RE: Cheating at Marathons

Let's get her kick out of Marathon Maniacs! She HAS to be a member of that stupid club, right?

It's stunning to me that Guinness World Records would allow her to count races she organized herself and does no "chip" timing. The majority of them are timed by hand.

That's like a teacher allowing a student to grade their own test.

i once wore someone elses bib

Dave M wrote:...Dave McGillvary runs the Boston Marathon after everyone else is finished. He still gets credit...

Sort of. What Dave does at Boston is well documented. He has people with him when he starts and I think some people run parts of the course (all?) with him. What Dave doesn't do is put his finish time in the results - at least his results don't show up on marathonguide.com. Big difference.

buttchuggingsavedme wrote:

i once wore someone elses bib

Thief!

Why does he credit himself with having run over 40 consecutive Bostons. If he doesn't count himself as an official finisher then his streak should not count.

d2xccoach wrote:

Dave M wrote:...Dave McGillvary runs the Boston Marathon after everyone else is finished. He still gets credit...

Sort of. What Dave does at Boston is well documented. He has people with him when he starts and I think some people run parts of the course (all?) with him. What Dave doesn't do is put his finish time in the results - at least his results don't show up on marathonguide.com. Big difference.

Concerned SanAntonian if you can prove she is a cheater then go for it, out her, we all hate cheaters.

Got photos of the 10k start for that race? Would be helpful to see them.

So far you have provided ZERO evidence of cheating.

I petitioned the RD to DQ her. Hopefully, I'll get a response this morning.

San Antonioan wrote:

I petitioned the RD to DQ her. Hopefully, I'll get a response this morning.

I thought she was the race director.

Dave M wrote:...Why does he credit himself with having run over 40 consecutive Bostons. If he doesn't count himself as an official finisher then his streak should not count...

Says you. There is a big difference between saying "I ran 40 consecutive Bostons", and counting yourself (or having the official results) count you as an official finisher in all those races, more than semantics. I'm not sure Dave has ever taken a position that he's an official finisher for all those years. I know years ago, early 1990's, his name used to show up in the results book, but online I don't see his name in the results going back a few years on Marathon Guide or on Boston's own website. But other than 2013 I think he's continued to do what he does, start at night after the race and run the course on his own.

Big difference in terms of credibility between Dave and this lady.

He may be talking about the race management company who was running the chip-timing program.

She was the race organizer/race director.

He has it in his bio and and his time and consecutive streak are listed in the official Boston Marathon program. If he can run the course after the race is officially completed and count himself (as RD) as an official finisher, so can this lady. One cannot be discounted without discounting the other.You know neither Dave, nor Parvaneh You are in no position to judge his or her credibility. Perhaps you should just stay out of it.

Even if she completed the course after the official race was over, that doesn't explain how she recorded a "chip time" that is exactly the same as her "gun time". That means she completed the course at the same time as everyone else. She absolutely did not do that.

Besides that, that doesn't explain how Larry Macon recorded a marathon in San Antonio (chip and gun time) while at the same time competing in a marathon in Utah.

Concerned SanAntonian...keep me in the loop. A friend of mine truly holds the world record. This is not right. sprklep@yahoo.com

Dave M wrote:

He has it in his bio and and his time and consecutive streak are listed in the official Boston Marathon program.

If he can run the course after the race is officially completed and count himself (as RD) as an official finisher, so can this lady. One cannot be discounted without discounting the other.

You know neither Dave, nor Parvaneh You are in no position to judge his or her credibility...

While it is correct that I do not know Parvaneh it would be incorrect to say that I do not know McGillvray. I don't know him well, but I have had a number of conversatiosn with him and we occasionally exchange emails. He has been a wonderful resource over the years when I've had questions of a technical nature related to the races I produce. His position in this sport and his credibility, in my opinion, are well established. The woman in question I have never heard of. Perhaps we run in different circles (no pun intended), but I've been producing races for 20+ years so I know/know of a few people.

I will still assert that there is a difference between being an official finisher of a race and stating that something did or did not happen. In Dave's case, relative to Boston, there are some inconsistencies. He doesn't show up in the results on Marathon Guide, which is considered a very credible source and going back to about 2000 would appear to have the most complete finisher database for all marathons in the US. On the other hand, you are correct that the Boston website shows his consecutive streak at 41 years going into 2013. It's been published that he did not run in 2013 for obvious reasons.

On his Bio on the DMSE site it states that he "...has run the marathon each year since 1973. For 16 years he ran it with all the other runners and since he began working with the race in 1988 he has run the course afterwards." To me, that's an appropriate way to phrase what he does. I have also talked with some people who have run with him when he does the course, although that was years ago. Like I said in my initial post, I think it's been well documented that what he does is legit. With Parvaneh it sounds like there is a question as to when she actually ran the course, and a question about who could verify her claim. Perhaps there isn't, perhaps a bunch of people saw her running from the start to the finish. If that's the case, then it seems weird to me that we're approaching 3 pages on this thread.

You want to keep playing this game or can we agree to disagree?

For those that are interested, KENS5 in San Antonio is investigating. Guinness World Records is also considering investigating as well.

Interesting stuff. Cases of alleged marathon cheating always are. To the OP, if you really want look into it, you need to start looking at all of those 168 races and check for split times and pictures and inconsistencies. Not that hard to do but the volume would be obviously time consuming,