Serial Course Cutter Finishes First in Age Group at Surf City

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Julie originally finished 1st in her age group at this year’s Surf City Half Marathon with a time of of 1:37:03.

She did not register at any of the intermediate timing mats. Her husband, Steve finished within 1 second of Julie and also missed every timing mat.

After reporting this, Julie was removed from the Half Marathon. But instead of disqualifying her, they moved her to the 5k results with a time of 2 hours and 22 minutes. This time corresponds with the clock time for the 5k. The 5k started before the half marathon. Steve, her husband remains in the half marathon results.

maybe the race was giving her the benefit of the doubt? Julie’s (and Steve’s) previous results at Surf City, and other races show that they deserve no such benefit of the doubt.

Suspected Course Cutting Began in 2015

From 2015 to 2021 Julie and Steve appear to have cut the courses in at least 13 half marathons. Of these 13 races, Julie won her age group in 2 races, and was in the top three in 3 more. Steve ran with Julie for all but 1 of these races, fortunately his times did not have an effect on the top age group finishers.

Of the 13 races where I determined their results were questionable, they appear to have cut the course at the San Francisco Half Marathon and Surf City Half Marathon 5 times each.

In San Francisco from 2015-2017, they missed the 7.5 mile mat each time. In 2018 and 2019, they did not cross a single timing mat.

In Surf City, they would initially miss the middle two mats (10k and 10 mile). Recently it appears they have basically skipped the entire course.

This article will be forwarded to the involved races.

Summary

I am not typically going to write about individuals that cut a course one time and finish near the back of the pack. In this instance, however, the behavior has been repeated multiple times over many years. Most importantly the cheating has affected age group placements.

One possible motivation for this cheating, at least initially, is to gain a proof of time for corral placement at Disney races. From 2015-2017, they ran 5 Disney races. It is likely that they used their results from the races mentioned above to improve their corral placement.

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