This thread was originally titled, "Incredible development in the $612,000 Transcon Goodge run, currently ongoing" but the new title is more descriptive. The description of the run is here.
I agree on both points. That was a fairly tongue in cheek because I think a lot of us thought that someone going out to observe him would throw up something more definitive than something still looks fishy here. I think Laz's point was he wasn't going to take a trip out to debunk it because, unlike Rob Young, he isn't claiming massive mileages and potentially taking down an iconic record, in an Andi Rivett manner.
Thank you for your response. I would like to think I am not making excuses but requesting rigorous analysis. You are not going to convince anyone there is cheating involved by saying he looks too good, he's running too fast, his wristwatch data looks fishy. Even those things combined will not be enough. You need some harder evidence than this and a good suggestion for how he might be cheating. You are a bit of an anomaly in being someone who has multiday experience yet having big questions about his ability to do this. In Laz's words "he is shooting for a meaningless record, but it is just a publicity stunt. he is wiser than RY. so something not worth the trouble to debunk." For me, the issue about this is that it is not a superhuman achievement, as his detractors as well as his sponsors are claiming. In difficulty level it pales in significance compared to the feats of PK, Dan L, Sorokin etc, so I find the attention he is getting compared to those pepole grating. I think a lot of WillC's sweeping statements are taken at face value without anyone checking. "Nobody in the history of multidays..." Where is he getting these facts from? Take the negative splits. I decided to check one of my 50 mile+ multidays. Of the last 6 days, 1 was a positive split, 1 even and 4 negative. I then looked at the whole thing. The first half took 110 hours, the second 108, so a negative split, just, on that too. Then take the fast 45. Again, "nobody in history..." We then have to narrow this down to non-elite, more than 50 a day for a lot of days, in the last 40 years. How many in this subset has he actually found and analysed to come up with this bold statement? I suspect I could have done that pace for 6 miles in one of my multidays and would probably have ended up walking 7 miles afterwards like he did. The fact is I wouldn't and who knows why he would have, but that is different from saying he couldn't have. So, the only reason I am responding to these objections is because I don't think they are enough. What we need is for someone to fly over there from the UK and follow him for a few days so they can catch him cheating, then we could all know for sure and stop going round in circles on here. Oh wait.
I agree with your assessment. But I take issue with Laz's comment. Just because his goal is essentially meaningless, that does not mean it is not worthy of scrutiny. After all, think back to Mike Rossi and Kip. Neither of those cheating episodes were historic efforts but they were damn fun to debunk on letsrun.
I will be the first to admit that I care enough to post on the message board. But I certainly do not care enough to travel a thousand miles to try to watch this guy run. Have you ever gone to watch someone you know run a Marathon? You are excited for them but it most certainly is boring and that is only for a few hours. Imagine trying to watch this guy run/walk for 12 hours! I can't think of anything more excruciatingly boring. Perhaps that is the secret sauce as to how these things are so cheat able. Nobody has the patience to observe such a run for more than an hour or two without wanting to kill themselves to be put out of their misery.
Personally, I think if any aspect of this event has been staged, embellished, faked, scripted, etc - then WG might as well have ridden a bus from LA to NYC. By "any" I mean the running and non-running parts. the YouTube videos "watch" like a reality TV show. From experience I can tell you a transcon is 85% boredom, 10% wonder and amazement and 5% sheer terror - every single day.
I just looked at Robbie Balenger’s website. Him and Goodge are so pathetic. They post all these photos and boast about their endurance feats as if they are phenomenal athletes when in reality they are nothing special.
Case in point: Balenger boasts on his website about breaking “the record” for most 10k loops run in NYC Central Park during its open hours. He claims to have run 16 full loops in a little over 18 hours. That means he averaged over an hour per 10k! Is that supposed to be impressive? Compare Balenger’s 160k in 18+ hours to a real genuinely impressive record-breaking athlete like Aleksandr Sorokin, who has covered 177k in only 12 hours. Huge difference!
I would pity Goodge and Balenger for their desperate cries for attention and ridiculous stunts to promote themselves as amazing athletes if they weren’t so arrogant. I think the best way to get under their skin is to comment about Sorokin in replies to all their social media posts. “Yeah, what you’re doing is alright, but did you see that Aleksandr Sorokin broke the 100k world record? Dude averaged 5:53 mile pace for 6 hours! What a stud!”
I think that's a little unfair. What you're basically saying is nobody, except for the very best athletes in the world should be allowed to be sponsored, or to advertise what challenges they have done / are doing. And if they do, they should be goaded for it.
They are not the greatest athletes in the world, but so what? Is running 160k in 18+ hours impressive? Depends who's looking at it. If you're comparing against the very best 0.1% in the world then no. But if you're comparing against the 99.9% of the population, most of who are sat on their backsides doing nothing then yes it is pretty special. Just because they are not the best does not mean they don't have a right. And if they want to make a living from what they are (or are not ;) ) doing then fine.
I think anyone who can run 100miles is pretty special (including most posters on this LR thread i expect). We just tend to forget how impressive this stuff what we do is sometimes.
I just looked at Robbie Balenger’s website. Him and Goodge are so pathetic. They post all these photos and boast about their endurance feats as if they are phenomenal athletes when in reality they are nothing special.
Case in point: Balenger boasts on his website about breaking “the record” for most 10k loops run in NYC Central Park during its open hours. He claims to have run 16 full loops in a little over 18 hours. That means he averaged over an hour per 10k! Is that supposed to be impressive? Compare Balenger’s 160k in 18+ hours to a real genuinely impressive record-breaking athlete like Aleksandr Sorokin, who has covered 177k in only 12 hours. Huge difference!
I would pity Goodge and Balenger for their desperate cries for attention and ridiculous stunts to promote themselves as amazing athletes if they weren’t so arrogant. I think the best way to get under their skin is to comment about Sorokin in replies to all their social media posts. “Yeah, what you’re doing is alright, but did you see that Aleksandr Sorokin broke the 100k world record? Dude averaged 5:53 mile pace for 6 hours! What a stud!”
I think that's a little unfair. What you're basically saying is nobody, except for the very best athletes in the world should be allowed to be sponsored, or to advertise what challenges they have done / are doing. And if they do, they should be goaded for it.
They are not the greatest athletes in the world, but so what? Is running 160k in 18+ hours impressive? Depends who's looking at it. If you're comparing against the very best 0.1% in the world then no. But if you're comparing against the 99.9% of the population, most of who are sat on their backsides doing nothing then yes it is pretty special. Just because they are not the best does not mean they don't have a right. And if they want to make a living from what they are (or are not ;) ) doing then fine.
I think anyone who can run 100miles is pretty special (including most posters on this LR thread i expect). We just tend to forget how impressive this stuff what we do is sometimes.
it is all about Attitude. Compare Hellah Sidibe to these guys Totally humble and thankful and willingly sharing how difficult it was and the pains he was experiencing. This current crew is trying to make themselves out to be Supermen to sell NuCalm. And the foul mouth in your face attitude of being the "highest mileage fu**ing runner" in the world is not very endearing,
Balenger boasts on his website about breaking “the record” for most 10k loops run in NYC Central Park during its open hours. He claims to have run 16 full loops in a little over 18 hours.
I think that's a little unfair. What you're basically saying is nobody, except for the very best athletes in the world should be allowed to be sponsored, or to advertise what challenges they have done / are doing. And if they do, they should be goaded for it.
They are not the greatest athletes in the world, but so what? Is running 160k in 18+ hours impressive? Depends who's looking at it. If you're comparing against the very best 0.1% in the world then no. But if you're comparing against the 99.9% of the population, most of who are sat on their backsides doing nothing then yes it is pretty special. Just because they are not the best does not mean they don't have a right. And if they want to make a living from what they are (or are not ;) ) doing then fine.
