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It's terrible that people were harassing this man, and that those communities formed a mob mentality against him. But I don't feel particularly sorry for him; h

It's terrible that people were harassing this man, and that those communities formed a mob mentality against him. But I don't feel particularly sorry for him; he cheated, denied it, threatened to sue people, and then eventually took his own life after his reputation was ruined. Perhaps if he had stopped competing after the first blog post exposing him, things would have de-escalated. Instead, he doubled down on his lies, and made things worse for himself.

bo1024 5y ago
By all accounts (including a friend of mine) he was a wonderful person, mentor, coach, etc. back in the day. It sounds like maybe he developed some mental issues that eventually led to both the cheating and suicide.
- rectang 5y ago
  There are lots of cheaters (and worse) out there with "wonderful" reputations. I feel sorry for Meza — even when self-inflicted, pain is pain — but I'm glad he didn't get away with it. I wish that our world did not reward cheating so regularly and handsomely, and I wish Meza had not chosen to cheat.
probably_wrong 5y ago
I do feel sorry for him, and I think you are being too forgiving to the trolls here. This was not a mere "ruined reputation", but rather a persistent, coordinated mobbing assault big enough that not even a professional PR firm could do anything. Did he cheat? Likely yes. Did he deserve being banned from marathons? Sounds like it. But did he deserve "the pressure, attention, emailing, even trolling" that he got? No, he did not. If I were in his position, I would have also tried to sue.
- throwaway6734 5y ago
  People that break the social contract and then try to gaslight the rest of society when discovered instead of admitting their actions are some of the lowest kinds of people. They corrode social trust. I have no sympathy for this person, they're a snake.
  - Fricken 5y ago
    I agree with your premise, but there are so many bigger fish to fry than some rando who cheated on a marathon.
    - ungamed 5y ago
      Where do you draw the line for the fish ?
      - rightbyte 5y ago
        Well away from games for my part atleast.
      - smcl 5y ago
        Presumably some point before harassing a man to the point where he commits suicide. I don't think anyone has ever answered "where do you draw the line?" the the satisfaction of anyone who has asked the question. It is unanswerable.
        pc86 5y ago
        > I don't think anyone has ever answered "where do you draw the line?" the the satisfaction of anyone who has asked the question. Absolutely. It's a lazy, disingenuous way to just try to shut down discussion.
        ungamed 5y ago
        Ah cool, so we're not drawing lines. If you really practice this in life, you're going to be taken advantage of. You're right, discussing it is just stupid. My mistake.
  - simonh 5y ago
    People are more complicated than that. It sounds like he was an incredibly generous and loving person, there were queues of people saying how much he had helped them. That in no way justifies what he did, at all, but it's not the case that he was an unremitting lowlife. It's a real conundrum, that otherwise wonderful people can sometimes do terrible things.
- isitmadeofglass 5y ago
  > big enough that not even a professional PR firm could do anything. What an odd take. Just because throwing money at something doesn’t make it go away does not mean it’s a “big attack” or even that people calling him out are in any way in the wrong. As OP stated the big problem seems to be that he persistently tried to regain his old good reputation instead of accepting defeat. When a cheater wants to continue cheating, it doesn’t matter how much money he throws at PR firms, it’s still fair to call out his cheating.
- asojfdowgh 5y ago
  trolls can't stay there for long "Journalists" being paid to get every last bit of scrap on a person, sometimes even going through people's rubbish, breaking laws that protect citizens too, are far more nasty
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Some people can and do make vigilanteism into their identity. I know two cases where people have had their employment affected in some way as result of one or more vigilantes trying to punish or blackmail them respectively. If you want to call that trolling, I guess you could. The word has changed a lot since I first encountered it over two decades ago.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    > trolls can't stay there for long Trolls can keep it up forever. It’s a labor of love for them, a hobby. I know folks who’ve had multi-year trolls and at least one that escalated to in-person stalking.
- krisoft 5y ago
  > But did he deserve "the pressure, attention, emailing, even trolling" that he got? What made his conduct outrageous is how he was clinging to his side. He could have just said: “yup, you got me. I had a rough day and made a bad decision.” They would have disqualified his result, maybe banned him in the future races and nothing more would have come from it. You can’t keep maintaining the unmaintainable and expect people to loose interest. He liked the prestige while he was on the good side of it, and when he turned out to be a cheater he wanted suddenly none of the attention. You said that a professional PR firm couldn’t help him. Sure enough, turns out it is very hard to rebuild a house while it is actively burning and the owner is pouring more gasoline on it every so often.
- trhway 5y ago
  >But did he deserve "the pressure, attention, emailing, even trolling" that he got? No, he did not. cheating like this denies other participants fruits of their hard labor of many years, just flushes all their effort down the drain. Compare that to just having "the pressure, attention, emailing, even trolling".
emptyfile 5y ago
Right. People have had their lives and reputations blown up for all sorts of reasons, meanwhile this guy cheated to run >the fastest marathon ever recorded for someone in his age group of 70 to 74 A bit ridiculous then to say people were attacking him for no reason, or his daughter not understanding why anyone cared. Dude was literally claiming to be the world marathon champion in his age group while cheating for years.
