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

Dial it up wrote:

The fact that you guys care this much about a guy who isn't even competitive is sad. Anyone who trains half way can qualify and run boston. This isn't an olympic cheating scandal. The guy in question is likely a turd, but you all need to get a life.

Look, compared to elites, most of us are hobby joggers (myself included) who spend way more time than society would consider sane to eke out PRs, age-group wins, sub-seeded race entries and Boston qualifiers. Most people think we need to get a life.

But all of us work hard to get what we accomplish without cheating. We don't go around posting photos with our medals or Boston jackets, and we don't forward humble-brag letters to the media under the guise of defending family vacations against the establishment. So when a guy comes along after two years of running (two years!) and glory hogs his way through a viral media story after almost certainly cheating his way into Boston, you better believe you'll get a 14-page-and-counting thread on LRC.

GregTR wrote:

Like I said, we can't discredit his time simply on the basis of it being impossible. It is possible, just highly improbable.

Of course - someone - could do it. Just not this guy. I guarantee that almost no one on this message board has run a marathon with a variance in shorter races similar to this guy. Personally my tune up races have always indicated a faster marathon than I wound up running. This guy is a truly rare bird if he is that much better at marathoning than short distances. All in his late 40s with a low training volume. It really is beyond improbable.

Ok guys the amount of useless off-topic conversation happening will get us nowhere.

To summarize: the evidence we have collected makes it HIGHLY PROBABLY that he is a SUSPECTED cheater. Before we go to any journalists we need more. We need to start doing some more digging as if we were the investigative journalists.

Let's start contacting the runners who finished around him. Photographers who took the pictures. Race directors and coordinators of the relay teams. That's what's going to give us more real hard evidence before we can ridicule him to the public.

Also, when I say "we" and "let's" I'm talking other people. I have a job and actual things to do

runningbadger wrote:

As noted early the philly.com posts are being deleted. I wonder why they are deleting them. I have off this week so I have some free time, to help with making sure the truth gets out there.

They are not being deleted. All Disqus comments are still there:

Dial it up wrote:

The fact that you guys care this much about a guy who isn't even competitive is sad. Anyone who trains half way can qualify and run boston. This isn't an olympic cheating scandal. The guy in question is likely a turd, but you all need to get a life.

I'll tell you why it's a big deal. It was Boston, the holy grail of marathons for the running community. I know a lot of people who need to train very very hard and then need perfect conditions to hope to qualify. He took one of those spots from people that are on the bubble. Then to be so brash and arrogant about his trip. I want to help protect people that struggle to qualify; 2 years ago I paced a friend to a who is one of those bubble qualifiers. She missed the cut off and was in tears. It's for people like her that has us all upset.

Torontooo wrote:

runningbadger wrote:

As noted early the philly.com posts are being deleted. I wonder why they are deleting them. I have off this week so I have some free time, to help with making sure the truth gets out there.

They are not being deleted. All Disqus comments are still there:

http://www.phillymag.com/news/2015/04/28/boston-marathon-principal-letter/

Thanks, I must have gone to one of the other story sites by mistake. Thanks for keeping this straight. My bad.

Guarantee Rossi is posting on this forum (a la Kip!)

True Detective wrote:

Ok guys the amount of useless off-topic conversation happening will get us nowhere.

To summarize: the evidence we have collected makes it HIGHLY PROBABLY that he is a SUSPECTED cheater. Before we go to any journalists we need more. We need to start doing some more digging as if we were the investigative journalists.

Let's start contacting the runners who finished around him. Photographers who took the pictures. Race directors and coordinators of the relay teams. That's what's going to give us more real hard evidence before we can ridicule him to the public.

Also, when I say "we" and "let's" I'm talking other people. I have a job and actual things to do

+1 - somehow contacting the other runners that finished around him is pretty much the only additional evidence we could gather.

My PR's are faster than any times posted on Mr. Rossi's Athlinks page (including a sub 20:00 5k) for every distance but the marathon. He "beats" me by quite a lot. My tune-up 1/2 marathon time (not my PR) I ran three weeks before Boston is faster than his best time at that distance, at least of those listed on his Athlinks page. I always felt I underperformed in the marathon, but I know a 3:10 was never in my range.

I'm more interested in what he did after his "breakthrough" race at Lehigh. Two weeks after that incredible PR, he doubles with a 21:52 5k and a slooooow (2:20) 1/2 at Rock 'n Roll - Philadelphia. Then in November 2014 he runs the Philadelphia marathon, but for what purpose? He started at an 8:15 pace, more in line with what you would expect from a runner with his PR's. What happened to the 7:19's he was cruising through at Lehigh?

I wonder if he quietly ran Lehigh to qualify, then ran Philadelphia to dupe those who aren't familiar with BQ times into thinking the latter marathon was his qualifying race. I wouldn't be surprised if some people think you just have to finish a marathon to qualify for Boston, and are unaware of the time standards. That's what the reporter mentioned in previous posts seems to think.

runningbadger wrote:

Torontooo wrote:

They are not being deleted. All Disqus comments are still there:

http://www.phillymag.com/news/2015/04/28/boston-marathon-principal-letter/

Thanks, I must have gone to one of the other story sites by mistake. Thanks for keeping this straight. My bad.

Nope, the comments being deleted are in a story on philly.com

not phillymag.com

On a positive note, this thread now shows up on the the first page of Google Search results for "Mike Rossi".

Keep up the good work!

not entirely correct wrote:

runningbadger wrote:

Thanks, I must have gone to one of the other story sites by mistake. Thanks for keeping this straight. My bad.

Nope, the comments being deleted are in a story on philly.com

not phillymag.com

You are correct - Philly.com is not approving any Disqus comments that point to his likely cheating. Must have a few friends working there.

I am a couple pages behind so I apologize if this has been hashed out but I dont think one 10 mile run at a plausible LSD pace shows anything without the heart rate monitoring associated.

I think a workout associated to leg speed would iron things out, if this guy could do 10 Yasso 800's @ 3:11 Id be damn shocked but I think it would carry much more weight then one run where we know very little of effort.

It's not that weird that the philly.com cheating comments are being deleted. A lot of moderators won't tolerate public accusations like that, particularly if someone complains.

He picked a decent race to cheat in-- there are 7 people finishing a minute ahead of him at the Lehigh valley race, 4 finished a minute behind. Kip was dumb enough to pull some of his serial cheating at races where he was the only one finishing within a few minutes of people, and they quickly called bullshit-- they knew that they were in 4th place since the 1/2 way point, no one passed them, and all of a sudden they got 5th.

Here, he's finishing 114th; easy to got lost in the relative masses. But still, best bet for new info is probably from one of those 11 people. That said, I'm convinced he cheated. But for the non-runners that don't realize that 5k pace does not convert to a marathon, info from a runner who saw him hop in late would be helpful. Even though he can always claim he had jumped off for a bathroom break, cramp, refueling stop, blah blah blah. Bizarre.

Submit a "request for coverage" at Philly.com.

in

Lehigh Valley race day photos at US Candids i

Rossi Bib number 2161

so i typed BIB #

1823

2531

1242

2544

those runners finish around the same time as Mr Rossi and there was no pictures of him running next to any of those runners throughout the Marathon