I generally enjoy Rich Roll's podcast. I enjoyed his book. I understand who he is. He is a mediocre LD runner with a great story. And yes, he is always selling stuff to make a living. He is a great interviewer. I like him. The first time I listened to this segment on WG, he swayed me a bit. Rich Roll was convinced it was totally legit because he "knows Robby and the video guy". " no effin way"! But then I went out on a run and thought about the exact words that were said in that short segment. Essentially what proof was given in that interview that WG was telling the truth.? There was absolutely nothing! Here are some of the odd things I saw:
1. If you watch the portion where he talks about the watch and woop his answers are short and defensive. You also see him fidgeting and spinning in the chair like he is uncomfortable. It would be interesting to have a body language expert interpret that segment.
2. They chuckle and WG even brags a bit about how he had no watch and had to borrow someones else's. How does that statement not have a follow up question from Rich like WTF? You have all this money dumped into this project, sponsors all lined up and you forgot to have a rock solid GPS watch of your own on your wrist (and 2 or 3 back ups)? That is total BS. These guys are totally into tech and social media yet they play this game that they are salt of the earth, natural runners that can't be bothered with watch technology. They revert to this story that they are infants in understanding of GPS watches because they are just pure runners. Robbie even turns off his Heart rate monitor and even maps feature on some of his feats for money. They know how to work technology.
2 Then we have the defense that "did the other guy have heart rate data"? Well of course not! The point is that your HR data shows something dishonest. Not whether you have data or not. That is pure gaslighting.
3. Rich very quickly jumps in and rescues Wil with his line "HR data is BS". HR data is not BS! Heart rate data can be wonky. Heart rate data can at times pick up cadence. But there are no instances of Heart rate data dropping out of the sky and sitting at 105 BPM for enormous stretches of 60 mile runs when the runner is supposed to be running through mountains in a transcon.
The more I think back about this entire interview, the more I realize it was two guys (buddies) selling stuff. A big commerical. There was no goal of diving in for truth in an investigative manner. So nothing learned here.