- makomk 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure only online cheating detectives pay much attention to unusually low marathon times for older age groups in amateur events, especially if the person doesn't actively seek to promote themself - not because there's a lot of people skipping the course, but because it tends to be dominated by younger people illicitly using their older relatives' race numbers after the original runner had to drop out (events tend to restrict refunds and transfers).
  - emptyfile 5y ago
    Well I just don't get your comment. Did you read the article at all? >I'm pretty sure only online cheating detectives pay much attention to unusually low marathon times It would be a world record in his age group if the LA marathon was a proper IAAF course. When people started getting suspicious his name and picture came out on the cover of the Los Angeles Times. >specially if the person doesn't actively seek to promote themself maybe next time cheat a few minutes slower then the world record! ridiculous!
  - dspillett 5y ago
    > because it tends to be dominated by younger people illicitly using their older relatives' race numbers I can't say I've seen evidence of that being a massive problem specifically, though people running under other people's names is an issue more generally. > (events tend to restrict refunds and transfers) That isn't just to be difficult. It can affect their insurance, there can be genuine health & safety concerns, and is often enforced by running bodies that the events associate with. Not implementing such restrictions could mean the difference between an event being able to run or not. Transfers are also an admin faf for the organisers, even ignoring that. > I'm pretty sure only online cheating detectives pay much attention I would suggest that this story is a reason to reconsider how sure you are about that? If nothing else, consider that it being important enough for someone to cheat suggests it is important enough that other people don't want their achievements to be diminished by cheaters. There are many things in life that only matter to a minority of people, that doesn't mean it is right for someone to stomp over that something for some perverse sense of self-satisfaction. While the trollish mob bullying is going too far by a massive margin, it is not wrong for people to care when someone cheats.
antihero 5y ago
If anything from reading this article it feels like the running and marathon communities are hugely self-righteous and have a colossally overblown sense of self-importance. It's just a fucking race mate, this man teaches people and heals people - if you run a marathon, it should be about your own sense of achievement, why care so much about what some other person has done?
- Werewolf255 5y ago
  This is my big takeaway. I think running and biking can be really fun, but I've lost friends into the morass that is LetsRun. It almost always boils down to 'That person did something I think they can't do, they must be cheating, whose with me?' levels of mob justice... in the running community, no less???? It's enough to make you think that it's the sport itself that breeds the toxicity.
- peteradio 5y ago
  This isn't some guy who is faking his way into the middle of the pack, he was accepting record times. How can a community maintain fraudulent high water marks?
- greedo 5y ago
  That's why I never got much into my finishing position in a race. All I cared about was running a PB if possible. I knew that no matter how hard I trained, how well I built up to a healthy diet, that someone out there was better than me. Or trained harder, had a better pair of shoes, or better coaching. Or had a rabbit to help them stay on pace. But people have an unhealthy competitive urge. I saw the same thing when I played basketball. Pickup games where people took things way too seriously, like the outcome of the game meant they'd get a call from an NBA scout, when most of the players were juco level at most.
- dspillett 5y ago
  > If anything from reading this article it feels like the running and marathon communities are hugely self-righteous and have a colossally overblown sense of self-importance In general that is far from the truth. Running communities tend to be very helpful and welcoming groups in my experience. Yes, there are a few alpha-cock types out there and one or two online forums where they manage to dominate (mainly because they leave other groups where being an arse is actively unappreciated), but that sort of prick appears in all walks of life and running seems to have fewer than its fair share. A lot of the noise that you do hear comes from outside the running groups sometimes. For instance most people making jokes belittling joggers compared to runners neither run nor jog, they just like taking the mick out of a recognisable target. It is like the people who hardly ever leave their couch unless they need to go get another beer going on about how Cantona should have taken a particular shot differently (yeah, my football knowledge is that up-to-date!). > if you run a marathon, it should be about your own sense of achievement I would agree there. Though if there are awards for best-in-class or otherwise they should go to the people who genuinely earn them. > why care so much about what some other person has done? People don't generally like a cheat in any area, If someone else missed out on a best-in-class or other result because of a cheater they are perfectly justified in being irritated and many will be irritating on their behalf. The man didn't deserve bullying by an online mob, he needed mental help not harassment and the ban from other events should be sufficient counter action, but that doesn't mean we should dismiss cheating as a victimless action that we shouldn't care about because it doesn't directly affect us.
dfxm12 5y ago
Instead, he doubled down on his lies, and made things worse for himself. I don't know how anyone who has lived through the baseball PED scandal thinks doubling down helps. Bonds & Clemens fought tooth and nail against allegations. They'll never get into the hall of fame. Compare this to someone like David Ortiz, who got voted into Cooperstown this year. Ortiz didn't even really apologize. He just didn't double down. I feel like this happens with other celebrity scandals, too, where the people who don't publicly argue stuff like this seem to have their public image less tarnished, if at all.
dc-programmer 5y ago
letsrun.com is a cesspool

