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

Not so funny as telling. And, sad, really. Clearly he became obsessed with the glory of Boston. Understood he was never going to qualify. So decided to cheat.

If you watch the finish video, he never went for his watch after the finish line. Odds are the watch was never running (similar to him for the most part of the previous three hours.)

Matt.Foley wrote:Interesting. So, Mike had planned on getting a BQ at VIA at least by May, four months before the race. I wonder if he thought he could actually get that much faster in four months or if he planned to cheat all along. I'd lean towards the latter since the VIA just happens to have no mid-race timing mats, but that might have just been a bit of serendipity for old Mike as he realized in the lead up to the race that he was not even close to BQ shape.

On that note, does anyone from the area know if VIA has ever had timing mats? Would it be well known that they didn't? Is it possible that there is an email from Mike to someone at the race asking about the possibility of timing mats?

Personally, it's weird to me that a race that had relay legs wouldn't have mats at the relay stops.

How about video of the race? Local media, or somewhere on YouTube? Do this work for me, people.

The original "Boston is my goal" was pretty good, but I like this one the best:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VbqoLVI_Pt4J:mikerossi.blogspot.com/2014/06/nosleeptilboston-june-8-2014-today-was.html+&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

The gem is this one: I know I need to be more consistent but I think my average pace is right where i need it to be to qualify for Boston.

He said that after running a 1:47 half! I don't know what kind of average pace or consistency he's referring to but a 1:47 will not get him into Boston unless it was ran at his 50K+ race pace...

Oh, and this was a month out from Lehigh.... It doesn't sound promising, nor something a runner with concept and understanding of paces would say. But it sure doesn't sound like he "jogged" that half either being sore as fvck from it!

Pi R 2 wrote:

If you watch the finish video, he never went for his watch after the finish line. Odds are the watch was never running (similar to him for the most part of the previous three hours.)

ROFL! This one made my day!

Pi R 2 wrote:

If you watch the finish video, he never went for his watch after the finish line. Odds are the watch was never running (similar to him for the most part of the previous three hours.)

+1

Is there any chance that this guy enjoys being the center of attention so badly that he's actually enjoying this thread?

Well if he is he won't be once the mainstream media jumps onboard.

No you don't, you just need to express the percent then use any analogy that puts in perspective for the most people.

Just as an arbitrary example, 27 seconds at 7:50 pace (close to what his Lehigh "pace" would have been if he'd slowed down by 27 seconds) is 5.7%.

So have the reader imagine you boss walking in and offering you a 5.7% raise immediately. Or, a 5.7% increase in the height of all women would bring the average height of women (from 64.6 to 68.3) to within 1.7 inches of the average height of men. That's a difference people would notice, and it would be proportional because it's all percentage. Suddenly 5.7% is a difference they can conceptualize.

Among the posts here a lot of people seem to be focusing on raw times and not percents. Now that's not to say I think anyone with his training logs or race performances could run 3:11, and I know 3:43 to 3:11 is enormous, but it's not the same as 2:43 to 2:11, or a female marathon runner dropping the WR to 1:43.

Just my two cents.

Pi R 2 wrote:

If you watch the finish video, he never went for his watch after the finish line. Odds are the watch was never running (similar to him for the most part of the previous three hours.)

If he had turned the GPS on, it would have tracked him driving from one end of the course to the other. He won't be sharing any GPS data with the RD. in the interview, they asked him if he had GPS data from his training and Lehigh. He answered yes - because he has data from his training.

Raysism wrote:

m runner wrote:http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mikerossi.blogspot.com/

I just read his blog for the first time. On March 29 he was writing about running a 5K with some back/hip soreness, and he said:

"I even had a pretty decent time (22:19)."

There is no way a 3:10 marathoner is going to say a 22 minute 5K is a decent time. It's almost his alleged marathon PR pace! I've been in and out of shape my entire running career, and I probably couldn't break 3:20 as we speak, and at no point would I ever have been satisfied with a 22:19 5K. That should be a jog for him.

Also Haddonfield 5k that he ran is lightening quick. Definitely the fastest 5k around this area.

One new thing I just noticed: he isn't wearing headphones in the finish line photo at Lehigh Valley.

