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Marathon Cheater Gets Caught (Much To Our Amusement)

marathon-cheater-585This is a news story too hilarious not to share. And while cheating is seriously uncool, the specific details of this particular story had me laughing for days. A 31-year-old woman who “won” a marathon was disqualified when her race stats came under fire as — well, impossible. Here are a few of the highlights reported by Runner’s World that had me really giggling.

The woman’s finishing time of under three hours was totally feasible for a female marathon winner, but she covered the first half of the race 2:06:51. Meaning: She ran roughly 3:37 per mile for the second half of the race. Not only is that really fast — world record-breaking fast — but that would mean she had to pick up her speed significantly for the second half of a marathon — a point when most people are happy to maintain a pace and don’t expect to pick it up quite that much. (I’m assuming, as a non-marathoner.)

According to Runner’s World, the faux-winner’s second half time is a full 11 minutes faster than the men’s world record for the half marathon. So not only did she allegedly beat the men’s world record for the half, but she did it in the second part of the race. If this were true, she would be an unbelievable athletic specimen, for sure.

The cheater-winner was quoted as saying she “threw the hammer down” in the second half, but the eventual legit winner wasn’t buying it. Turns out that according to the split, the faux-winner would have been five seconds behind the real winner at the mid-point of the race — and she’s pretty sure she would have seen someone throw that hammer down and whiz by her. As funny as it is to me, it is a bummer for the real winner to have her victory tarnished by someone who cheated.

I don’t understand why you’d bother to run the first half if only to cheat the second, but I’ve always thought runners were a special brand of crazy. (I kid!) Have you ever seen someone try to cheat a race? —Erin

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Comments

5 Comments
  1. Shannon says:

    I have had people cheat in a 10 mile race and a half both this year and it was just so they wouldn’t come in last but in turn left me to come in last both races . Not sure if they meant to cheat but both times the walkers who were behind me took a shorter route to cut miles off of their race. It still has me upset because even though I finished both races I am still the very last place finisher and was tried to made to feel better by people saying oh you will get faster or at least you finished ugh

  2. Yep! I took her to task on this one too, on my blog. I hate cheaters!

  3. Haha, this made my morning! I wonder if she just got in her car?

  4. That is insane!!! I wonder how she slid herself right in to 1st place? Roller blades?! Haha!

  5. Jana says:

    Always wondering why people have to cheat – and this time it was super stupid way to cheat…

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