bo1024 5y ago

By all accounts (including a friend of mine) he was a wonderful person, mentor, coach, etc. back in the day. It sounds like maybe he developed some mental issues that eventually led to both the cheating and suicide.

rectang 5y ago
There are lots of cheaters (and worse) out there with "wonderful" reputations. I feel sorry for Meza — even when self-inflicted, pain is pain — but I'm glad he didn't get away with it. I wish that our world did not reward cheating so regularly and handsomely, and I wish Meza had not chosen to cheat.

probably_wrong 5y ago

I do feel sorry for him, and I think you are being too forgiving to the trolls here. This was not a mere "ruined reputation", but rather a persistent, coordinated mobbing assault big enough that not even a professional PR firm could do anything. Did he cheat? Likely yes. Did he deserve being banned from marathons? Sounds like it. But did he deserve "the pressure, attention, emailing, even trolling" that he got? No, he did not. If I were in his position, I would have also tried to sue.

throwaway6734 5y ago
People that break the social contract and then try to gaslight the rest of society when discovered instead of admitting their actions are some of the lowest kinds of people. They corrode social trust. I have no sympathy for this person, they're a snake.
- Fricken 5y ago
  I agree with your premise, but there are so many bigger fish to fry than some rando who cheated on a marathon.
  - ungamed 5y ago
    Where do you draw the line for the fish ?
    - rightbyte 5y ago
      Well away from games for my part atleast.
    - smcl 5y ago
      Presumably some point before harassing a man to the point where he commits suicide. I don't think anyone has ever answered "where do you draw the line?" the the satisfaction of anyone who has asked the question. It is unanswerable.
      - pc86 5y ago
        > I don't think anyone has ever answered "where do you draw the line?" the the satisfaction of anyone who has asked the question. Absolutely. It's a lazy, disingenuous way to just try to shut down discussion.
        ungamed 5y ago
        Ah cool, so we're not drawing lines. If you really practice this in life, you're going to be taken advantage of. You're right, discussing it is just stupid. My mistake.
- simonh 5y ago
  People are more complicated than that. It sounds like he was an incredibly generous and loving person, there were queues of people saying how much he had helped them. That in no way justifies what he did, at all, but it's not the case that he was an unremitting lowlife. It's a real conundrum, that otherwise wonderful people can sometimes do terrible things.
isitmadeofglass 5y ago
> big enough that not even a professional PR firm could do anything. What an odd take. Just because throwing money at something doesn’t make it go away does not mean it’s a “big attack” or even that people calling him out are in any way in the wrong. As OP stated the big problem seems to be that he persistently tried to regain his old good reputation instead of accepting defeat. When a cheater wants to continue cheating, it doesn’t matter how much money he throws at PR firms, it’s still fair to call out his cheating.
asojfdowgh 5y ago
trolls can't stay there for long "Journalists" being paid to get every last bit of scrap on a person, sometimes even going through people's rubbish, breaking laws that protect citizens too, are far more nasty
- ben_w 5y ago
  Some people can and do make vigilanteism into their identity. I know two cases where people have had their employment affected in some way as result of one or more vigilantes trying to punish or blackmail them respectively. If you want to call that trolling, I guess you could. The word has changed a lot since I first encountered it over two decades ago.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > trolls can't stay there for long Trolls can keep it up forever. It’s a labor of love for them, a hobby. I know folks who’ve had multi-year trolls and at least one that escalated to in-person stalking.
