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

“I don’t know what else I can do.” (Frank Meza)

Frank, very easy.

It's best to run tomorrow or in a few days on the track. Invite witnesses like reporters from the LA Times, from Runner's World, all interested runners from Loyola High School or LA and most important Coach Diaz, your friend will support you. Make a film and post it on Youtube. You are good at it.

According to Daniel's calculator, a marathon in 2:53 corresponds to a 5000m time of 18:05. Nobody expects you to run after all the stress 18:05, but a world-class man in the marathon as you are will run reasonably fast.

Reading between the lines, the article was too soft but gave Derek the chance to say FM undoubtedly cheated, plus people can check these websites themselves, plus he’s “retired” from medicine suddenly.

Welcome, visitors to LetsRun for the first time.

If you read the LA Times article and came here to see what all the hoopla is about, you're obviously not going to read the previous 3,500+ posts. Here is a summary of two anomalies that provide compelling evidence that Frank cut the course at the 2019 LA Marathon.

At one spot on the course, an automatic camera takes sequential photos about every 3 seconds. It's a long, straight road and due to a bottleneck of spectators on the course, runners can be seen as tiny specks approaching the camera from about 150 yards away. Frank is nowhere to be seen in these sequential photos until the very end when he appears from the sidewalk to jump in behind two runners. Again, these two runners can be seen as tiny specks in photo after photo as they approach the camera, yet Frank isn't seen until he jumps in right before the camera.

The runners just in front of Frank ran a very consistent pace, but they can be seen to outrun him significantly over the next three time-lapse photos. In fact, from those camera photos to the next timing mat 0.78 miles away, they outrun Frank by a staggering one minute 40 seconds!

To put that in perspective for nonrunners, Frank's pace when he is shown to be actually running is 47 minutes slower than his alleged race time.

Later, in the same race at the very next timing mat, a video shows a figure loitering on the side of the course for several seconds. That figure appears to be Frank Meza. Again, he appears to enter the course from the sidewalk. Again, he is outrun significantly by the runners near him. "Frank lost 9 seconds to this runner in approximately 32 seconds. For the entire marathon, Frank only finished 8 seconds behind the runner." -Marathon Investigation dot com. Again, Frank's pace when shown to actually be running is about 48 minutes slower than his alleged finish time of 2:53:10.

There are lots of other anomalies in this marathon and in previous marathons over the past 10 years. I don't have time to outline them all, but hopefully, some other posters will explain them.

Legitimate runners accused of cheating could quickly put the allegations to rest by inviting observers from the LA Times and LetsRun to a local track to watch (and video) him running at his marathon pace for a few miles. Any runner at Frank's alleged level could easily do this.

jesseriley wrote:

Reading between the lines, the article was too soft but gave Derek the chance to say FM undoubtedly cheated

Yes that was the key bit for me, a journalist has to do the "listening to both sides" thing and most of the audience would not understand the things we know. I think some people on here fall into the trap of thinking a well-written summary of the real situation posted here would be reproduced verbatim in a newspaper article for a general readership.

Think of it this way...

The guy is alleging that he ran the fkt for 70+ male at a relatively major marathon in a major city, and the ONLY mainstream coverage it has received is an article about whether he cheated. Said article certainly did not go out of its way to exonerate him. In fact, the article notes that LAM is in the process of disqualifying him.

Justice is being meshed out, and all of the hard work of the posters here paid off.

The cheater's true identity has been outed. He won't be running anymore bogus fkts, or taking recognition away from the folks who put in the work and run legitimate times.

Well summarized. If Meza does not do what you suggest at the end of your post, he basically proves he cheated.

Have the first 30 or 40 pages read here. Unfortunately, I can not correct my first post.

To put Brant's decision not to comment in the larger context, the article actually says,

"When Meza recorded another fast time in warm temperatures at the 2015 L.A. Marathon, officials lacked evidence to take action but requested he run with an observer the following year.

Meza agreed but ended up skipping L.A. in 2016, entering the Oakland Marathon instead. The track team at nearby UC Berkeley had three Loyola alumni on the roster that season.

“I wanted to run with them,” he says.

Brandt, who transferred to UCLA where he became an All-American in cross country, was one of those runners. He declined to comment for this article."

Funny that Robert Brandt doesn't show up in the Oakland Marathon 2016 results.

Plus, by suddenly retiring, FM surprised his own sock puppets, who were screaming about people ruining his practice by leaving bad reviews!

He didn’t even tell Roderick!

“I’ve decided to retire from the practice of medicine to devote all my energies to cheating.”

jesseriley wrote:

Plus, by suddenly retiring, FM surprised his own sock puppets, who were screaming about people ruining his practice by leaving bad reviews!

Rather similarly to Russian trollbots in recent times over the net, the sockpuppets seem to have changed their tack in the last 10 or so pages it seems to me, presumably because it has dawned on them that they are transparently obvious.

Smoove wrote:

I was more impressed by the fact that his standing, and perhaps his connections, seem to have influenced the tone of the article.

Your aluminum foil hat is on just a little too tightly. It is restricting blood flow to your brain and making you slightly more paranoid than normal.

Coach Diaz, what do you think about this post, page 22?

Thanks for your opinion you verbose, condescending, narcissistic, sociopath who assumes that we are too lazy to either read the entire thread or too dumb to comprehend it despite your inability to distinguish conjecture and speculation from proof.

visitor to LetsRun for the first time. wrote:

Thanks for your opinion you verbose, condescending, narcissistic, sociopath who assumes that we are too lazy to either read the entire thread or too dumb to comprehend it despite your inability to distinguish conjecture and speculation from proof.

The socks are back

visitor to LetsRun for the first time. wrote:

Thanks for your opinion you verbose, condescending, narcissistic, sociopath who assumes that we are too lazy to either read the entire thread or too dumb to comprehend it despite your inability to distinguish conjecture and speculation from proof.

Frank, you sly devil. Nice to see you're here reading you pathological, delusional, lying, morally corrupt, cheatin' fool

Have to say, this was pretty fair. I read the article last night after a social function and missed a big chunk of it. It was a decent article in retrospect with fresh and sober eyes.

Mel Gibson, the real one wrote:

Smoove wrote:

I was more impressed by the fact that his standing, and perhaps his connections, seem to have influenced the tone of the article.

Your aluminum foil hat is on just a little too tightly. It is restricting blood flow to your brain and making you slightly more paranoid than normal.

A better way to prove your point:

We know Dr Frank Meza cheated because someone who is running a world record time doesn't spend several minutes standing on the side of the course and also doesn't waste time looking for a bathroom. Dr Frank Meza needed to wait off the course just prior to reaching the timing mat so that he wouldn't be caught running at a ridiculously fast pace.

FrankMezaTrump wrote:

visitor to LetsRun for the first time. wrote:

Thanks for your opinion you verbose, condescending, narcissistic, sociopath who assumes that we are too lazy to either read the entire thread or too dumb to comprehend it despite your inability to distinguish conjecture and speculation from proof.

Frank, you sly devil. Nice to see you're here reading you pathological, delusional, lying, morally corrupt, cheatin' fool

Most people aren't going to take LetsRun seriously if dissenting opinions are attacked. This thread is like reading Lord of the Flies. It really starts out reasonable and then.....