As more than 30,000 runners cross the 2017 Boston Marathon starting line on Monday, the man trying to keep them all honest will be at his day job in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Derek Murphy expects the first emails to come in around lunchtime. He will take a break from his work as a business analyst to peruse them. He’ll likely identify the first marathon cheat before the final runner crosses the finish line on Boylston Street, based on tips provided by a network of followers of his blog, Marathon Investigation.

In the year since Murphy and Runner’s World published a report examining the 2015 Boston Marathon field, which found 47 runners who entered the race without a legitimate qualifying time—the 46-year-old suburban dad has built a small race results sleuthing empire.

Related: Dozens Suspected of Cheating to Enter Boston Marathon

Murphy’s blog has garnered more than 2.4 million views since he started it in 2015. He’s been featured on Today and NPR. And he’s received hundreds of tips from runners around the world hoping he will eradicate dishonesty in the sport—and more specifically, the Boston Marathon.

Ahead of this year’s race, Boston Athletic Association (BAA) officials confirmed that they barred at least 15 runners from competing due to Murphy’s work.

“These people would be getting an experience they didn’t earn,” Murphy told Runner’s World. “The BAA has been very responsive every time I have reported a runner.”

Over the past six months, Murphy examined the qualifying races of those 15 runners, determining that they didn’t achieve a legitimate time. According to Murphy, eight of the runners cut the course at their qualifying race.

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He was able to prove this by examining the splits generated from timing mats placed on the course, looking to see if the runner being investigated missed one or more along the way. If so, and if the results show a significant—and often impossible—increase in pace, he examines race photos. Runners who skip portions of the course often appear in photos only at the start or finish.

With that evidence, Murphy contacts the race director of the marathon in question. If the director disqualifies the runner, Murphy reports the runner to the BAA.

“We take the integrity of our sport very seriously, and especially our own events,” BAA officials wrote to Runner’s World in an email. “There is sometimes no better method of rule enforcement than from witness accounts and reporting of fellow participants who also believe in a clean sport. When such transgressions are reported, we trust race directors to fully investigate the matter, and adjudicate their race results if necessary.”

BAA officials said they’ve banned “slightly” more runners than in previous years.

Of the 15 who won’t be allowed in the starting corrals Monday morning, seven used a faster runner to carry their bib in the qualifying race, according to Murphy.

Six of those came from the same race—The Quebec City Marathon in August 2016. Murphy discovered a scam organized by a French travel agency called Planet Tours. The company plans and operates trips to marathons around the world, including the Boston Marathon.

An online flyer from Planet Tours advertises a five-day trip to the 2017 race in Boston, saying that entry to the race costs €500 (about $530). The flyer also says that the company received 20 bibs for people who don’t have qualifying times.

This contradicts the BAA’s policy. The race organization does not provide non-qualifying bibs to travel agencies, only to partner charities and sponsors.

Instead, Planet Tours was able to get entry for clients by using “bib mules” at the Quebec City Marathon. Using race photos and public results, Murphy proved that Planet Tour’s founder himself carried three of those bibs across the finish line.

On a blog post about the incident, Murphy wrote, “What I surmise is that [the company’s founder] had some of his clients carry bibs for those that paid for a Boston Marathon package. He also carried bibs himself.”

Murphy said that the BAA removed the runners from its entry list almost immediately after receiving the evidence.

In his investigation of the 2015 Boston Marathon field with Runner’s World, Murphy discovered that the same travel agency partnered with the race director of a French marathon to forge results—allowing clients who paid for a Boston Marathon travel package to get a bib with a false qualifying time.

Murphy plans to continue to investigate Planet Tours.

He also said he wants to widen his investigative efforts over the next year, hoping to catch would-be cheaters before they have a chance to register for the 2018 Boston Marathon. His research came too late this year to replace the 15 banned runners with legitimate qualifiers.

Murphy believes several dozen illegitimate qualifiers slipped through the cracks and will get to run this year. On his blog, he claims he’s caught at least 15 other runners who cheated in their qualifier. But because the race directors refused to remove them from the results, the BAA was unable to bar those runners from getting a Boston bib.

“The goal here is just to reduce the incidents of cheating,” Murphy said. “This year I am going to go through every race that sends a significant number of runners to Boston.”

He said a few computer scientists who read his blog have developed a way to scrape the results of more than 100 races.

He will spend his nights and weekends doing the vast majority of the work. And as his blog continues to grow in readership, he says he is working on partnering with race timing companies in a more official capacity.

But for now, on Monday—Patriots’ Day in Boston—he’ll wait for his growing armada of tipsters to email him if they see anything suspicious.

On the bottom of a blog post that he published on April 10, Murphy wrote a warning in bold, red letters, “My advice to those that are planning to run Boston next week that didn’t earn the honor – Don’t do it. You didn’t earn the right to wear that bib. There is a very good chance that you will be identified..if you haven’t been already.”

Kit Fox Special Projects Editor Kit has been a health, fitness, and running journalist for the past five years.

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