krisoft 5y ago
> But did he deserve "the pressure, attention, emailing, even trolling" that he got? What made his conduct outrageous is how he was clinging to his side. He could have just said: “yup, you got me. I had a rough day and made a bad decision.” They would have disqualified his result, maybe banned him in the future races and nothing more would have come from it. You can’t keep maintaining the unmaintainable and expect people to loose interest. He liked the prestige while he was on the good side of it, and when he turned out to be a cheater he wanted suddenly none of the attention. You said that a professional PR firm couldn’t help him. Sure enough, turns out it is very hard to rebuild a house while it is actively burning and the owner is pouring more gasoline on it every so often.
trhway 5y ago
>But did he deserve "the pressure, attention, emailing, even trolling" that he got? No, he did not. cheating like this denies other participants fruits of their hard labor of many years, just flushes all their effort down the drain. Compare that to just having "the pressure, attention, emailing, even trolling".

emptyfile 5y ago

Right. People have had their lives and reputations blown up for all sorts of reasons, meanwhile this guy cheated to run >the fastest marathon ever recorded for someone in his age group of 70 to 74 A bit ridiculous then to say people were attacking him for no reason, or his daughter not understanding why anyone cared. Dude was literally claiming to be the world marathon champion in his age group while cheating for years.

makomk 5y ago
I'm pretty sure only online cheating detectives pay much attention to unusually low marathon times for older age groups in amateur events, especially if the person doesn't actively seek to promote themself - not because there's a lot of people skipping the course, but because it tends to be dominated by younger people illicitly using their older relatives' race numbers after the original runner had to drop out (events tend to restrict refunds and transfers).
- emptyfile 5y ago
  Well I just don't get your comment. Did you read the article at all? >I'm pretty sure only online cheating detectives pay much attention to unusually low marathon times It would be a world record in his age group if the LA marathon was a proper IAAF course. When people started getting suspicious his name and picture came out on the cover of the Los Angeles Times. >specially if the person doesn't actively seek to promote themself maybe next time cheat a few minutes slower then the world record! ridiculous!
- dspillett 5y ago
  > because it tends to be dominated by younger people illicitly using their older relatives' race numbers I can't say I've seen evidence of that being a massive problem specifically, though people running under other people's names is an issue more generally. > (events tend to restrict refunds and transfers) That isn't just to be difficult. It can affect their insurance, there can be genuine health & safety concerns, and is often enforced by running bodies that the events associate with. Not implementing such restrictions could mean the difference between an event being able to run or not. Transfers are also an admin faf for the organisers, even ignoring that. > I'm pretty sure only online cheating detectives pay much attention I would suggest that this story is a reason to reconsider how sure you are about that? If nothing else, consider that it being important enough for someone to cheat suggests it is important enough that other people don't want their achievements to be diminished by cheaters. There are many things in life that only matter to a minority of people, that doesn't mean it is right for someone to stomp over that something for some perverse sense of self-satisfaction. While the trollish mob bullying is going too far by a massive margin, it is not wrong for people to care when someone cheats.

