At the end of April, Seattle’s running community caught wind of a new marathon, the Seattle Waterfront Marathon set for this Sunday, May 24th. For a $100 registration fee, marathoners would take off from Genesee Park and run a 26.2 mile-loop along Lake Washington Boulevard and finish in Seward Pa rk. It sounds great if you’re into that sort of thing. Except, that wouldn’t be possible because the city is shutting down a stretch of that route for Bicycle Weekends, and, oh right, it’s a scam.  Runner Jayson Petersen sounded the alarm after he noticed the race seemed off.  “A few things that didn’t add up,” Petersen writes in an email. “It was a race I’d never heard of before, and the course map on the site was incomplete. The photos on the main webpage also looked off, so I took a screenshot and did a reverse image search, they turned out to be from the 2016 Seattle Marathon, which is a completely different event held in November.” Petersen checked the domain registration—it was only created a few months ago. The site had broken links. Clicking on certain links made the site stutter. The “Past Results” link to previous races redirected back to the homepage, showing no past results because there were no past races. The payment section, of course, worked. But, in that section, Petersen noticed the “distances were listed in kilometers instead of miles, which felt unusual for a local U.S. race.” To top it off, the marathon listed the West Seattle Runner shop as a sponsor. This was news to West Seattle Runner, Petersen said. “We are NOT affiliated with this fraudulent endeavor,” store owner Lori McConnell writes in an email. Petersen also flagged the admin of the Seattle Green Lake Runners Facebook group to spread the word. The runners were pissed. And so the website came down. But soon there was a new site for the same fake marathon: SpringSeattleMarathon.com.  The sponsors page, typos included, currently reads: “We are so grateful for our sponsors. The Seattle Waterfront Marathon would not be possible without their support. Our sponsors have recognized how much this event means to our community, and we appreciate that we the companies whose values align with ours. We encourage you to support the organizations that support this event.” The page lists no sponsors.  I reached out to the Seattle Waterfront Marathon and didn’t hear back. I did, however, hear from the actual Seattle Marathon.  “This race is absolutely not affiliated with us here at the Seattle Marathon Association,” Jae Gravley, a Seattle marathon staffer, wrote in an email. Apparently, scammy marathons are a thing. Cory Jennermann, a managing partner at RunGuides.com, which tracks US running races, writes in an email that his site has noticed a few fake runs appear in the last six months.  “These events are definitely the minority (so far we have encountered 5 out of over 20,000 listed),” Jennermann said. “All of them shared very similar characteristics to that Seattle event, and runners can definitely do a few checks to help them tell if an event is legitimate.” If you’re a runner just jonesing for a marathon—can’t you guys just jog together?—to compete in, there are a few things you can do to make sure you aren’t getting scammed. Gravley at the Seattle Marathon says “one thing to consider is, are their courses certified?” Professional races will be certified by USA Track and Field. Just for fun races won’t have that seal of approval. You can check the official races here. That Seattle Waterfront Marathon isn’t listed, Gravley pointed out.  You won’t be able to pay $100 for the torturous pleasure of running 26.2 miles in Seattle this weekend, but you can still do it for free. If you still want to set $100 on fire, the scam marathon site’s registration page and payment system is still up and running. The post Hey, Are You Running in the Seattle Waterfront Marathon This Weekend?  appeared first on The Stranger. ...read more read less