The New Yorker makes it clear that Litton’s faking is nowhere near being limited to the literal cutting of corners in the course of a race. The guy routinely shows up wearing different clothing at the starts and finishes of races, for whatever reasons to do with his methods for beating chip systems. The lies come in layers, here, but it’s seriously not at all clear that he can run a respectable marathon, or even that he could finish one in *any* time at some point.

I mean, as the article tells us, Litton has eventually admitted to *making up* the entire “Western Wyoming” marathon in which he made the mistake of assigning himself the winning time. He made up the entire race, including a field of a couple of dozen other names — names that never appeared in any other marathons, but for several of which someone did up profiles on amateur athletic sites. The Web site associated with that race was run off the same servers as the ones for his dental practice and Litton’s own “world record runs” site. This is faking on a level that takes a large amount of work. It’s not on the level of looking for where the course might allow a wrong turn. It’s way, way past that.

Great article about Litton. Funny to see my college Analytical Chem prof’s name in the article and then run across it on this site, too. Hope all is well in Montana! And I agree with Dr Strode… lots of great shoe advice here!