The Marine Corps Marathon has issued Gregory Price, 61, of Washington, D.C., a lifetime ban from all its events after his 3:17:47 finish last month (good for second in the 60–64 age group) attracted attention. Once race organizers began looking at his race history, a pattern emerged that showed Price consistently missed timing mats and ran highly suspect splits at the race, which he has run 13 times since 1998.

Race director Rick Nealis said Tuesday that the race’s attempts to speak to Price had been unsuccessful. Runner’s World’s attempts to connect with Price—through race officials, Google searches, social media, and contacts in the D.C. running community—have been equally fruitless. (On Friday, The Washington Post published an article in which Price said he "messed up" and apologized to other runners.)

Race officials always scrutinize age-group winners before finalizing the awards. While they were doing so, Nealis said, runners contacted the race and urged them to investigate Price’s performance.

Most had likely come across Price’s case via a thread on the LetsRun.com message board, where an anonymous poster wrote that he or she randomly clicked on Price’s results while looking for another participant. The LetsRun.com message boards have also played a large role in raising awareness of similar cases like those of Kip Litton and Mike Rossi.

During the October 25 race, Price did not record split times at the 25K and 30K chip mats. While Nealis acknowledges that runners occasionally aren’t picked up by chip mats for legitimate reasons, Price has run the marathon every year since 2011, and he hasn’t hit either mark once during that time.

Price also ran the marathon from 2004 to 2009 and missed one chip mat four out of those six years. In 2009, he split 28:48 for a 10K midrace, which is 4:38 per mile. In 2004 and 2006, he hit all of the race’s chip mats, but recorded erratic splits, including significant pace increases in the middle or at the end of the race. (There were no intermediate mats on the course in 1998 and 1999, when Price finished in 2:57:04 and 3:09:17, respectively.)

Race organizers do not know the specifics of how Price has arrived at the finish line, only that he has.

“We all want to know—where does he go? Does he go to the Air and Space Museum?” Nealis said. “At the end of the day, it’s immaterial where he goes or what he does. The only thing that matters to me is that he didn’t run. He didn’t run 26.2 miles, and I’m very confident in the data and the results.”

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In addition to handing Price a lifetime ban from all future events organized by the Marine Corps Marathon, Nealis has opted to disqualify Price from the 2014 and 2015 Marine Corps Marathons and remove Price from the MCM Runners Club. The club rewards runners who have finished at least five Marine Corps Marathons with guaranteed entry, which Price has received in recent years.

Nealis included Price’s 2014 marathon in the disqualification not only because he missed two chip mats and recorded a 16:06 5K between 10K and 15K (which would be a single-age world record), but also because he used the race to qualify for the 2016 Boston Marathon. As of Wednesday evening, Price no longer appeared on Boston’s list of entrants.

Price qualified for the Boston Marathon all but one of the times he ran the Marine Corps Marathon, but has only finished Boston four times since 2001 (the earliest year for which results exist on the race's website). He hit the 40K mark at the 2013 Boston Marathon (his most recent) on pace to run a 4:20:01 marathon, but did not finish, presumably because of the bombings. Price’s fastest Boston finish is the 3:40:32 he ran in 2003.

Nealis said that though race officials do scan the results for obvious cases of course-cutting each year, it would be impossible to comb through all of it and find every single person suspicious performance at the race.

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“To go through every record and check every mat, we would never get the results published,” Nealis said.

Price initially escaped race officials’ notice because he did hit the 35K mat, which, because of its location, race organizers consider to be crucial in detecting course-cutting. Nealis acknowledges that Price may have continued to remain off the race’s radar had he not run fast enough to place in his age group.

“I think that what happens with people who cheat is they don’t think they’re going to caught, because they [are among] 22,000+ runners and they’re underneath the radar,” Nealis said. “In this case, he ended up in the awards, he basically put himself on the skyline.”

Nealis said he wasn’t sure that he would bother to officially disqualify Price from any of the races prior to 2014.

“At the end of the day, there’s nothing more that can be taken,” Nealis said. “We’re not going to go knock on his door and ask to get finisher’s medals returned. Hopefully Mr. Price understands the seriousness of it…We kind of joke that we send two big Marines and they knock on your door and we take the medal back, but that doesn’t happen.”

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article stated that the MCM Runners Club rewards runners who have finished at least five consecutive Marine Corps Marathons. The finishes do not have to be consecutive for membership in the MCM Runners Club.

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