In the past I have tried to stay away from trash talking on these boards. There's better things runners could be talking about. Well, this may come across as trash talking, but I think at this point it's necessary.
I ran for Athletics East for about two years. For a while it was good. We built a good team and the guys all got along, and yes I even thought the coaching was good. This thread is not about technical coaching skills or how good an athlete is, it's about the rest of the duties that should come along with being a coach or a runner.
I actually composed a more detailed list of events that have occurred between the team and coach (who we all know), but I don't want to make this too long. I’m sure that almost every incident has been talked about on here before. Most of it is just annoying shit, although some is downright illegal in racing terms. All and all it made me leave the team however, along with at least 15 others at the same time. But since I left the team he has harassed many of us through emails, and at races. Then back in May at one of the high performance meets while I was talking to a friend from GBTC, he came up and started screaming at me, pushed me, and then actually chest butted me. He was taunting me to take a swing at him, but I opted not to as he always told a story about a similar situation to this, and saying he was waiting for a guy to hit him so he could sue him. It didn't last long as another athlete came and pulled him away and pushed him out of the gate of the track.
Well recently I have noticed my name showing in results of races that I didn’t run, and not very good times. I noticed "Mark LaRosa from Cambridge" appear in one of the Lord Wakefield wed night races, and thought that was too much of a coincidence. When I mentioned it to someone else, before even bringing up his name, they told me they heard that this coach had run one recently. I didn't know if it was him or someone else, or possibly another Mark LaRosa from Cambridge, so I let it go.
Then this weekend someone said they saw I ran the Yankee Homecoming 10 miler, which I didn't, so I went to check it out. I had known another AE athlete had run because my brother saw him there, but his name wasn't in the results. So luckily for me, Cool Running was there to document it, and I see that Matt Sullivan is wearing number 2157 in the picture, and that is the number linked to my name in the results.
This can't be right and now at least I have some proof that it was him. It's as if they're trying to tarnish my name or something. I don't really care about my name, but I am getting really sick of all this immature crap.
What comes next? I know stuff like this has happened to other team members too, so where does it stop? Do letsrun visitors have the power to blacklist the club and specifically these individuals? I've notified USATF but I don't think that anything will really come of it.
Here's the links to the results and picture.
Lord Wakefield Race
http://www.coolrunning.com/results/04/ma/Jul21_Mystic_set1.shtml
Yankee 10 miler
http://www.coolrunning.com/results/04/ma/Aug3_Yankee_1_set1.shtml
Picture of Matt Sullivan with number matching Mark LaRosa in results
http://jimrhoades.com/04/yankee10/image319.html
Mark LaRosa