How they do it, why they do it.

f you’re a halfway decent runner somewhere in the wide, hilly state of Tennessee, Dave Milner knows who you are. In fact, you probably picked up his

bar tab. In almost 20 years of living in Nashville, Milner has run for Belmont University, peddled gear at expos, worked at running stores, published a magazine, and coached high school track.

He has also competed in races from Memphis to Kingsport—usually after spending the night on the couch of a local standout. A native of England, Milner now is an assistant cross-country coach at Belmont while finding time to host a Web site that covers the state’s top harriers.

In Nashville, meanwhile, Milner’s obsession with runners is even more finely tuned. The word is that if you run a solid 5K within 20 minutes of the city limits, you will trigger a bat alarm in his tiny, rickety duplex and within minutes, he will either friend you on Facebook or call to arrange a time to run. OK, maybe we’re exaggerating—slightly.

So you might imagine how surprised Milner was—shocked might be more like it—when he didn’t recognize one of the top local finishers of the 2005 Country Music Marathon.

On a warm April afternoon, a few hours after he had gutted out a 2:52:54 off a few weeks of haphazard training, Milner checked the race Web site to see the full results. There he saw the name of a local runner who had finished in 2:48. Curious, Milner Googled him and discovered that the guy had recently clocked a 20-minute 5K, about the same pace per mile as his marathon effort.

Milner then went back to the race Web site to check the mystery runner’s splits. He had missed the 10K and half-marathon chip mats. Now it was all starting to make sense. The mystery runner was a cheat.

Like the last 15 minutes of a Law & Order episode, overwhelming evidence began to mount against the accused. A few weeks before the Country Music Marathon, the mystery runner again had missed another timing mat at a local half-marathon. The prior year, he had run the Country Music Marathon in 3:20:55 and recorded splits at every station. Nothing suspicious there other than the way

in which he finished, closing out the last 10K of the race at a blistering 5:17 pace. He had run the first 20 miles nearly three minutes per mile slower.

A few days later, our favorite race detective tracked down the marathon photos of the mystery man as he rushed across the finish line. Sure enough, he didn’t exactly cut the figure of a long-distance runner.

“He looked like a Tennessee Titans linebacker,” Milner says. “And he didn’t even look tired. Seeing someone that big with that much energy run that time, you just knew.”

This just will not do

Milner couldn’t let it go. He posted his findings on the message board of a local running Web site, irritating a few posters who felt that he was jumping to conclusions. Others rushed to Milner’s defense, reasoning that runners don’t usually round out a marathon at the same pace they did for a 5K. Then the drama ratcheted up a notch as the mystery runner himself weighed in on the message board. But rather than offer a spirited defense of his training or his odd penchant for missing chip mats, he penned a post that simultaneously accused Milner of being gay and of behaving inappropriately around young female runners.

Milner, who can be rather hard to irritate, shrugged off the personal attack. Instead, he called and e-mailed the guy, offering him a chance to tell his side of the story for a post on Milner’s own Web site. But he never heard from him. And to this day, Milner has never seen the mystery runner show up in the results of a local race ever again.

Planned or spontaneous?

At any marathon, at least some of the competitors will find creative ways to finish, usually by slicing off a few miles here and there on their way to an improbable time. A few of them may have planned to cheat months in advance, enlisting their spouse and friends to provide transportation. Others make a spur-ofthe-moment decision when they realize that they won’t be able to finish without a little creative geography.

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Sometimes the cheater will go the way the bird flies and forsake a meandering section of the course. Think of a marathon, for example, in which mile 12 is a block away from mile 16. A shortcutting runner may also turn around a few miles before the turnaround on an out-and-back part of the route. Here, the wily runner may stop and stretch or use a porta-potty before resuming the run in the opposite direction. In a crowded race, who is going to notice?

Then there are the times in which cheaters will quietly slip into the marathon with only a few miles left to go. For these runners, the 20-mile mark isn’t gutcheck time. It’s time to begin the day’s run.

The clumsier, greedier impostors get caught. A few years ago, officials at the Portland Marathon nabbed an obvious cheat galavanting toward the finish line in 2:42. Their exhibit A: the runner himself, whose beer gut poked through his pristine white shirt.

