I think it is justifiable to seek to certify their results by asking for a data file or something. It does ruin the integrity and spirt of the event and might turn off a lot of those whose charity you do want to retain.

Or you get the LetsRun folks on it for a full on witch hunt.

THis is one of those cases where a bit of planning would have saved you this headache. Go ahead and ask for some sort of verification, but be prepared for them to answer they do not have it and ran with a timed style watch only. What will you do then? Say they are getting a DQ and no prize? They might throw a fit over that and is that the publicity you want for a $50 gift certificate (not saying it isn’t, just think this through completely before you even start down the path). Plan out now how far you want to push this or do not push at all.

Should have started off by saying to be eligible for prizes must have ability to present a gps based file to verify distance etc if asked.

I agree with asking about some type of validation, whether it's their GPS file or other race results. They may be offended, but it really does affect the integrity of the event. And if they truly ran their times, they shouldn't have a big problem with providing some type of validation. Personally, I would have no problem providing my watch file for a race.

One thing you could do is ask for verification from the top 10, rather than just these two folks, or perhaps ask for verification from everyone who is a prize winner. That way you could say it's part of an overall validation process and you aren't singling out a few questionable results.

Is the window to race closed? Use this as a chance to market, baby! There are 20 people on this forum who can easily eclipse 16:05. Just get 3 of them to register and that wont matter.

Hell, I'll pay for the 3 STers who volunteer to do this.

For what it is worth, yeah, this isn't exactly "no good deed goes unpunished," but I hate that you have to deal with this.

thanks to all, those are some great next steps to take. We can get in touch with the top 3 or 5 and say, can you provide the watch data to receive an award. If you're running 16', you likely have a device that you're tracking workouts with.

I really like the idea of turning letsrun crowd lose on them. That would be funny.

Unfortunately, the race window has closed. Turning the slowtwitch crowd loose on the top 3 would be great. I wish they had come to me sooner rather than after the fact to see what could be done/avoided. I dropped the ball by not putting this out there to the forum to get in on. That's on me.

thanks to all - be well
Barry

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Great things never come from comfort zones.

Are there double letters involved? Other than yours, of course

I think one of the races I did last year that went virtual said ahead of time "Prize money will not be awarded to virtual participants without GPS data included" or words to that effect, meaning "If you want to 'fake' your run, go ahead, but without proof you're not getting any prize money"

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

I read that as "no good deed goes unpublished"

I gotta get off the socials

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

A better idea is no competitive prizes for any virtual races. Maybe prizes in a random drawing from all participants.

Anyone can give their GPS watch to a fast friend to run, or they can ride their mtb at a pace they think will be fast, but not too fast. Then it looks like they did a good race. People are dicks.

I would support that, but the Screaming Tortise events that I coordinate have always been virtual, with no prizes, shirts, medals or other swag, other than the custom bibs

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

At least make them promise to come back next year when it'll be in real life.

You: hey man, really looking forward to seeing you at next year's race

Cheater: oh, I'm busy that day

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Find out what it is in life that you don't do well, then don't
do that thing.

This is probably the best idea for future reference. It seems a bit silly to give out prizes to top finishes since the running conditions can vary so much from person to person. And as you mentioned, people have shown that they will go to great lengths to cheat if something, even if little value, is on the line.

How did they submit their times? Just type it in?


I threw a donation at a local college trying to start a cycling program. They were hosting a virtual TT of 10mi. You could do Zwift or IRL. You logged your time but you also had to give a link to the activity on Strava, RwGPS, Garmin, whatever. To make sure you actually did it. There were no prizes so I think it was just to make sure you fulfill your part of a charity venture. Otherwise it kind of takes away from it.

I'm just a participant in things, not an RD. I would never be offended if an RD sent me an email "Hey dude, we had some issues with people's times and stuff so we're asking for a link to a Strava or RwGPS or something, can you do that for us? We will need it to give out prizes so we can be fair." I'd never think twice about it. Then again I'd never win anything like that, but would gladly comply to be helpful. I realize you all's jobs are tough enough as-is.

