Get ferried or cut course to get to some point before the next mat.
13. When runners get far apart, reentering the course could get noticed so when practical, jump in after a group passes by to make your reentry less obvious to spectators. Adjust your pace accordingly to hit the next split at the appropriate time.
14. Repeat steps 9-12 until the 40k mat.
15. Reenter before the 40k mat and run to the finish yourself. This could be your longest run of the day, but runners slow at the finish so even if you’re a minute slower than your previous splits, it’s believable. Make sure your bib is visible at the finish.
Regardless of planning, two things would be unavoidable. 1) Official photographers switching their previous location or adding a new location. You wouldn’t show up sequentially or at all on their race photos unless they were really close to the timing mats before you cut the course. 2) Leapfrogging runners who pass you on the course, perhaps multiple times. Still, as long as you’re not in their age group, few runners would care so it wouldn't get reported.
Thoughts?
If you go back to about P29 or 30, that was where someone found a photo of what looks like Frank sneaking back onto the course on Hollywood Bl.
^^^ His tendency to start at the very back of races also seems to be a major red flag. Outside of charity chase situations (e.g., Lance Armstrong running chasing people down for charity), how often do people attempting record pace marathons start at the very back of the field? At sub three hour pace, it's got to be absolutely exhausting trying to weave in and out of all of the much slower runners.
Do we have a precise location for that photo spot?
doubler wrote:
Do we have a precise location for that photo spot?
Look at page 34, someone posted: "Hollywood Blvd and Highland Ave". The next post delivers a nice Google Earth view. Important as well: another post mentioned that this was not a place for portable toilets.
Good news!! wrote:
doubler wrote:
Do we have a precise location for that photo spot?
Look at page 34, someone posted: "Hollywood Blvd and Highland Ave". The next post delivers a nice Google Earth view. Important as well: another post mentioned that this was not a place for portable toilets.
It is across the street from the Chinese Theater and roughly in front of a Hooters. It is a little after mile 11.5. There was a camera set up farther up Hollywood taking pictures from a distance (may have been automatic). This camera is the one that shows what appears to be Meza reentering the course immediately after runners now known as the Greek Guy and the Woman in Black. These two hit the 20K/12.4 Mile mat (less than a mile after the photos are taken) one minute and forty seconds before Meza. Runners that follow Meza in the photo sequence also hit the 20K mat before Meza.
There were also one or possibly two event photographers near the possible reentry point that took close up photos. Meza has only one photo in these sequences while most runners have several.
Derek
The strongest hard evidence is his positioning and pace with respect to other runners he is photographed with. There are several examples mentioned in this thread of him being photographed next to identifiable runners at a certain location. A short while later there is a timing mat and he will have lost over a minute or more to those same runners by the time he crosses the mat. The re-joining photo on Hollywood Boulevard is one such example. In other cases he crosses consecutive mats well behind another runner but in a photo at a location between the mats he is well ahead of the same runner.
It will take some time to go through the posts but there is some pretty strong data that is hard to explain away.
As a doctor, his body language alone conveys a guilty conscience - head always down, cap drawn tightly downward, black longsleeves, just the look of a cheat who knows it.
dodtor marathn wrote:
As a doctor, his body language alone conveys a guilty conscience - head always down, cap drawn tightly downward, black longsleeves, just the look of a cheat who knows it.
LOL, well there you have it. End of thread. No need for our resident expert, Derek. Move along folks, nothing more to see here.
That's the point, and it seems to be well documented with the photos and the splits.
It is strange to think that one can run a marathon in the fartlek style at 70 years of age, as if it is possible to throw in a few sections at 4:30 - 5:00 pace when it is necessary to compensate for the fact that one might lose on the way to the 20km mat about 1:40 minutes on those runners with whom one was photographed less than one mile before, what makes it possible to stay in touch with those runners to the finish line.
kmaclam wrote:
dodtor marathn wrote:
As a doctor, his body language alone conveys a guilty conscience - head always down, cap drawn tightly downward, black longsleeves, just the look of a cheat who knows it.
LOL, well there you have it. End of thread. No need for our resident expert, Derek. Move along folks, nothing more to see here.
oh no, no. we want derek to check and prove it. if he is guilty: that it will then become widely known to the marathon organizers. that the fraudulent results are deleted. that he will get a ban.
Have to make him look bad. For these fake show-ponies, that’s a heavy blow.
Good news!! wrote:
That's the point, and it seems to be well documented with the photos and the splits.
[B]It is strange to think that one can run a marathon in the fartlek style at 70 years of age, as if it is possible to throw in a few sections at 4:30 - 5:00 pace[/d] when it is necessary to compensate for the fact that one might lose on the way to the 20km mat about 1:40 minutes on those runners with whom one was photographed less than one mile before, what makes it possible to stay in touch with those runners to the finish line.
Agree, but not just one, Frank did it in numerous marathons in the last ten years or more, someone else can give the exact number, but not just marathons, other distances and triathlons too.
not yet wrote:
oh no, no. we want derek to check and prove it. if he is guilty: that it will then become widely known to the marathon organizers. that the fraudulent results are deleted. that he will get a ban.
MESSAGE TO FRANK
Frank, dunno if you're reading this old pal, but may I be so bold as to give you a bit of advice. As someone who's followed as many cheating threads on LR as you've run marathons, my advice to you is to come on here and come clean now, for now there is someone called Derek who runs a website called Marathon Investigation (MI) now involved in your shenanigans.
MI has gained traction with main stream media, and if there's one thing main stream media really enjoy it's exposing and bringing down so called professional types, SJW's, elites, etc, more so than your regular shop assistant, local mechanic, etc, you know, you get the picture.
Because trust me, unlike back in our day 30 or 40 years ago, if you don't come clean in this modern era it can go viral overnight and become a living hell. Just sayin', take it for what it's worth.
Just curious for folks who've been around for awhile...
Has the internet made cheating in running events more attractive to some folks (instant sensationalism), or has the internet merely made it easier to catch folks who cheat because of the data and networking that is now available?
Also, what percentage of amateurs cheat by using PEDs? Without drug testing, it seems like it'd be significantly easier for senior division athletes to juice without getting caught. Much less risk than course cutting/bib muling/etc.
First Question: Both
Second Question: Who knows, but it definitely happens.