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 After a big marathon, Derek Murphy sits down with his laptop in his western Ohio living room and gets to work, pulling up the online results and looking for red flags. 
 
 Like half a million other Americans, the 46-year-old business analyst used to run marathons himself but he slacked off after starting a family. Now he chases cheaters — armed with race data, finish-line photos, anonymous tips and an algorithm. 
 
 "I think most people aren't aware of how much cheating goes on in marathons," Murphy said. 
 
 The rule-breakers generally fall into two categories: course-cutters, who start a race and finish it but don’t run every mile in between, and bib-swappers who give or sell the tag with their race number to a faster runner. 
 
 It’s a risky business because every bib contains an electromagnetic chip that is read by timing mats placed along the course, and cameras are set up to take photos of the runners — and all of it is posted online. 
 
 The cheaters’ motives? Some crave the Facebook likes that stack up after they post a personal best; others are desperate for a time that qualifies them to run in the elite Boston Marathon, a bucket-list race. 
 
 All of them, Murphy and his fellow marathon detectives say, undermine the ethos of an ancient sport that is supposed to be about respecting the distance. And in some cases, they’re robbing other runners of medals or the chance to compete in Boston. 
 
 Runners cross the Boston Marathon start line in Hopkinton, Mass., Monday, April 18, 2016. Michael Dwyer / AP 
 
 "This sport is built on hard work. There's a code of honor," said John Conley, the former longtime director of the Austin marathon. "People who cheat corrupt that value system." 
 
 Since Murphy began sleuthing a year and half ago and posting his findings on a blog, Marathon Investigation, he estimates he has caught up to 250 road warriors trying to pull a fast one. 
 
 When he crunched the numbers for the 2016 Philadelphia Marathon — one of the biggest in the nation — he quickly found 12 entrants who apparently had qualified for Boston by taking a shortcut. 
 
 They had missed timing mats and their splits — the amount of time it took for them to run certain sections of the race — didn’t make any sense. In one case, a runner would have needed to make world record time in the final miles for his splits to add up. 
 
 Philadelphia race organizers spotted those inconsistencies, too, and quietly disqualified the fishy finishers. But Murphy also found some suspects the officials didn't catch: a couple he believed cheated together, with the husband running with the wife’s chip to get her a faster time. 
 
 He dug into their history and found more races with peculiar results. In some, timing mats showed the husband and wife with identical splits, suggesting they ran side by side the whole way. But photos told another story: He crossed the finish line alone and she was caught on camera miles behind. 
 
 After Murphy confronted them, the couple came clean, admitting they cheated in at least five races across the country, including several marathons. She would peel the chip off her bib and give it to him, and he would carry it across that last timing mat. 
 
 The wife said she ran the full distance at each event, just slower than her husband — but their ruse allowed her to collect those coveted Boston qualifying times and, in one case, a trophy. 
 
 "I realized it made her happy," the husband told NBC News, which agreed not to publish their names. "And fortunately or unfortunately, putting a chip on another bib is a very simple process." 
 
 The wife said she had convinced herself it wasn’t cheating because she pounded every inch of the course, had once been able to run as fast as her husband, and never collected any prize money. 
 
 "I think the human mind can justify just about anything," she said. 
 
 Rosie Ruiz, of New York, waves to the crowd after receiving the laurel wreath from the wife of Boston's mayor, Katherine White, second from right, and is about to receive the medal from Gov. Edward J. King, left, after she was announced winner of the women's division of the Boston Marathon in Boston on April 22, 1980. Ruiz pretended to win the 1980 Boston Marathon by coming out of the crowd about one mile before the finish line. AP 
 
 Marathon mendacity is nothing new. 
 
 In 1980, novice Rosie Ruiz stunned the running world when she was the first woman to cross the finish line, barely sweating, at the Boston Marathon. When the also-rans complained they never saw her until the final stretch, and spectators claimed she darted onto the course at 25 miles, she was stripped of the award. 
 
 She insisted her win was legit, but then an investigation into her 24th place finish in the previous year's New York City Marathon uncovered a witness who saw Ruiz, still wearing her bib, on the subway when she should have been sweating it out. 
 
 Back then, marathons were a niche sport; according to Running USA, only 25,000 men and women finished one in 1976. In 2015, more than half a million people completed a marathon and more than 17 million had participated in some kind of running event. Road racing is now estimated to be a $1.4 billion industry. 
 
 Related: Paul Ryan Says He Misstated Marathon Claim 
 
 The exponential growth means running 26.2 miles is no longer a unique achievement. These days, the glory for many is in doing it fast. 
 
 "The first question anyone ever asks when you run a marathon is, 'What was your time?' Not, like, 'How was it? Congratulations! What was the experience?' It's, 'What was your time?'" said the wife Murphy tracked. 
 
 She was feeling that pressure when she and her husband cheated for the first time — by accident. They mixed up their bibs and when the results were posted, the wife had the better time because the husband was wearing her chip. 
 
 After that, she said, she felt like she needed to keep up the pace. And her husband obliged. 
 
 "I was basically thinking it's a victimless crime and making someone happy," he said. "It really wasn't malicious motives. It just grew." 
 
 The wife boasted about her phony times on social media, and the Instagram love poured in. She said it gave her a self-esteem boost and incentive to train harder to get legit times. 
 
 "I think in my mind, I thought, 'I'm worthy of this. I can do this,'" she said. 
 
 Derek Murphy, back when he used to run marathons, before he started chasing cheaters. Courtesy of Derek Murphy 
 
 The couple didn’t give much thought to the possibility they would be caught. And they might have gotten away with it if an anonymous tipster had not encouraged Murphy to take a closer look. 
 
