In September, she grew suspicious of one of the contestants in the marathon she was organizing. Sherri McMillan coordinated her first race 13 years ago, in honor of a friend who was fighting breast cancer. Across the country, curious onlookers had their attention drawn, at least for a moment, to Portland.Īnd Clark, a vibrant online presence who exhorted her followers and clients to speak up unashamedly and be heard, did something uncharacteristic. What happened after her confession was a bizarre saga, marked by apologies, defiance and shaming on a national stage. Louis, Savannah, Ga., and Portland's own Shamrock Run. And while she didn't admit it, WW has found finishes in other races that appear suspiciously fast: in St. She admitted to cheating in Eugene, in Chicago, in Massachusetts, and in South Carolina. 17, Clark confessed in writing a week later to repeated fraud-one that included her riding a bicycle or sitting in a hotel room while she claimed to have been running. "But for the people who cheat repeatedly, there's other stuff to it."īoth McMillan and Murphy believe Clark did just that: cheated over and over, in races large and small across the country, over a period of years. "In any race, there are a hundred people who cut the course in some manner or another," says Murphy. He says few of the people he's caught matched Clark's level of deception. Rosie Ruiz put fake running on the map in 1980, when she crossed the finish line at the Boston Marathon in first place, but in fact had hopped on a subway train for a 16-mile stretch of the route.ĭerek Murphy, who runs a website from Cincinnati dedicated to busting marathon cheaters, says he's seen about 25 cases of what he calls "serial" cheaters. "Stolen valor" soldiers claim medals they didn't earn. Painters sign more famous artists' names to their work. People lie about their accomplishments all the time. It wasn't until several days later that McMillan arrived at a nauseating realization. McMillan described her as friendly but not particularly chatty. Sherri McMillan, who organized the Vancouver half-marathon, didn't know Clark, but she'd cycled the course with her the day before the race. It's not often a newcomer shows up and smokes nearly the entire field.Įmily Clark crosses the finish line at the PeaceHealth AppleTree half-marathon on Sept. They put in miles together, trade tips about equipment, track each others' times and cheer each others' successes. In the clubby world of competitive distance running, most marathoners know each other. And people were skeptical when she told them she could run 13.1 miles in the time she claimed-and some wondered if she'd run that distance at all. She offered clinical therapy with an inactive social work license. She didn't attend Harvard, WW has learned. Her educational claims didn't quite add up.
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