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

doubler wrote:--he admitted he had GPS data.

He didn't exactly say he had GPS data of the LV marathon in particular.

"Yahoo Canada asked if Rossi had any GPS logs of his training, or of his race at Lehigh Valley. He said yes, but declined to provide them for verification."

It depends on what the meaning of "is" is, but I don't take that as saying he definitely has a GPS track of that race.

SaraB wrote:

iiagdtr wrote:

Maybe he got some ideas here:

http://lvrunningscene.com/2012/01/17/valley-news-january-17/

Scroll down to "11 Ways to Cheat While Running a Marathon"

The Mental Floss link doesn't work (access denied) for me.

They missed off Rob Sloan who jumped on a bus in London

So we have 12 and a contendah for 13.

Actually, that little trait makes his blog much funnier. We get to see this lard-ass in BAA gear finishing races just ahead of obese women. It adds irony, which is great. But what I love even more is the shirt he wore (evidently the entire weekend) in Boston, which grossly celebrates himself and asks "Is anyone faster than Mike?". And then, to remove any doubt for the casual spectator about who this super-fast runner is, he has scribbled "Mike" in crayon on his bib. It's him! I fuggging love this guy, and this thread inspires me. There's so much good coming from all of this. God bless you, Mike Rossi, you narcissistic douche!!

When I ran in the 3:10 range my recent PRs were 18:45, 39:22, and 1:28:07 so his race times definitely are not consistent with what I think is necessary to run a 3:11 marathon. Also he does not look like a 3:11 marathoner or sub 20 5K kind of guy in any of the photos.

One thing though in response to a post by Rojo about his 18 mile run at much slower than marathon pace, its a decent training pace for a long run so if not raced all out it seems to make sense. I could never bring myself to do my long runs that much slower than marathon pace and certainly I wouldn't enter a race to jog it at a training pace.

SaraB wrote:

They missed off Rob Sloan who jumped on a bus in London

From the list:

6. Grab a bus: Rob Sloan

dreamin wrote:

I haven't done anything at work for 2 days, and that's just reading the thread and other articles/comments. I haven't even done any photo searching. Thank you to all the obsessive weirdos with too much time on your hands for doing all the leg work on this. I have enjoyed this more than the Kip Case. I hope their is an exciting conclusion with some sort of tearful interview.

This guy is just fascinating. It got me thinking, what did narcissists like this guy do to get their external validation before social media and blogs? Did they just carry around their training log and a book of pictures to show everyone they meet? Or did the internet create/amplify the narcissism?

Many of the people crucifying him are every bit as narcissistic and self absorbed as Mike, I've seen your FB pages, Mike could learn a thing or two from some you. We're runners, you kinda need to be narcissistic, it's how you excel in an individual sport but of course there are different levels.

Many would have reacted towards the principal with the same way Mike did...in the same fashion we are working to prove Mike cheated.

The only difference between "us" and Mike is we aren't cheaters.

elephino wrote:

It depends on what the meaning of "is" is, but I don't take that as saying he definitely has a GPS track of that race.

He seems to always use screen prints from his phone to share his run data. He must have had his phone to do the selfie at the start (does anyone have this? I've not seen it) and the medal photo. Even if the watch he is wearing isn't a gps watch you'd still think he'd captured the 'run of his life' on his phone especially as he seems to like to share them.

The good news from all this is that the photo analysis makes evident that Rossi Ruiz was very likely the only cheater at this race. Or at least the only cheater whose cheating method missed every photo location.

Prob since then we have figured out the following.1. There are points on the course that when you splice all the photos together in a row you can see the person in focus and far enough behind him to verify he never passed that camera man.2. He has made public statements after reading these threads and he ignores all the facts that we have provided and never refutes them. Instead he focuses on all the parts that we already knew, but the public may not. For example he states that there are start line and finish line photos of him. He never tries to prove in any way he was actually ever on the course though which is weird.3. He posts very very long blogs about his races and he never blogged, facebooked, and spammed twitter after his miraculous marathon. He did respond to a tweet when someone congratulated him on his great race.4. He admits he has GPS evidence but will not share it to the public.5. Then there is the part that he tells a reporter that he never tried in any of his previous 20 races... But, in his blogs he writes about being very happy with those performances and about how much progress he is making. I don't think he realized that just because he took the blog down that we would still be able to read them and throw his shit back at him.6. We have proven at this point that he is 1 of 3 (the other 2 may have cheated too..) that don't have any photos during the middle sections of the race. I haven't checked the google sheet since yesterday so by now we may have proven that he is the only person out of the entire race that doesn't have a single race photo.7. He also tells a reporter that he was training very hard and that is what shows he was capable of running 3:11. However we have proven after a few runs that was very excited about and decided to post on his blog. They too were only indicated of 3:30's at best on a good day.8. The weather was down right dreadful raceday when combing heat and humidity which would slow the race down 5-10 minutes depending on how he personally dealt with the heat.When you add 1-8 together the only answer that can be arrived at is GUILTY!

doubler wrote:

Alright, trying to catch up but am losing ground. Anything of real significance between page 23 and here?