Not all cheaters, however, so readily reveal themselves. Rick Nealis, the longtime race director of the Marine Corps Marathon, remembers a North Carolina woman who won the 70-74 age group. She had an impressive resume as well. Shortly before the race, she had been featured in Runner’s World for her racing exploits. She had also trained with one of Jeff Galloway’s running groups and even drew recognition from the running coach and author.

Such a deal | have for you

Nealis, though, had good reason to suspect that she had cheated and called the woman to confront her. She adamantly professed her innocence and claimed that she had merely missed a mat. So Nealis decided to call Galloway personally. At first the coach defended his athlete. He told Nealis that she won her age group at nearly every race. She even spoke at local nursing homes, urging senior citizens to give the marathon distance a shot themselves. Nealis, meanwhile, listened patiently. Then he made a deal with Galloway.

“T said to Jeff, ‘Let me send you what I have and let you determine it,’” Nealis recalls. Once Galloway received the splits, he walked back his defense. “Jeff said, ‘I see what you’re saying, and I don’t know what to say.’”

What Galloway saw was a runner who averaged about 11 minutes per mile for a good chunk of the race, which is a fast but still credible pace for her age group. Then, in the next section of the race, during which the runner missed a mat, she seemingly transformed herself into an entirely new athlete, clicking off eight minutes per mile. With that evidence in hand, Nealis later disqualified her.

“I was worried this news would echo throughout every nursing home in North Carolina,” he jokes.

Nealis recalls one cheater whose splits could qualify as science fiction—a woman who went from 12-minute miles to four-minute miles for about a quarter

of the course. In other words, she broke the men’s 5K world record in the middle of a marathon. Naturally, she missed a mat during this portion of the race where she apparently defied human physiology.

“She was adamant that when she took her GU, she had a caffeine rush,” says Nealis, recalling their talk. “She never admitted that she cheated, but I threw her out.”

Who needs that part of the course, anyway?

In any given year, Nealis says, he will disqualify as many as 100 runners for cheating. None of them, however, could ever match the notoriety of Jean’s Marines, the merry band of novice runners whose course-cutting exploits nearly shut down the Internet. A few days after the 2005 Marine Corps Marathon, a woman who identified herself as a Canadian called Nealis and said that she was embarrassed. Some of her compatriots had sliced off a section of the course and didn’t think anything of it.

The caller said that the culprits were largely Toronto-area runners known as Jean’s Marines, named after their founder. Most of them were relatively new to the sport. Raising money for charity while bonding over the feel-good belief that anyone could take control of his or her life and complete a marathon, the group’s members were regular participants of Marine Corps, hence their name.

Nealis knew them well. He remembered how in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, Jean’s Marines boarded a bus from Canada even as the Pentagon was still smoldering. That meant a lot to him, so it was with some reluctance that he called the group’s coach and asked whether her runners had stuck to the course.

The members of Jean’s Marines donned pink caps when they ran. So the sight of many of them taking a detour in the middle of a marathon in the nation’s capital does not go unnoticed. Probably envisioning this scene herself, the coach didn’t try to deny what had happened. Instead, she admitted—with no sense of shame—that she personally advised runners to cut off about two miles of the course near the national mall so that they could “beat the bridge.” That’s the 20-mile mark where competitors can’t go any farther if they’re running slower than 14-minute pace.

In any given year, Marine Corps race director Rick Nealis says he will disqualify as many as 100 runners for cheating. None of them, however, could ever match the notoriety of Jean’s Marines, the merry band of novice runners whose course-cutting exploits nearly shut down the Internet.

“She was basically gathering up her runners—she called them birds and said that she was the mother bird—and on the bus ride back to Canada she wanted 100 ladies to have 100 medals,” Nealis recalls. “The fact that some ran 24 and some ran 26 was not a big deal, she told me.

“T told her they get a shirt and they get a patch, but the medal is a finisher’s medal, and you have to earn it.”

Nealis wound up suspending the group from participating in the Marine Corps Marathon for one year. Of the Jean’s Marines who cut the course, every member but one returned her medal.

“We joke about how Marines are all over the globe,” Nealis says. “We could have sent a Marine to get that last medal.”

Just how many do it?

It’s tempting to think that only a handful of runners cheat in any marathon. Chances are that if you’re reading this—a magazine about the allure and rigors of distance running—you already have a healthy respect for the sport and wouldn’t consider taking a shortcut on your way to the finish. But not everyone is like you.

