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

Don't you have some patients to attend to or some prescriptions to write or something?

Pik Nottil wrote:

Those were very minor stories compared to this, one-time lapses in judgement. This is a guy who has been doing this for more than 10 years and has a system in place to make him one of the best age group runners in the history of distance running. And he's a coach to boot. I think the only cheating story more grandiose than this is Kip. Even Rosie Ruiz only cheated twice.

From what I've seen and read, Frank Meza seems to have been a mentor, hero, and icon to many, and for a long time. Also, it seems that a number of people have either known or suspected for a long time that something wasn't right. I do think that all of this justifies even more caution than usual in making accusations or drawing adverse conclusions. But I think that it also makes the story more important, and worthy of careful and extended review and consideration.

I should be used to these stories by now, but they still floor me.

Getting back to the LA Marathon's response - that they would monitor Meza next time, which would both prevent any possible cheating and also give him the opportunity to prove his past performances were real - that is totally nonsensical. For one thing, the claim is that he ACTUALLY cheated in the past. Convincing evidence was presented to back this claim. You can't then say, well, we'll give him an opportunity to race again, and if he doesn't cheat, that means he also didn't cheat in the past. It defies logic to say so.

And I think it goes without saying that the most likely outcome in that situation is that Meza just wouldn't race again. It seems quite obvious that the guy would be hard-pressed to even finish a marathon, and if he could, it would likely be in a time at least a couple of hours slower than the times he has been putting up until now. So there is no real incentive for him to actually run a monitored race, as doing so would only demonstrate what a fraud he is.

And so if LA Marathon sticks to that plan, and Meza doesn't race again, then his past times in the race stand? What a load of B.S.

DrBitter wrote:

Don't you have some patients to attend to or some prescriptions to write or something?

Yes, here's a prescription for panties that won't get bunched up as much when your poor witlle feelings are hurt that this isn't getting the attention you want.

whambulance wrote:

Wow.

How much did you guys cry this weekend that this story isn't being highlighted more? :`(

Let me know how I can send you some tissues.

Hi Frank. Don't worry, with this video the story will now be "highlighted" aplenty. Copies will be sent to all main news outlets in due course. The problem was there was a lot of speculation before. Now there is very watchable, amost amusuing hard evidence.

This will be going viral. With or without LetsRun.

.

Here is the body of an email I sent to Let’s Run and the Brojos in 2015...I will post the response I received in another post:

Thank you for all the work you do to honor the sport of running. As a decent age group runner who works hard to qualify for Boston each year, I am particularly appreciative of your investigation of Mike Rossi.

I'm writing to forward a similar concern that many of us in the Los Angeles running community have regarding a local age group runner.

His name is Frank Meza. He has been a member of the local running scene for years and is an assistant coach for one of the nation's top high school cross country teams (Loyola High School).

Frank's solid marathon times of 3:00 - 3:10 marathons of a few years back always impressed.

In the last two years however, Frank's times have entered the super-elite level...including a 2:52:47 (94% age grade) at this year's LA Marathon.

When I saw the time, I called a buddy of mine who had run the race to share the great news. My friend immediately responded, "That's not possible, I saw him walking on the side of the course near the 20K to half marathon spots." My friend claimed that Meza was walking against the flow of the race on a sidewalk.

I was suspicious, so I began to dig a bit...and found some trooubling information:

1) Meza was named to USATF's list of Master's Performers of the Year for a 2:52:33 at CIM in Sacramento. Wow! So I went to the CIM website and found that Meza had been DQ'd from the race. NO photos of him on the course. Here's the link to CIM's DQ page:

https://results.chronotrack.com/event/results/event/event-7526?lc=en

2) I began to research the LA Marathon results...afterall, his number did cross all of the timing mats. Sure enough, I found his 5k splits to be suspicious. He ran a 25:01 5k from 15k to 20K (the spot where my friend saw him on the sidewalk). The next 5k is almost 7 minutes faster! (18:34).

So we thought maybe he passed his bib to someone else...so we went to the photos.

3) No photos exists of Meza between miles 12 and 23...while many exists for others around him at photo spots between 12 and 23. We noticed that Meza wears his number on a belt...which can be easily passed to someone else on the side of the road.

4) A quick check of Meza's other fast local marathons also show only starting area and finishing area photos...San Francisco and Long Beach 2014 races in particular.

I don't have the time or expertise to do a more exhaustive investigation. But perhaps someone at LetsRun does.

Here’s the response I received from Letsrun.com when I emailed them years ago with my suspicions(see above post):

Thanks for emailing. Did Robert or Weldon already get back to you on this? Definitely seems like there is some evidence there to go on and it would warrant at least a message board thread about Meza.

-Steve

Employee 1.1

I’m so happy that Derek finally cracked this case. I hope all of us who care about the integrity of our sport will spread this story, pressure LAM and other races with suspect Meza results to DQ him, and send some $$ to Marathoninvestigation.com.

FM Between 40874 Between -11 20:50 21:01 5k -41 41:07 20:17 41:48 21:47 10k -20 1:01:40 20:33 1:02:00 20:12 15k -31 1:23:01 21:21 1:22:30 20:30 20k -9 1:43:03 20:02 1:42:54 20:24 25k -54 2:04:26 21:23 2:03:30 20:06 30k -47 2:25:10 20:44 2:24:23 20:53 35k X 2:44:57 19:47 X X 40k -6 2:53:58 9:01 2:53:52 42.2k These are clock times for the two runners in question. Far left column is how far behind FM is from 40874. Note the 25k splits show the 9-second gap visible in the video Derek uploaded. 40874 records 1:42:54 ahead of FM's 1:43:03. But FM had been 31 seconds behind at 20k. A 20:02 5k segment up to 25k helped him make up ground, since 40874 only ran a 20:24 in that stretch. That said, if FM was standing on that street corner for 45 seconds, he actually ran that 5k segment in something like 19:17.

el hombre wrote:

Excellent work Derek, as always! Can you determine what his hypothetical running time would be for him to have actually covered that 5K split (total split time minus the time he spent standing at the bus stop)? It shouldn’t matter, of course, but if it showed he hypothetically ran 5:45s for those 3 miles in the middle of a marathon it would just be another nail in the coffin.

I Called it Years Ago wrote:

I’m so happy that Derek finally cracked this case. I hope all of us who care about the integrity of our sport will spread this story, pressure LAM and other races with suspect Meza results to DQ him, and send some $$ to Marathoninvestigation.com.

Yes. I for one am going to circulate this to all the press outlets as widely as possible. The most newsworthy part being the latest video, which also quite entertaining to watch.

I suggest we all do the same. It will definitely shortly gain media traction...

Cheaters: That was a great letter you sent Let’s Run in 2015. It really shows how lazy and stupid they are. You gave them a great story on a silver platter and they did nothing. Do they really think of themselves as journalists?

Send it to his employers at Kaiser Permanente. He likely has a morals clause and, at the least, should make life interesting for him.

This is not yet on the google search engine..

You did indeed have it right. Amazing that Frank could be that slow and pull this off for this long. In the end 2 things clearly brought this out. One was one of his risk factors., getting unwanted publicity from a "fan". (surprising that no media entity ever ran a serious profile of him and his "exploits") The main thing that exposed him was having the audacity to beat the all-time 70 plus fastest sanctioned time of Ed Whitlock, and also Gene Dykes unsanctioned faster time. Derek the Enforcer brought the truth out quicker and less painful....because it had to be done. The big clue in the end was Frank running Phoenix. He had to know that Phoenix was not sanctioned and he could break the WR without drawing the attention that "really" breaking it would bring.

Brilliant analysis. Cheaters take heed.

Jayson13 wrote:

Update from Derek

https://www.marathoninvestigation.com/2019/06/frank-meza-additional-evidence-la-marathon-course-cutting.html

LAM is doing Frank a huge favor here as I, for one, am more urinated off with them now than I am with Frank. I only have so much wrath to go around, and now LA is stealing it from Frank.

Probably the best direct smoking gun evidence of “alleged” cheating.

That said, these boards are littered with posts from the Rossi era of how the Lehigh marathon couldn’t not dq Rossi. And of a couple marathons refusing to dq Litton. (As if any recreational runner is gonna sue a marathon if the get dq)

I would not be shocked if LAM does not dq him. He obviously deserves it.

The ultimate punishment for these guys is unofficial banishment from running. Litton and Rossi no longer “compete”. I suspect this guy will be forced into retirement.

He's now a Youtube superstar too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXYZGFw_ZQ4&feature=youtu.be

This guy has used his running with his profession...Look at Kaiser Permenente utilize there resident running dr for an important message.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKmo8scMx1I&t=20s

By the way all, he's not at Kaiser anymore. he's currently a chief medical officer at Altamed. If you want to contact his boss this url has AltaMed's CEO's email address.

https://www.centerforhealthjournalism.org/resources/sources/castulo-de-la-rocha?fbclid=IwAR0j8oMDekHjLYss__6czfnIfAtfuavd03vja-GeQ7juNtwduOCQZw1zhg4