antihero 5y ago

If anything from reading this article it feels like the running and marathon communities are hugely self-righteous and have a colossally overblown sense of self-importance. It's just a fucking race mate, this man teaches people and heals people - if you run a marathon, it should be about your own sense of achievement, why care so much about what some other person has done?

Werewolf255 5y ago
This is my big takeaway. I think running and biking can be really fun, but I've lost friends into the morass that is LetsRun. It almost always boils down to 'That person did something I think they can't do, they must be cheating, whose with me?' levels of mob justice... in the running community, no less???? It's enough to make you think that it's the sport itself that breeds the toxicity.
peteradio 5y ago
This isn't some guy who is faking his way into the middle of the pack, he was accepting record times. How can a community maintain fraudulent high water marks?
greedo 5y ago
That's why I never got much into my finishing position in a race. All I cared about was running a PB if possible. I knew that no matter how hard I trained, how well I built up to a healthy diet, that someone out there was better than me. Or trained harder, had a better pair of shoes, or better coaching. Or had a rabbit to help them stay on pace. But people have an unhealthy competitive urge. I saw the same thing when I played basketball. Pickup games where people took things way too seriously, like the outcome of the game meant they'd get a call from an NBA scout, when most of the players were juco level at most.
dspillett 5y ago
> If anything from reading this article it feels like the running and marathon communities are hugely self-righteous and have a colossally overblown sense of self-importance In general that is far from the truth. Running communities tend to be very helpful and welcoming groups in my experience. Yes, there are a few alpha-cock types out there and one or two online forums where they manage to dominate (mainly because they leave other groups where being an arse is actively unappreciated), but that sort of prick appears in all walks of life and running seems to have fewer than its fair share. A lot of the noise that you do hear comes from outside the running groups sometimes. For instance most people making jokes belittling joggers compared to runners neither run nor jog, they just like taking the mick out of a recognisable target. It is like the people who hardly ever leave their couch unless they need to go get another beer going on about how Cantona should have taken a particular shot differently (yeah, my football knowledge is that up-to-date!). > if you run a marathon, it should be about your own sense of achievement I would agree there. Though if there are awards for best-in-class or otherwise they should go to the people who genuinely earn them. > why care so much about what some other person has done? People don't generally like a cheat in any area, If someone else missed out on a best-in-class or other result because of a cheater they are perfectly justified in being irritated and many will be irritating on their behalf. The man didn't deserve bullying by an online mob, he needed mental help not harassment and the ban from other events should be sufficient counter action, but that doesn't mean we should dismiss cheating as a victimless action that we shouldn't care about because it doesn't directly affect us.

dfxm12 5y ago

Instead, he doubled down on his lies, and made things worse for himself. I don't know how anyone who has lived through the baseball PED scandal thinks doubling down helps. Bonds & Clemens fought tooth and nail against allegations. They'll never get into the hall of fame. Compare this to someone like David Ortiz, who got voted into Cooperstown this year. Ortiz didn't even really apologize. He just didn't double down. I feel like this happens with other celebrity scandals, too, where the people who don't publicly argue stuff like this seem to have their public image less tarnished, if at all.

dc-programmer 5y ago

letsrun.com is a cesspool