Virginia Brophy Achman, the executive director of the Twin Cities Marathon in Minnesota, says that in some years she disqualifies as many as 100 runners for cheating out of 8,000 total finishers. Although that’s not a staggering percentage of cheaters—less than 2 percent—it’s enough for Achman to take seriously. After all, Twin Cities is a point-to-point course. You’re not going to slice off a few miles by cutting across someone’s backyard. If you’re cheating, you’ve put some thought into it.

“When people cheat, they’re probably getting ferried,’ Achman says. “Or they’re doing it in a car or bike. It just amazes me that people do it at all.”

How does Achman track down the cheaters? Older age-group runners, in particular, are natural informants. They tend to know who their competition is. It doesn’t matter if they actually spot the cheater; they will know something is suspect if they see an unknown or unlikely name topping the results. In those instances, they won’t be shy about calling Achman, who will investigate further. Generally, it’s not hard to find incriminating evidence. This isn’t CS/.

Like many other races, the Twin Cities Marathon also plucks out cheaters by placing timing mats at undisclosed locations. Achman says that some of the cheaters will register times at the standard spots—the 10K, half-marathon, and 20-miles spot—while missing the surprise mat.

The Dallas White Rock Marathon similarly tries to trip up the dissembling runner with unannounced timing mats. Although the challenging urban course is largely one big circle, making it difficult to cheat by foot, there is a nine-mile section of the course that loops around the scenic White Rock Lake. There a runner could

Like many other races, the Twin Cities Marathon also plucks out cheaters by placing timing mats at undisclosed locations. Achman says that some of the cheaters will register times at the standard spots—the 10K, half-marathon, and 20-miles spot—while missing the surprise mat.

simply skip the lake and wait a plausible period of time before quietly reentering the course in a residential neighborhood at around the 19th mile.

The efficiency of unannounced timing mats

The problem for that runner, however, is that he will miss several timing mats along the way, including an undisclosed spot around the general area where he may try to resume his run. And in addition to the mats, the White Rock Marathon features USA Track & Field officials on hand to detect course cutters. Don’t bother trying to spot them in official-looking gab. They’re undercover.

Still, race director Marcus Grunewald says that the White Rock course also removes the temptation to cheat. Unlike a lot of races, where the route may veer near the finish even though there are several miles to go, White Rock spares its runners the sight of others finishing many miles before them. That’s a welcome amenity for everyone, sinners and saints alike.

“Austin used to have a course where you did a figure eight and ran toward the finish line and then away from it,” Grunewald recalls. “I remember when I saw people finishing and I knew I still had five miles to go, it crushed me mentally. When I got involved in the Dallas Marathon, I took a vow that the course would never go by the finish line.”

Other race directors say that while they consider many factors when designing a course, they usually don’t think too much about warding off cheating.

“For the most part, we don’t design courses to prevent cheating,” says Greg Laird, the CEO of US Road Sports, which orchestrates the Chicago Half-Marathon and the Miami ING Marathon. “We cater to runners in order to provide for a good experience.”

Laird says that his races employ a range of other measures to sift out the impostors, including surprise mats, watchful course officials, and a postrace analysis of unlikely splits. As a result, when the race officials finger a cheater, they’re not exactly guessing.

“For the most part, by the time we visit with somebody we have a pretty good sense about what’s going on,” he says. “There will typically be a disparity in split times that’s pretty apparent. These are rarely close calls.”

No one seems to understand why people cheat in a marathon, especially when they’re merely moving up a few places in the results. It’s not like it really matters whether you run a 4:20 or 3:59. You won’t land a promotion at work. Your spouse won’t love you any more. And your friends won’t give a second thought to what time you ran—if they even noticed in the first place. So why do something that you and everyone else knows is wrong merely to slice a few minutes off your finishing time?

The famous deviants who cheat their way to victory, the Rosie Ruizes of the world, at the very least have something to gain: money, fame, adulation. But the rest of the lot have nothing at stake other than their pride. For some, that’s more than enough.

The answer to “Why?”

“For whatever reason, they decide that accomplishing this goal is more important than doing the right thing,” said Michael Sachs, a sports psychologist and professor in the Department of Kinesiology at Temple University. “For some of them, they may be thinking: ‘Who does it hurt?’”

Sachs says that the people who cheat in a marathon are probably just as likely to lie in their professional and personal lives as well. Deception is deception,