If this were the 1990's, sure, it would be a stretch. But what % of people these days record their times via stopwatch only? Like one person? They've got an activity file on some kind of service.

It's all in the wording I think. Make it obvious that submitting the activity is obligatory, but also phrase it in a way of "fairness" and "true need" to have it. Don't go in all guns blazing "you're a lyin cheat and I know it!!!".

I've a slightly different starting point. In many cases people make mistakes, don't realise. More likely than deliberate cheats. Typed 16mins not 26 mins. Got the conversion wrong between miles and KM. Etc.

So I'd start with reaching out and letting them know that it appears that the time they submitted has them in provisional 1st/3rd out of x hundred entries. Before publishing the results and confirming the prizes then you wanted to confirm they had correctly submitted the right time, and were confident in the distance in order to be fair to all the competitors. Whilst not mandatory if they had a GPS/Strava record that would be a good way for them to check. (*read between lines - send that to the RD in reply email)

Honestly you can't do anything other than accept the honesty of participants, accept this is a challenge of virtual racing (actual IRL too - refer Marathoninvestigations).

Move on, refer any follow up emails from the person in 4th to the department of people that care.

this is not the Olympics we are talking about.
just let it go, not worth dealing with people that cheat on charity race

Exactly why I stopped doing virtual events. Last spring the 1'st 2 I did seemed legit and then it was amazing how fast people got.

Basically, you might insult the 2 of them or you might lose a lot of others next time.

Give them a free entry to the next live race.

This is the most cruel option.

As duncan74 mentioned, you gotta give them an option to fix any unintentional mistake.

If they double-down, and if you feel revenge is justified, then go with pattersonpaul and jimatbeyond. Publish the results and invite them back next year for podium defense.

Probably too cruel.

As much as it sucks, I'd let it go for this time. For the next virtual race just state up front that the top n finishers need to supply .fit files with GPS and HR (or non-manual Strava posts, etc.) to be eligible for awards and "official" placings.

Some people may have cheated. Some might be outliers (the HS XC/Track stud who doesn't run road races). Many times it's an innocent mistake (the middle school track is five laps/mile not four; who knew? I could swear the loop around the lake is 5k, not 2.1mi.)

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

That sounds like the more sensitive approach.

Don’t go exposing them on LR or anything else online. This will for sure teach them a lesson, but it will also send a bad signal to anyone signing up to your events in the future. You can’t appear as feeding those guys to online hate and trolling. It may be cathartic, but that’s pure bullying in the end. And you don’t want to be associated with that.

Same here. I was doing the IM VR stuff at the beginning and I saw people in the 55-59 age group turining in 40 minute 40ks, or a local "coach/influencer" who myself and most of my training partners smoked in one of the last live Tris here in Virginia claim a top three and in her age group and then brag about it.

I did a few Virtual races to support Kinetic Multisports last year, and will do again for them and them only.

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All I Wanted Was A Pepsi, Just One Pepsi

Team Zoot, Team Zoot Mid-Atlantic

People get called out as "cheaters" in the Slowtwitch 100/100, where there aren't even any prizes

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

The silver lining with the pandemic is that it can help a 60+ year old guy
improve his 5k time by over 15 minutes.

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Find out what it is in life that you don't do well, then don't
do that thing.

It’s actually very simple. You can take any file within the last 2 months hell, have them do a gps run today. A 16 min race pace means a certain level of training pace, so even if they didn’t race with a gps watch there will be some training file that this time makes sense with.

No one is going to get offended that can do a 16 min 5k if you ask them to show the file. I’m sure they get it. It’s a fast stand-alone time.

They wouldn't even have to match the 16:05 they posted; something close would be enough to say "OK, I guess it's legit. Thanks for understanding"

On the other hand, the runner could also say "For $50? This is bullshit"

Remember, LetsRun offered Mike Rossi $100K if he could duplicate his 3:11 BQ, and he dodged them repeatedly. They even offered him $10K is he could break 20:00 for a 5K; which he tried to cheat them out of, but fucked that up

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin