Another run across America underway - is it legit? Boots currently on the ground

Kudos to recruiter57 for his Strava post.

I am in now way defending WG’s behaviour and in fact the way he is going about this is the antithesis of everything I love about long distance running. It was those things that made me originally suspect something dodgy was going on. But when it comes down to it, watch muling doesn’t explain what WillC has used as his primary evidence - low hr on a long run at a ‘good’ pace. Because it continues low and consistent when being observed. If you are ignoring the hr issue and just thinking it’s not possible for somebody to run that far every day and look fresh, then I’d suggest you probably haven’t tried it, because it really isn’t as big a deal as everyone is making out. And again I don’t think it’s a valid to compare someone who is posting up Strava data daily to two people who didn’t.

Another suspicious tactic is countering things that someone has not said or implied. Very suggestive of your inner beliefs.

Also as a ‘lawyer’, presumably you are used to looking at balance of probabilities. In the RY case, there were less obstacles to overcome to explain the cheating. Dustin and the Skins guy had to be in on it or oblivious to it (I imagine there was one of each in that case) Also he was logging very impressive record mileage. His data would need to look clean but hey presto, when examined after the event, he turned out to be doing a few 200m strides during his runs.

There are a lot more obstacles in this case. You have a much bigger crew who need to be colluding or oblivious. You also have data which, if you look past WillC’s hyperbole and confirmation bias, demonstrates a few odd hr patterns off the wrist watch but nothing else of much concern. And still there is no plausible suggestion for cheating that fits the data.

Looking back, presumably you mean comparing the runners. And you’re right, you were comparing the comments, so I take that back.

FFS. "AOL Lawyer" is an in-joke from the Rossi thread. I am a software developer. As for the rest of what you wrote, I didn't read it because I have read your previous posts and learned nothing of value.

Ok you may not have spotted the inverted commas Q-/

I’ll just keep waiting until someone suggests a plausible cheating method that fits with the data and the observers.

Oh I did see the weasel 'quotes' but called it out

Until you suggest how I didn't summit Everest 7 days in a row unsupported and without oxygen, I will continue to claim I did. I mean I can hardly prove a negative can I?

And you can claim I didn’t do my 4 mile jog this morning and despite me showing you the Strava I might never convince you because you’ve decided I didn’t.

My point which was evidently too subtle was about how cheats in the past have attempted to try to subvert the burden of proof and claim things such as "I can hardly prove I wasn't there can I?" Which is a ploy that amazingly many people especially in the ranks of social media fanboys find very convincing.

And my point whose subtlety you may have missed is that some people will never accept any level of proof. People were asking for boots on the ground. But when someone turns up and runs with him and his hr doesn’t magically go back to an expected one, it’s still not enough.

I am far from a fanboy and in fact find everything about this fairly distasteful, from the chasing a false record to the grandstanding and the snakeoil selling. I am just asking objectively for a plausible mechanism of cheating, so I can believe he is cheating. But the balance of probabilities as far as I am concerned, as someone who is not overly impressed by someone running 50 to 60 miles a day, is in his favour.

I am in about the same camp. The snake oil sales tell me something is dishonest about this thing. Also, why would his crew of ultrarunners want to join this if there was not a payback of some type. (commission on NuPalm $49.99 per month subscriptions?). Of course, he has the mandatory charity angle that keeps getting pushed. Big time red flags here.

But I have to admit that I don't see how the data could be faked and uploaded to strava. ON top of that, Will is doing continuous runs at 7:00am. Rob Young did the mysterious running whenever he wanted (like in the dark of night).

It could just be an ultrarunning grift without the cheating of not running.

Yes I’m tending that way too. And can see the future now, finish it in 58ish days and claim an Englishman’s record, completely ignoring Lees, get loads of publicity, ramp up his social media and sell lots of his £129 training packages.

Show me one post doubting what Laz and the Geezers found.

Lax was showing that he wasn’t legit, not that he was!

there are suckers everywhere and that's especially apparent in the uk - just look at nick bester's "coaching" success. bester clearly trains fairly hard and is a solid runner himself, but his "coaching" business is nonsense, clearly a grift. goodge is no special athlete and i'm sure £129 is money for old rope...but at least he seems less annoying than bester.

Who is this guy? What's wrong with his coaching?

Roughly $50k USD raised from 1750 donations. Average donation right around $30 USD. This has remained consistent throughout the run. 8% of the charity raise goal achieved through 60% of the run. What's interesting to me is that going fast and raising money are actually conflicting goals. Example : If you want to optimize around fast, pick the shortest route (he hasn't). If you want to optimize around fund raising travel through population centers (he hasn't). The plan was somewhere in the middle. I suspect there was an overestimation of what 140k "followers" would contribute. Personally I believe most people won't pay to be inspired at this point. A 1% ratio of donors / followers supports this hypothesis I guess.
PS I converted everything to USD

PSS Jonas Deichmannn just announced that he will ride from NYC to LA and then run back. He will start end of June and plans to be done in November. Google Jonas guy if you want to read about some epic adventures.

Trust me. I'm a far better runner than him. I'm a 2:24 marathoner, 14h 100mile (thats what he's doing 62 in) and have done more multidays than Will. He's making out as if this is easy...but he's amazing. So I can tell you that he is either not amazing and it is easy (because it's slow, in my eyes), or that he is bullcrapping to sell snake oil. If it was hard and he was amazingly making this look easy, then put your money where your mouth is and run faster or further. It's distasteful. Would I find his mileages easy? Kind of. That time on your feet is never easy, but I would be able to cover those distances. Would I make out like I was special or that it was easy? Hell no, that would be the act of an a-hole, as Im aware many people are JUSTIFIABLY proud of completing a 5k. If I'd vaguely talked about a record and was finding it easy, would I run further? Hell yes. I'd run till my tank was out of gas and my end of day videos would show as much. WG devalues his run and other transcontinental journeys, walked or run as well as runners in general, every time he opens his mouth, which is a shame as he is now at the stage where if genuine, it's getting pretty impressive. An inspiration? No sir. An inspiration comes from the struggle, not making light of it.