Ultramarathon Daily News | Mon, July 8

IRF/Mock: Results from the ultramarathon and trail racing scene. I’ve been fascinated with Mt. Marathon for years, and this year was no exception. A few things: Billy Yang said it best when he described men’s winner Max King as a “human Swiss Army knife” that can do anything. And let’s remember…Max is almost 40 and still winning extremely competitive events.
Also, Hannah LaFleur! I’m hoping some footage of her descent comes to light, because she made up more ground (70 sec back at the top, and she won by 30 sec) on her way back to Seward than anyone out there. Unfortunately, the camera crew didn’t notice her until the very end so we didn’t get to see her effort.
Bummed the junior race was cancelled due to air quality. It’s always neat to see what these tough Alaskan kids can do!
And…as always, the production crew did a great job capturing the excitement of the day with a well-produced television broadcast.

Fast Women: All the results from road, track, and trail results from women this past weekend.

Semi-Rad: It could be worse. Though a fictional conversation between climbers, “it could be worse” is always a good mantra to repeat during a tough run.

Tragedy: Frank Meza apparently took his own life last week. Meza had recently been profiled on Marathon Investigation and LetsRun for his cheating at various races and had been subsequently disqualified from many of them. There’s a lot to discuss here, and that’s one reason Twitter was such a lousy place for me to attempt a discussion on Saturday.
A few points:

First and most importantly, condolences to the Meza family. They lost a husband, a dad, a grandfather, a brother, and an uncle. From articles I’ve seen, they believe he was unjustly targeted and just want Frank back, and that’s heartbreaking.
Over the next few weeks and months, I’m hoping this discussion blossoms into real talk about our culture–both in an away from running–and how to be kinder to each other. Yes, he cheated at races, and yes, he apparently had more personal pride and worth tied into his running accomplishments than we’d thought, but I know that I’ve been in positions when I’ve dug myself deep into a hole and have been unable to see a way out. Luckily, I didn’t have the public pressure of social media bearing down on me. This is a tragic example of how one–or fine, many–mistakes ballooned into a man losing his life. No “rules” can be mandated that’ll prevent this sort of thing in the future, so it’ll take simple understanding and compassion within the running community to navigate these waters.
Going forward, what’s the public or media expected to do when someone is caught cheating? Simply look the other way out of fear the accused may later take their own life? Would the LAM have awarded the legitimate winner his award if this has been kept a private matter? How can this be handled better in the future?
I feel for Derek Murphy from Marathon Investigation. The emotional toll and guilt he must feel (justified or not, doesn’t matter) is something I certainly don’t envy. I don’t believe it’s Derek’s fault, but his involvement must weigh on him tremendously.
Much of the blame and attention I’m seeing is focused on Marathon Investigation and the articles that outlined Meza’s finishes. I followed the posts pretty closely and while they were thorough, I found them to also be respectful and don’t see why MI is being blamed while the LetsRun forums are being largely ignored. It was those posters who were attempting to contact his patients, harass his family, and attempting to sabotage him at work, and that is wildly inappropriate. (Seems most of those posts have been scrubbed from the forums.)
Please share your opinion, but keep it respectful and civil. I had to block a few members of the Woke Police over the weekend and don’t want to do that anymore. Gracias.

Runners World: Pavel Tovopov does a great job highliting UTMB champ Yao Miao’s life and accomplishments. What an incredible story!

Deseret News: Woman runs off trail and finds herself lost in the Utah mountains. Good lessons in here, folks.

Vol State is starting on Thursday. Looking for a fun interview with a race veteran, be sure to check out our chat with Alan Abbs.

I’ve seen ridiculous posts on Twitter about people “ignoring” the women’s World Cup victory. Listen, some of us just don’t watch soccer, regardless of who’s on the field. Good on the US ladies, but I was competing in an all ages Nerf battle yesterday. 🙂

Run Spirited: Henry talks with Frayah Wasmund about her battles with anxiety, depression, and eating disorders, until she finally found solace and positive living on the trails.

Cycling: Some describe it as a “ban”, while others see it as simple manners.

This’ll be a good barometer to check the lunacy of our sport: Will a race that runs through a freaking grizzly bear habitat sell out?
(Of course it will.)

Finalizing production on an episode I’ll release today. You’ll have to be patient with the audio…my guest is way way up in northern Alaska and speaks with a tracheotomy, but her story is well worth the effort to listen. I promise.