He is wearing them in the finish line at ODDessy:

http://www.pennimages.com/p527297772/h37891ed1#h37891ed1

He is wearing headphones throughout the Philly Rock N' Roll 1/2:

http://www.marathonfoto.com/Proofs?PIN=60V863&LastName=ROSSI

He is wearing them throughout the race at the Philadelphia Marathon:

http://orders.islandphoto.com/RACE/Proofs.aspx#26781860-10289-0058

The dude seems to like wearing headphones. But not on the day he ran a crazy PR.

Any other examples appreciated.

I am going to do whatever I can to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

I think you just undermined your own argument.

5.7% is a very small difference for most people. Small enough to be negligible. 5.7% raise? Meh. Just above the cost of living increase. It's better than nothing I suppose, but who cares. It's not 50%.

No, to really drive the point home you need to explain how 30 sec/mile is HUGE. How difficult it is to shed even a few seconds when you're running close to the limit. How any improvement is likely to be marginal. That's what average joe doesn't understand.

I think comparing his fake BQ pace to his 5K pace is the way to go. Like was said before - Imagine running your fastest 5K, then doing it again seven times over. Impossible. Cite Derek Yorek while you're at it.

113 wrote:

One new thing I just noticed: he isn't wearing headphones in the finish line photo at Lehigh Valley.

He is wearing them in the finish line at ODDessy:

http://www.pennimages.com/p527297772/h37891ed1#h37891ed1

He is wearing headphones throughout the Philly Rock N' Roll 1/2:

http://www.marathonfoto.com/Proofs?PIN=60V863&LastName=ROSSI

He is wearing them throughout the race at the Philadelphia Marathon:

http://orders.islandphoto.com/RACE/Proofs.aspx#26781860-10289-0058

The dude seems to like wearing headphones. But not on the day he ran a crazy PR.

Any other examples appreciated.

Don't forget that green T-shirt of himself that he wore for the Boston Marathon. The image of him shows him running with headphones. Clearly it's a thing for him:

Prince Johnny wrote:

No you don't, you just need to express the percent then use any analogy that puts in perspective for the most people..

So have the reader imagine you boss walking in and offering you a 5.7% raise immediately. Or, a 5.7% increase in the height of all women would bring the average height of women (from 64.6 to 68.3) to within 1.7 inches of the average height of men. That's a difference people would notice, and it would be proportional because it's all percentage. Suddenly 5.7% is a difference they can conceptualize.

I think we still run into some trouble here. If you quantify how much of an outlier he is, you just invite people to either suggest other outliers as evidence that he is legitimate or to find reasons why he might be an outlier.

I think it's better to base the argument in things that no-one can dispute - stick to what is normal and suggest how improbable it is that someone call fall a few standard deviations away from the mean on so many occurrences. There's so much variation in training and running a marathon that you're much better off sticking to the body of the bell curve.

What is a normal progression in race time for a marathon runner of his experience level?

What is the normal effect of his types of injuries on race times?

What was the average response to the poor Boston race day conditions that he cited?

On average, how many photos were taken per Lehigh marathon participant?

Without quantifying anything at all and averaging across a large number of confounding variables (age, weight, talent, etc), we can probably all agree that Rossi is not in the body of the bell curve for these four items. How many other measures can me make the same claim for? How likely is it to defy statistics so many times?

use edge detection on the image.

http://www.photo-kako.com/en/edge.cgi

3:11?

Boston...my preciousssssssss

MeHereYouWhere?! wrote:

So from the cached version of the blog...

10.1 miles in 1:17.39 (7:39 pace) on 12/14

18.02 miles in 2:22:21 (7:54 pace) on 3/15

He talks about training hard and feeling good (On 50 whole miles a week!)

Neither one of these runs says you would be able to run a 3:11

Even if he kept same pace that he ran for the 10 miler he would be at 3:21 for the full marathon For the 18 miler it would be a 3:27 marathon. You can see he is already slowing down from 10 to 18 and it only gets slower the last 8 miles....

Incorrect assumptions. I run similar paces for longer runs (on 50-60 mpw) and have run 3:04-3:09.

These runs by themselves are not incriminating.