Posted on 02/26/2017 5:40:00 AM PST by csvset
Jane Seo blazed across the finish line at last weekend's Fort Lauderdale Half Marathon with a stellar time of 1 hour 21 minutes. The professional New York food blogger's blistering 6:15-per-mile pace earned her second place among the thousands who raced. Seo paraded around the finish line while grinning and gripping a gaudy medal.
But her pace, it turns out, was too good to be true. Seo has now been disqualified for cutting the course a crime she confessed to only after a computer sleuth crushed her elaborate coverup. A lengthy post published on marathoninvestigation.com documented her lies in exquisite detail. She later posted a four-paragraph apology to her 34,400 Instagram followers.
I made a HORRIBLE choice... what an idiot I was! she wrote in a post that's since been taken down. I am extremely ashamed I am so sorry everyone.
Suspicions arose almost immediately after Seo, who is 24 and writes regularly for the Huffington Post, crossed the finish line in the 13.1 half-marathon division Sunday. Race timer Josh Stern quickly noted that her timing chip logged unusually fast miles in the second half of the race, when runners often slow down rather than dramatically speed up. He confronted Seo, who persuaded race director Matt Lorraine to keep her listed as the number two finisher, with her time just under 1 hour 22 minutes.
But after the race, someone tipped off Derek Murphy, a business analyst by day who has become the world's best internet sleuth at busting cheating runners.
He began digging into Seo's time and soon came across a prime piece of evidence: a photo of her at the finish line that clearly showed her race-tracking Garmin watch. He enlarged the photo, which showed the watch matched her time of 1 hour 22 minutes but also indicated she had covered only 11.65 miles nearly two miles short of the full race. Murphy also posted the math on what Seo's mile-by-mile splits would have been:
10K - 44:22 13.1 - 1:21:46 These results would equate to a 7:09 minute/mile pace for the 1st 10k and a 5:25 minute/mile pace for remaining 11.08 kilometers.
Very few, if any, runners could shave a minute and a half off their splits in the second half of a race. But there was more evidence.
Seo, who like many runners posts her activities on Strava.com, later in the day posted mile-by-mile records of her traversing the entire 13.1 miles, most of which run along Fort Lauderdale Beach. But Murphy discerned that the cadence numbers were more in line with a person on a bicycle rather than a runner.
Through the Flyby screen, I was able to confirm that she actually covered this course in the afternoon long after the race was complete.
Seo later admitted she'd gone back and biked the whole course to cover her tracks by GPS.
Murphy's site has been blowing up since exposing Seo's lies, and commenters on the web are excoriating Seo, a Harvard grad who regularly writes about food and culture. Her trip to South Florida was partially sponsored by Fort Lauderdale tourism site Sunny.org, Murphy said.
Had she just admitted what she did, I never would have heard of her, nor written about her, Murphy said. But going back and biking the course to cover up... thats unheard of.
One poster wrote to Seo: You are an embarrassment to the running community and the runners who slug away to get a sub 2 [break two hours over 13.1 miles]. You're just greedy.
And another: You are not a good person regardless of how fast you may or may not be. But a third noted that such harshness should be reserved for serious issues.
Murphy, based in Ohio, began his site two years ago to investigate claims of malpractice by runners aiming for the Holy Grail: attaining a qualifying time fast enough to be eligible for the Boston Marathon. He has even used Google Earth in one case to prove a runners innocence to claims of course-cutting.
He said he spoke to Seo Monday, who maintained her innocence, and traded emails with Stern and Lorraine. He broke his story of her cheating Tuesday.
While I am glad that she eventually admitted to cutting the course and trying to cover her tracks," Murphy wrote on his site, "she only posted this after information was relayed to her regarding the extent of the evidence against her.
He also noted her Instagram post claimed she wasnt feeling well, but she had the energy to bike 13.1 miles later that afternoon and she didnt look distressed in any of the race photos on the marathons site.
The listings for the half marathon now show Jillian Pollack placing second in a time of 1:23.38.
A zoomed in photo of her watch shows the actual distance she ran.
Typical lying leftist. What don't they lie about? Any matter, whether large or small.
Lazy lying leftist
Boy, the Huffington Post certainly knows how to hire liars and cheats with Russian flags! Has Rachel Dozell applied to them yet?
A 2017 version of Rosie Ruiz? I and 99% of those here on FR could care less what this cheating blogger does. She is only looking for some ink.
Rosie Ruiz....where for art thow?
All she had to do was say she identifies as a man and taken steroids. See the texas wrestler that just won the state title.
My guess is that this is just the tip of a pathological lying iceberg for this woman. There are likely 50 people who know her who are now nodding their heads in lack of surprise.
The take-away for me, was that Harvard graduated this complete moron. Anyone with a double digit IQ would have known better.
It's a disgusting thing to do and I wonder how many other women have cheated in a similar way and never got caught.
Anyway, before too long, all the women winners of marathons will be transgendered men. Girly men are taking over all the awards that real women used to compete for, such as beauty pageants, homecoming queen and sporting events (and most women seem perfectly fine with that).
My guess is that this is just the tip of a pathological lying iceberg for this woman. There are likely 50 people who know her who are now nodding their heads in lack of surprise.
Exactly. This is not her first rodeo. This is the first time she has been busted so clearl.
frake ruse...
It’s a strange obsession, the need to lie about stuff that at the end of the day, doesn’t really matter. Yet, this wench persisted and posed for picture with her “medal” .
That , to me, indicates a much deeper problem. Fwiw, I wrote HuffPoo and told them that I too, can blog about make believe chit , would they be willing to hire me.
Thanks for the history lesson.
Harvard graduate, also works at Huffington Post. This id the poster child for liberal scum. Lying, cheating snob.
America we are better than this.
Harvard graduate, also works at Huffington Post. This id the poster child for liberal scum. Lying, cheating snob.
America we are better than this.
Good observation. If a person is like this once, she’s like this all the time.
A lying phony like this would have absolutely no problem writing fake news for a fake news operation (Huffington Post). I have never seen one of her pieces but I’m betting that she is anti-Trump and pro-Hillary Clinton. Just another reason not to trust mainstream media.
I was living in Boston at the time of the Rosie Ruiz fiasco. The standing joke was: How did Rosie finish so much faster in Boston than she did in New York? The Boston T is faster than the New York subway.
Or men who claim to identify themselves as women.
The one good thing about these cases is that the offender becomes very famous among the running community.
“a choice”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.