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Why do people keep cheating at marathons?

November 9, 2026 · 27 min

Show notes

Patrick Redford interviews Dennis Young from Front Office Sports about the curious phenomenon of people cheating in marathons.


Episode transcript here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ckILetF2Ppwha1sA5MfLASLx6VkLCIRQSYQaMqmOau8/edit?usp=sharing


🏷️: marathon cheating, Rosie Ruiz, Boston Marathon, Kip Litton, Mike Rossi, Frank Meza, letsrun.com, Derek Murphy, Marathon Investigation, bib swapping, course cutting, running scandal, amateur athletics, online sleuths, Strava cheating, marathon qualifying, running community, athletic fraud, Only If You Get Caught, Patrick Redford, Dennis Young


Show Credits


Only If You Get Caught is written and hosted, by Patrick Redford.

It’s produced by Alex Sujong Laughlin, with production support from Harry Krinsky. Justin Ellis is Defector’s projects editor. Mixing by Samantha Gattsek Show art by Jim Cooke. Jasper Wang and Tim Faust are Defector’s business guys. Thank you to the Defector staff.


Defector Media is a collectively owned, subscriber based media company.

Only If You Get Caught is a proud member of Radiotopia.

All episodes of Only If You Get Caught

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