It's obvious he cheated..I don't think anyone with a brain can question that. Maybe not enough evidence to convict him in a court of law--but he obviously cheated.

If he were innocent, the same guy that rushed to the media to grandstand about the unexcused absences (which really isn't a big deal), would be defending himself with every possible piece of evidence on these cheating allegations--he admitted he had GPS data. Hell if I legitimately ran that kind of PR--I'd have posted race reports--GPS logs, etc..etc..especially if I was the egomaniac that he appears to be.

oh please wrote:

Not only poor analogy, but wrong conclusion. I have seen with my own eyes a 46 year old woman go from a 4:10 to 3:42 marathon in one race, after 9 previous marathons between 4:10 and 4:35.

My marathon progression over the course of 3 years was

3:50 (lost a lot of time helping an injured runner mid course with a broken leg)

3:38 (tore my hamstring at 18 miles)

3:19 (no excuses just hit the wall pretty hard)

3:10 (things went well but was shooting for closer to 3)

dreamin wrote:

This guy is just fascinating. It got me thinking, what did narcissists like this guy do to get their external validation before social media and blogs? Did they just carry around their training log and a book of pictures to show everyone they meet? Or did the internet create/amplify the narcissism?

I guess he is/was involved in radio. No surprise. I wonder how much of his blog intro is true. You'd think a Temple grad would have noticed/corrected the typo in "sports."

Mike Rossi

Daddy, Husband, Owner of Mike Rossi Productions, Managing Partner/President of East Coast Event Group, Air Personality on CBS Radio/92.5 WXTU/Philadelphia, Boston Marathon-Bound Runner, Avid Philly sprts fan, Temple University Alum.

RunningPhreak wrote:

When I ran in the 3:10 range my recent PRs were 18:45, 39:22, and 1:28:07 so his race times definitely are not consistent with what I think is necessary to run a 3:11 marathon. Also he does not look like a 3:11 marathoner or sub 20 5K kind of guy in any of the photos.

One thing though in response to a post by Rojo about his 18 mile run at much slower than marathon pace, its a decent training pace for a long run so if not raced all out it seems to make sense. I could never bring myself to do my long runs that much slower than marathon pace and certainly I wouldn't enter a race to jog it at a training pace.

Now, I've learned not to judge based on appearances. After all, Peter Sagal ran 3:09:25 at the 2011 Philadelphia Marathon. He does not have the build some of you are attributing to a sub-3:10 runner:

As for those training paces, yeah, I could see that. I've run a marathon in 3-flat doing long runs no faster. Then again, there were a boatload of miles logged on other runs, as well as plenty of intervals and tempo work at faster paces. A full training log would show the complete picture, but that's not a luxury granted to anybody by Rossi.

Notice that his "defenders" (one guy in PA posting under different handels" disappeared after he was burnt by Rojo on the IP address.

The question is, how do we close this deal? He clearly cheated. I would bet my mortgage on it. And because he's such an attention whore he needs a public comeuppance. Are the investigations by the USTA happening? Is the BAA aware? Is Lehigh aware? What's next?

Hahahaha... Nice try Mike.

Sums it up wrote:For example he states that there are start line and finish line photos of him. He never tries to prove in any way he was actually ever on the course though which is weird.

Yes, probably right after the bombing. I'm guessing that his original goal was to run it last year, but couldn't get near the standard, so he decided on this year, and still couldn't get near the standard, and so resorted to this.

If he'd been patient, he probably could have gotten it legitimately in about 2-3 more years.

RunningPhreak wrote:

[...] in response to a post by Rojo about his 18 mile run at much slower than marathon pace, its a decent training pace for a long run so if not raced all out it seems to make sense. I could never bring myself to do my long runs that much slower than marathon pace and certainly I wouldn't enter a race to jog it at a training pace.

I think the point here though is not that a 3:11 guy wouldn't do runs like this, but just that a 3:40 guy could. So they don't provide much evidence that he's capable of a 3:11 marathon. Mike Rossi has said a couple of times that his training is what indicates the possibility of a 3:11, but the only two training runs he's shared seem pretty consistent with what you'd expect for solid runs (worthy of posting to your blog) from a 3:40 guy.

I've read this whole thread. Congrats to the LR community for exposing this fraud.

The key piece of evidence will come from finding a photo of MR jumping in the race near the end. It is very likely that he rejoined the race at the last relay point.

My suggestion is to go to the Lehigh Valley Marathon's FB page and repeatedly post requests for friends and family of relay teams to post their pictures from that last relay point. I won't post that request, but maybe one of you folks can.

https://www.facebook.com/ViaMarathon

I disagree with this Mike. The reason being is that he used his position within the media to make the life of the principal a living hell receiving threats. Shame on you Mike. If you don't like where this is headed just remember that you started all of this. Its a shame you had to include your kids in all of this.