 Murphy, who has run 10 marathons, is part of a small confederacy of armchair detectives who have earned some notoriety in the race world for their sophisticated forensic work. Other amateur gumshoes regularly post their suspicions and evidence on the message boards of sites like LetsRun.com. 
 
 Recent casualties include a Washington DC man banned for life from the Marine Corps Marathon after missed timing mats exposed his fraud, and a New Jersey running coach banned from Boston after it was revealed that she got her qualifying time by having a friend run with her bib. 
 
 Related: Homeless Runners Win Hearts and Medals 
 
 In 2015, a Pennsylvania dad made headlines when his kids were given unexcused absences from school while they watched him run Boston. That brought scrutiny to his race history and questions about his qualifying time — though he insisted it was legitimate. 
 
 It was his case that sparked Murphy's interest marathon investigations. How many people, he wondered, are cheating with impunity and how easy would it be to nail them? 
 
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 Murphy's first major probe was a deep dive into 2015 Boston Marathon finishers. He found 47 he believes cheated to get a spot. Based on the work he has done since, he thinks up to 5 percent of all marathon entrants may be deceptive. 
 
 "We find them multiple times...find the same people cheating year after year, race after race," he said. 
 
 "I think a lot of it's this social media — 'Hey look at me' — just wanting to get validation and get patted on the back for accomplishing something, whether you accomplish it or not." 
 
 The thought makes Daphne Matalene's blood boil. 
 
 After several tries, the 44-year-old New Yorker finally scored a qualifying time for the 2016 Boston Marathon. But because so many people qualified, race organizers set a faster cutoff, and she missed getting a slot in her age group by 28 seconds. 
 
 "I turned myself inside out to run a nine-minute mile personal best at the age of 41 and it really stinks if someone who cheated got to run and I didn't," Matalene said. 
 
 Related: Kenya Marathoner Accused of Running Only Last 1,000 Yards 
 
 Conley, the Austin race director, said he has caught plenty of cheaters without outside help – including doctors and lawyers – but he appreciates the digging that Murphy and his compatriots do. 
 
 "Having that information really cuts down on the amount of detective work a race director would have to do," he said. 
 
 As for the cheating couple, they claim they have no hard feelings toward Murphy and will have their dishonest times removed. 
 
 "I was never angry at him," the wife said. "I actually think he's someone of integrity. I think he truly loves the sport." ||||| A runner who initially claimed the 2nd place award for the Fort Lauderdale A1A Half Marathon Sunday admitted to cheating. 
 
 Jane Seo was disqualified after race officials questioned her run data. 
 
 The New York food blogger later confessed to cutting the course in a long statement posted to Instagram. Seo has since set her Instagram page private following the scandal. 
 
 In the post, Seo explained why she cheated, saying it was because she "wasn't feeling well." The runner also admitted that she got caught up in the moment and pretended she ran the entire course. 
 
 According to marathoninvestigation.com, Seo cut about 1 1/2 miles of the course. 
 
 Seo's Strava entry shows her pace and track on the marathon course. 
 
 Photo credit: marathoninvestigation.com 
 
 Seo admitted in her Instagram post that she rode a bike around the course afterward with her GPS watch in attempt to cover up her cheating. She added that she was "extremely ashamed" and apologized to the running community for "bringing negativity out." 
 
 Seo was part of the Dashing Whippets Running Team. The team released a statement denouncing her actions and announcing her termination Tuesday. 
 
 DWRT said Seo admitted to cheating and apologized to the board members. ||||| 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. 
 
 Seo later admitted she'd faked GPS evidence (left) by biking the course; a zoomed-in photo of her watch shows the distance she actually ran. photos via Marathon Investigations 
 
 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... that’s 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 runner’s “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 wasn’t feeling well, “but she had the energy to bike 13.1 miles later that afternoon” and she didn’t look distressed in any of the race photos on the marathon’s site. 
 
 The listings for the half marathon now show Jillian Pollack placing second in a time of 1:23.38. 
 
 Follow Nick Sortal on Twitter @NickSortal. 
 

– Jane Seo's second-place finish at the Fort Lauderdale half-marathon Sunday was impressive, not least because race times showed she'd kept a pace of about seven minutes per mile for the first half of the race, but managed 5:25 per mile in the second. As an internet sleuth has revealed, it was all too unbelievable to be true. Though Seo, a 24-year-old food blogger and writer for the Huffington Post, defended her time at the finish line when questioned by a timer and went on to claim a medal, her race didn't sit well with Derek Murphy of MarathonInvestigation.com, who noticed GPS data Seo later shared showing her completing the 13.1-mile route was recorded in the afternoon—well after the morning half-marathon was completed, per the Miami New Times. Murphy also believed the data, showing an even pace of about six minutes per mile at 122 steps per minute, came from a bike ride. But his biggest piece of evidence came when he zoomed in on a photo of Seo at the finish line; the running watch on her wrist showed she'd only run 11.65 miles. "After information was relayed to her," Murphy says Seo posted an apology to Instagram, since deleted, claiming she "cut the course" because she felt ill. Once at the finish line, "I got swept away in the moment and pretended I ran the entire course" then later "proceeded to BIKE the course afterward with my GPS watch to cover my wrongdoings," Seo said. She was later disqualified, per NBC Miami. Murphy, who tells NBC News he's caught 250 cheaters, says Seo's level of deceit was "unheard of." (A man ran a marathon while juggling.)