M45 middle-distance runner Steve Nearman might be passed in the final yards of an 800, but you can’t put anything past him as a journalist. In his latest story for the Washington Times, he reveals that two women have been DQ’d from this past Sunday’s Marine Corps Marathon after he notified race organizers of some curious things involving the pair. Two male runners (including an M65) — who curiously had the same times as the DQ’d women — also were “purged” from the results. Nice catches, Steve!

The story, should the link die:
By Steve Nearman
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published November 1, 2006
Two women from Mexico City who finished in the top 10 at Sunday’s Marine Corps Marathon have been disqualified after missing a checkpoint on the course.
Race director Rick Nealis decided yesterday to remove them from the results after a query by The Washington Times shortly after the race.
“Right now, they’re not seventh and eighth any longer,” he said.
The two women — Pilar Paras and Consuelo Visoso — had identical finishing times of 3:07:44. The 34-year-old Visoso would have placed third in the 30-34 age group. But neither Visoso nor Paras recorded a split at 20 miles.
Their split times at five miles (34 minutes), 10 miles (59 minutes) and 23.5 miles (2:27) made little sense, either. The winner, Laura Thompson, passed 23.5 miles firmly in the lead in just under 2:37.
The last time a runner was eliminated from the top 10 was in 2002, when the Marines outed Chandra Bozelko of Orange, Conn., for cutting the course after she crossed the finish line ninth among the women in 3:07:15.
Two Mexican men also were purged from the results for missing the 20-mile checkpoint. Jose Visoso Del Valle and Alvaro Altamirano also finished in 3:07:44 and recorded unusual split times. Their splits indicated they led the race at the five-mile mark in an exceptionally fast 24:07 and 24:09, respectively, when in fact the clear-cut leader at that time — Jared Nyamboki — ran 25:37.
Del Valle, 65, would have won the 65-69 age group by nearly 30 minutes if his time had been legitimate.
Del Valle also ran in the 2004 New York City Marathon with Paras and Visoso, and Altamirano joined the three at the Chicago Marathon last year. The women finished those races in four to five hours.
Back in 1997, two Mexican runners were disqualified for missing check points.
Robert Villanueva of Baltimore and Tim Mullen of Timonium, Md., were disqualified for the same reason as Del Valle and Altamirano, posting five-mile splits ahead of Nyamboki in 21:35 and finishing together in 3:51:30.
Nealis said it would be several days before the results are cleansed of participants who cheated. Last year, several hundred entrants were disqualified for cutting the 26.2-mile course.
A day later, Steve emailed me a note on the mechanics of cheating the MCM:
FYI the race DQs lots of people every year, including last year’s Jeans Marines but also many Team in Training and other charity group runners. There are several good reasons for that – one, the course has many “legs” to it, so there are out and backs. You can start cheating at 1 1/4 miles by walking a few city blocks in Arlington and ending up at the 4-mile mark (which is what I think the four Mexicans did), you can easily walk across the street during the 6th mile and end up just shy of the 9th mile (possibly they did this two), you can take a short walk from just before 10 miles and end up at 14 1/2, at 15 1/2, you also are at 20 miles, and the 21 1/2 mile mark is near mile 24.
Two, this is a major incentive for cheating at MCM, especially in the back of the pack, as that there is a cut-off time to make it to 20 miles because at this point you cross a bridge over the Potomac which is a Federal highway and is very busy when you run two-way traffic over just one span. Highway officials want that bridge span opened back up at a certain time. I think the runners have 5 1/2 hours to make it to the bridge or they get a ride back to the finish in a bus. This is where some charity program leaders have told runners to cut the course if needed to make it to the bridge in time. Interestingly enough, before last year’s major course change (in part to make it easier for more of the slow runners/walkers to make it to the bridge), the bridge came at around 24 miles and left hundreds and hundreds to ride the bus.