I think anyone who can run 100miles is pretty special (including most posters on this LR thread i expect). We just tend to forget how impressive this stuff what we do is sometimes.
it is all about Attitude. Compare Hellah Sidibe to these guys Totally humble and thankful and willingly sharing how difficult it was and the pains he was experiencing. This current crew is trying to make themselves out to be Supermen to sell NuCalm. And the foul mouth in your face attitude of being the "highest mileage fu**ing runner" in the world is not very endearing,
One thing we can trust is that WillC is always going to be there defending the honor of transcon as the governing head. Day in, day out. He runs the numbers and presents the findings. The numbers don’t lie.
I think that's a little unfair. What you're basically saying is nobody, except for the very best athletes in the world should be allowed to be sponsored, or to advertise what challenges they have done / are doing. And if they do, they should be goaded for it.
They are not the greatest athletes in the world, but so what? Is running 160k in 18+ hours impressive? Depends who's looking at it. If you're comparing against the very best 0.1% in the world then no. But if you're comparing against the 99.9% of the population, most of who are sat on their backsides doing nothing then yes it is pretty special. Just because they are not the best does not mean they don't have a right. And if they want to make a living from what they are (or are not ;) ) doing then fine.
I think anyone who can run 100miles is pretty special (including most posters on this LR thread i expect). We just tend to forget how impressive this stuff what we do is sometimes.
it is all about Attitude. Compare Hellah Sidibe to these guys Totally humble and thankful and willingly sharing how difficult it was and the pains he was experiencing. This current crew is trying to make themselves out to be Supermen to sell NuCalm. And the foul mouth in your face attitude of being the "highest mileage fu**ing runner" in the world is not very endearing,
See my comment about his latest social media. I was thinking he might not be that bad a guy from that last Audacious Report video, but then he just makes himself look like an arrogant a-hole with one opening of that blistered mouth.
One thing we can trust is that WillC is always going to be there defending the honor of transcon as the governing head. Day in, day out. He runs the numbers and presents the findings. The numbers don’t lie.
Aren't "governing heads" supposed to be impartial?
One thing we can trust is that WillC is always going to be there defending the honor of transcon as the governing head. Day in, day out. He runs the numbers and presents the findings. The numbers don’t lie.
Aren't "governing heads" supposed to be impartial?
Will Cockerell uses the Max Siegel definition of impartiality.
4. Why run with your entire face covered? To hide your identity
5. The crew consists of ultra marathon runners.They're not there just to crew.
I'm sure they don't even consider it cheating. They're doing the event as a relay and giving one person the credit to aid marketing and claim this dubious 'record'
4. Why run with your entire face covered? To hide your identity
5. The crew consists of ultra marathon runners.They're not there just to crew.
I'm sure they don't even consider it cheating. They're doing the event as a relay and giving one person the credit to aid marketing and claim this dubious 'record'
It could be watch muling but:
1. It doesn’t really explain the heart rate because his hr stayed around 105 while Chris ran 6 miles with him and WillC says he usually has the highest heart rate he’s seen. Also cadence and hr generally remain fairly consistent in some runs.
2. Negative splits don’t need explaining. They are pretty common in multiday running as others have observed. 3. This could also be explained by him being a professional influencer, having a pamper crew around him and posting about 0.5% of his day
4. Because he’s an idiot? But I don’t think the others on the crew are boasting those abs. 5. There is one for sure. And he would be no good as a mule as also has high hr according to WillC. Are the others? I don’t know. Chef, cameramen, barbers, maybe mules. Who knows.
Andy, you may do negative splits but you are often at 10:30ks on your challenges, it's light years different to this. You sent me a note a month ago saying you also do 110s on your challenges, but it turned out you were doing 13 minute Ks for the day in question!! Please please stop comparing yourself with this. It's clear you do your stuff authentically but the standard simply isn't comparable.
And you say you could fire off a 45 for 5 miles on a multiday, but you simply couldn't, no chance. You're regularly in the high 60s and up to 75s, I checked. The likelihood of you ever going 45 deep into a challenge is simply not on, but you're saying you could. Is it possible? Yes, but it'd totally break you, and be complete and utter madness, as it would WG, for no reason whatsoever, late in the day. And yet you're just waving it through, giving him a totally free pass, just as you did with Rob Young.
