Frank Meza 2:53:10 at LA Marathon (70 years old) unofficial time (just finished)

The question now is who was his accomplice and what did they use to get between jump out and jump in points?

No doubt he's a long term cheater, but with who & how? wrote:

The question now is who was his accomplice and what did they use to get between jump out and jump in points?

Ha Ha. Google Frank Meza and the Marathon Investigation piece is the second hit. No doubt you wanted some small amount of celebrity for your running "achievements" Frank. Now you have it...

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If you were one of the best M70 runners in history, and someone accused you of cheating, would you A) threaten legal action or B) challenge people to follow you during a run? If it were me, I'd immediately challenge people to follow me on a tempo run, speedwork session, time trial, or race with video. Even an easy run would reveal something. As we've seen from the 1:40 gap in Hollywood, the doctor is capable of running somewhere around 8:30 pace, and seeing how he's doing this for short distances, he's probably working very, very hard to maintain it. However, a tempo run at low 6 pace would probably remove a lot of doubt, whereas threatening legal action doesn't. My guess is he can't maintain 6:35 pace for even one mile.

Nothing2Hide wrote:

If you were one of the best M70 runners in history, and someone accused you of cheating, would you A) threaten legal action or B) challenge people to follow you during a run? If it were me, I'd immediately challenge people to follow me on a tempo run, speedwork session, time trial, or race with video. Even an easy run would reveal something. As we've seen from the 1:40 gap in Hollywood, the doctor is capable of running somewhere around 8:30 pace, and seeing how he's doing this for short distances, he's probably working very, very hard to maintain it. However, a tempo run at low 6 pace would probably remove a lot of doubt, whereas threatening legal action doesn't. My guess is he can't maintain 6:35 pace for even one mile.

Exactly.

doubler wrote:

One thing I noticed... wrote:

I noticed Derek has made no mention of petitioning L.A. Marathon to disqualify Frank and reinstate the correct podium placers. Pretty pointless unless this is done IMO.

The part where he clearly enters the course without ever leaving it should be enough grounds for disqualification for even the most reluctand race director.

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Of course I’ve made LA aware. And I’m sure dozens of others have as well.

Derek, your piece was more than fair. I just made a $50 donation on your site. Keep up the good work.

Nothing2Hide wrote:

If you were one of the best M70 runners in history, and someone accused you of cheating, would you A) threaten legal action or B) challenge people to follow you during a run? If it were me, I'd immediately challenge people to follow me on a tempo run, speedwork session, time trial, or race with video. Even an easy run would reveal something. As we've seen from the 1:40 gap in Hollywood, the doctor is capable of running somewhere around 8:30 pace, and seeing how he's doing this for short distances, he's probably working very, very hard to maintain it. However, a tempo run at low 6 pace would probably remove a lot of doubt, whereas threatening legal action doesn't. My guess is he can't maintain 6:35 pace for even one mile.

This.

?. wrote:

https://motorbikewriter.com/tips-for-pillion-riding/

Frank in his younger days.

Found this nauseating tribute video tribute to Frank along with him claiming to be a marathon world record holder. And that was four years ago:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=871417172991515

Thank you very much! It is appreciated. More to come on Frank this week..

No doubt he's a long term cheater, but with who & how? wrote:

The question now is who was his accomplice and what did they use to get between jump out and jump in points?

If he is cheating, which looks likely, he is very good at it. He's not like the cheaters who miss lots of mats and record sub 4 minute mile paces in between.

Thank you Derek and all the sleuths on letsrun who contributed empirical and visual evidence on Frank Meza. Also, Roderick deserves credit for challenging this evidence which brought even more evidence. The last triathlon was the easiest to show how Frank has become a “course ninja” in his many competitions.

Contribution made to MI.

He's so full of himself! "if you didn't have data..."

Lol I'd be living it up if I were the 70+ WR holder. I'm sure he'd get VIP treatment at plenty of races etc. It'd be great. An honour for an honourable man.

respect the playa wrote:

No doubt he's a long term cheater, but with who & how? wrote:

The question now is who was his accomplice and what did they use to get between jump out and jump in points?

If he is cheating, which looks likely, he is very good at it. He's not like the cheaters who miss lots of mats and record sub 4 minute mile paces in between.

I'd say he's OK at cheating, but not "very good". If he was very good, he wouldn't have left so many clues. To earn the title of "very good cheater", you should be able to always post believable splits, never miss timing mats, never get caught being naughty on camera, etc.

Good job doubler. I feel that this thread had way more than enough information to destroy any possibility of Meza's times being legit in my own mind. But the article put it in a nice, professional format that does away with the need to analyze a trove of split times, course profiles, etc. It encapsulates the evidence well and doesn't take hours of reading. The zoom photos were beautiful. I would assume this would be enough to get him DQ'd, but at the same time, I don't know how these things work. Maybe it's harder than I think for a race organization to actually DQ a runner for cheating. But the most important thing to me is that anybody that actually cares about running, and knows the tiniest bit about the sport, will be able to tell Meza cheated. Ideally there will eventually be some justice for the true age division champs at the races where Meza stole from them. I hope some of them somehow become aware of this finding.

He's a wonderful guy fellas. wrote:

Found this nauseating tribute video tribute to Frank along with him claiming to be a marathon world record holder. And that was four years ago:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=871417172991515

Wow ... amazing he had the chutzpah to cheat like this — we’re not talking a BQ, but national and world record times.

Did you really think you could keep getting away with it Frank?

We’ll likely soon be accused of being racist.

Those are the guys who got screwed by the doctor's shenanigans. First place for M70 at LAM is 4:10, not the superhuman 2:53 that "won." If I can run 4:10 when I'm 70, I'll be over the moon ecstatic. If I can finish without walking half of it at that age I'll still be pretty happy. To be able to run 4:10 at that age and get screwed out of your AG win in a major marathon by a guy who hitches a ride and runs perhaps 1/4 of the actual race distance while claiming to be age group world class? Well, that's just crappy.

Er... wrote:

Interesting the sort of responses you see to doubler's article. Vince said this on MI: "His 2015 LA results have one slow split, the rest are pretty even. One bathroom stop would explain it."

The slow split is less interesting than the fast ones. We're asked to believe that between 35k and 40k, starting at the 21 mile point in a marathon on an extremely hot day, a 66-year old runner completed a 5k segment 38 seconds per mile faster than his average pace and 57 seconds faster than his previous 5k segment.

Age graded that's a 91% 5k performance, equivalent to a young athlete running a 14:12. This would be a remarkable time on its own. But here it allegedly occurred between miles 21 and 24 of a marathon!

That guy Vince keeps defending him. I wonder if we have found our driver.

Follow up article tomorrow. There is clear evidence relating to Phoenix. Not sure if I will add in Pasadena Half or not. Maybe I’ll hit Pasadena and Long Beach on Thursday. Just going down the list.