8 Responses to "Ultramarathon Daily News | Mon, July 8"

Patrick Krott says:

July 8, 2019 at 8:14 am

I am huge fan of Marathon Investigation, and I think it’s important work that needs to be done and will never be complete as long as there are cheaters. If you don’t want to end up on that website, don’t cheat. Pretty simple. Derek is not even remotely at fault for this man’s suicide. There were likely some other underlying mental health issues that contributed to his suicide and perhaps his willingness to constantly cheat. I certainly wish it didn’t result in suicide, and if anything it should further increase our dialogue about mental health and the importance of taking it very seriously.

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Andrew Pidduck says:

July 8, 2019 at 8:53 am

I don’t blame Marathon Investigations at all for his death. There is no way he could have known how much Dr. Meza was emotionally invested in his records. There is obviously a much deeper issue with him as he attached so much to a record he knew himself was not legitimate since he purposely caused it’s illegitimacy. Also, what Derek does is all with his name on it while all of the jegoffs on Let’s Run are posting anonymously. It’s really easy to be a tough guy when you know you are never going to get punched in the face for what you say. That site can be useful in getting training advice and updates, but sadly that’s like 10% of the site’s content.

Segue: For all of the goodness (good health care, clean water, plentiful food, etc.) we have (in general) in this country in this day and age, we sure live in a sh*tty time with social media. I’m not so sure we are any better off now than we were 30 years ago. Back then at least you wouldn’t get cyber bullied and executed by SJWs with no “trial.” You played at the park with your friends, called their house to see if they were home, and that was that. Almost everyone I know had a good childhood that way. I didn’t know or know of a single person who committed suicide. Maybe I am just lucky. The bottom.line is social media will absolutely erode our society faster than anything else and it’s not close. There, I said it (and yeah, I get that I am writing this basically on a social media platform).

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Paul says:

July 8, 2019 at 9:20 am

Frank Meza’s death is only a “possible suicide” at this time. Regardless of the ultimate determination, I think there are some lessons to be learned from this case. One is that legitimate reporting can degrade into bullying and vigilantism especially in this era of social media. Legitimate reporters need to be cognizant of not crossing that (fuzzy) line or enabling others to do so. I don’t think it should have taken too much insight on the part of MI or the Brojos to see where this was headed and shut things down. (MI and LRC feed off each other)

And thanks for moderating the comments. In doing so I think you see the obvious need to not get carried away like they do over at LRC.

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KS Petty says:

July 8, 2019 at 9:30 am

Like you, Eric, I found the coverage of Meza’s death to focus too much on Marathon Investigations. I know there’s a need to investigate suspicious performances in road and trail racing, and I think those who care to uphold the sanctity of our common (and uniquely different) pursuits should be free to do so. I don’t think LetsRun fills any specific need beyond its participants’ own self-indulged pursuits of discussion-board dominance. The mainstream coverage I read ignored the extent of the LetsRun threads and the extent to which Meza was attacked by social media trolls.

CIM banned Meza after two disqualifications. As I understand it, CIM reach out to LAM and LAM did nothing. It’s not a stretch to wonder if this tragedy could’ve been avoided had the larger community (organizers) levied the punishment before social media had a chance to stoke the flames.

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Chad Black says:

July 8, 2019 at 12:29 pm

Frank Meza’s death is both generally tragic for his family and friends, and specifically tragic for what it reveals about the role that sport can play in certain segments of the masters athlete world. USADA seems to have as many positives for masters racers as for professionals these days. Something happens, and that segment of aging athletes loses all kinds of perspective on what they’re doing. I do think that MI does good work, and aims to be as fair and thorough as possible. Given this situation, though, I think it may be better as work done behind the scenes– between MI and race organizers/officials and off the web entirely.

As for LetsRun… that forum is a truly horrendous community. It’s irredeemable. Every thread vacillates between trolls, scolds, and self-righteous know-it-alls. To call it community does violence to the word.

My condolences to Meza’s family.

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1. eric schranz says:
  
  July 8, 2019 at 1:39 pm
  
  I agree Chad.
  Not sure about the path forward for keeping the sport fair, but the depths of shame is the LR forums is hard to overstate.
  
  Reply
Sam Bosworth says:

July 8, 2019 at 2:42 pm

I can relate to Frank. I’ve cheated (school, foosball, monopoly, probation:). I didn’t want to get caught. When I did I was ashamed. My options as I saw them a. Admit wrong doing /beg forgiveness. b. Act in denial and either self belief in the lie or self hatred. He took option b. and did not have the trumpian ability to believe his own bs so he gave himself the ultimate punishment. Way too severe for a damn race. Run for fun peeps

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Nicolas says:

July 9, 2019 at 2:24 am

Responsibility can be shared. LR is awful but that does not exonerate the enablers, those who could very well foresee that someday this was going to happen. This is not responsible journalism. Murphy’s website should be shut down, or work behind the scenes, if only out of humanity.

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