The problem is if WG ran a 42, you'd also say fine... and a 39... and a 36... and a 32... you have no line in the sand Andy, it always the same: "you never know..."
I just looked at Robbie Balenger’s website. Him and Goodge are so pathetic. They post all these photos and boast about their endurance feats as if they are phenomenal athletes when in reality they are nothing special.
Case in point: Balenger boasts on his website about breaking “the record” for most 10k loops run in NYC Central Park during its open hours. He claims to have run 16 full loops in a little over 18 hours. That means he averaged over an hour per 10k! Is that supposed to be impressive? Compare Balenger’s 160k in 18+ hours to a real genuinely impressive record-breaking athlete like Aleksandr Sorokin, who has covered 177k in only 12 hours. Huge difference!
I would pity Goodge and Balenger for their desperate cries for attention and ridiculous stunts to promote themselves as amazing athletes if they weren’t so arrogant. I think the best way to get under their skin is to comment about Sorokin in replies to all their social media posts. “Yeah, what you’re doing is alright, but did you see that Aleksandr Sorokin broke the 100k world record? Dude averaged 5:53 mile pace for 6 hours! What a stud!”
Great post. Balanger and Goodge are stunt runners who claim mediocre runs to be 'records' and even 'world records' like his 'world record' for 48 marathons in 30 days. They don't fool many genuine multiday runners, but that's not their aim. They just want to con Instagram followers into believing they are world class so they can get enough Insta luvvies to attract big sponsorship.
And the real travesty, is that while Sorokin has sponsorship, it's not a great deal and he struggles on a budget to train full time and needs a Patreon account to help him make ends meet. But Goodge is able to brag about making running his full time career and has enough sponsorship to pay a salary to his whole 6 man crew. It stinks.
I'm not missing anything, and I've taken in this whole debate.
Your repeated demands for an explanation of how any cheating is happening is another red herring. You don't need to know what is causing a fishy smell to know the smell exists.
I do not understand how my phone works but I know it works, and when it is broken I don't understand how it's broken but I know it doesn't work. I have no physio or medical background and don't know exactly how I get injured when I run, but I know when I'm injured. I don't know how Jesus Christ and his disciples managed to convince people that he walked on water or turned a river into wine, but I know that this did not happen.
And I don't understand how climate change works, but by observing the weather throughout my life I can tell that it's obviously changing.
And I feel like climate change is a decent analogy for this run. In the sense that any one individual case of extreme weather can be put down to a freak once a decade occurance, or tech fail. But the sheer amount of freak extreme weather conditions happening nowadays all combined mean that it's an incredible position to dispute that the world's climate is changing. Once a decade extreme weather conditions now happen regularly all across the world, every year.
And so it is with this run. There are a number of abnormalities that by themselves could have an innocent explanation. The odd tech fail may happen, the odd strong second wind with a fast hour may happen occasionaly. The odd mistake with gaps between start and finish points may happen. The runner may have an uncanny ability to always look fresh at the end of a long hard day. But the sheer volume of all these abnormalities, not just in this run, but in WG's other stunt runs, and RB's transcon, mean that for all these abnormalities to be genuine is just incredible.
And hereby I accuse those still supporting this run of being in the same league as climate change deniers. Your excuses are becoming tired, and you are becoming part of the problem. You are hindering efforts to keep our sport clean and making it easier for social media influencers to scam our sport.
Seriously? Your analogies are cell phones and climate change? You might not understand those things but plenty of people do.
The person who could understand if he’s cheating is the person who gets off the couch, stops playing keyboard warrior and gets out there and watches him for a few days. It ain’t that hard if anyone is really that invested.
It’s not like trying to figure out if or how someone cheated in a race that’s over. It’s ongoing!
Get someone out there.
My other analogy was Jesus, and your waffling was a diversion from my point. You don't need to know how someone is cheating to know they are cheating.
If someone is running a 100 miler and they cross the finish line in under 10 hours despite going through all the check points seemingly fairly, you may not know how they have cheated, but you know they have cheated.
Unless they are the new Kouros/Sorokin , but you won't believe this until they've done it on a track and proven they can beat the world record. If you believe their sub 10 run without this evidence then you are a gullible fool.
And Will C has already gone out an observed. It was bloody obvious that their was a huge slowdown whilst under observation, and a huge speedup when the observation ended! I don't understand why anybody can fail to grasp how dodgy that is.
If you don't understand that it's difficult for people with jobs and limited finances to just drop everything to go out and investigate then you don't have a grasp of reality. If it's so easy then why don't you do it?
Oh hang on, Will C has already done it and his findings still weren't good enough for you. Pure coincidence that Will G had a huge slowdown while Will C was observing!
"You don't need to know how someone is cheating to know they are cheating" almost made me lol. Weak arguments aside, your points just make you seem bitter this group is playing the influencer game and benefitting from it. Also, still not sure what findings there were other than a slower run in bad weather. I don't feel very strongly either way, but a lot of people here just don't like the group and want a reason to call it fake.
Thank you for your response. I would like to think I am not making excuses but requesting rigorous analysis. You are not going to convince anyone there is cheating involved by saying he looks too good, he's running too fast, his wristwatch data looks fishy. Even those things combined will not be enough. You need some harder evidence than this and a good suggestion for how he might be cheating. You are a bit of an anomaly in being someone who has multiday experience yet having big questions about his ability to do this. In Laz's words "he is shooting for a meaningless record, but it is just a publicity stunt. he is wiser than RY. so something not worth the trouble to debunk." For me, the issue about this is that it is not a superhuman achievement, as his detractors as well as his sponsors are claiming. In difficulty level it pales in significance compared to the feats of PK, Dan L, Sorokin etc, so I find the attention he is getting compared to those pepole grating. I think a lot of WillC's sweeping statements are taken at face value without anyone checking. "Nobody in the history of multidays..." Where is he getting these facts from? Take the negative splits. I decided to check one of my 50 mile+ multidays. Of the last 6 days, 1 was a positive split, 1 even and 4 negative. I then looked at the whole thing. The first half took 110 hours, the second 108, so a negative split, just, on that too. Then take the fast 45. Again, "nobody in history..." We then have to narrow this down to non-elite, more than 50 a day for a lot of days, in the last 40 years. How many in this subset has he actually found and analysed to come up with this bold statement? I suspect I could have done that pace for 6 miles in one of my multidays and would probably have ended up walking 7 miles afterwards like he did. The fact is I wouldn't and who knows why he would have, but that is different from saying he couldn't have. So, the only reason I am responding to these objections is because I don't think they are enough. What we need is for someone to fly over there from the UK and follow him for a few days so they can catch him cheating, then we could all know for sure and stop going round in circles on here. Oh wait.
You are making excuses and the rigorous analysis has already been provided. And I don't agree that I'm the anomoly of having multiday experience and disbelieving this run. I think most experienced multiday runners in the discussion do, but we have no poll to be sure.
I do agree with you that this run isn't that high class and Will C has overegged the supposed top class nature of it. I'm also with you in regards to it being possible to negative split multi days. But WG is not genuinely negative splitting all these individual days in the way they make out. And his Jogle negative split is so clearly an outright con. Watch the Youtube video - it's like Rocky Balboa level comeback from the dead!
However while I disagree with some aspects of Will C's analysis, I don't think any of his possible mistakes detract from the general correctness of his main points, or the correct nature of his conclusion. This run stinks!
If you and Chris Heinz were the sherrif and detective of a town with a serial killer, then the whole bloody town would get murdered before either of you two would want to point the finger of blame at someone.
And even when it's just you two and the serial killer left in the town you'd still have a discussion saying, 'well it could be the last man standing in the town that's the killer, but maybe all those wounds that look like bullet wounds were just caused by a mysterious disease that nobody has been able to explain. And we both like to always believe in the good in people so lets not accuse anybody just yet'.
"You don't need to know how someone is cheating to know they are cheating" almost made me lol. Weak arguments aside, your points just make you seem bitter this group is playing the influencer game and benefitting from it. Also, still not sure what findings there were other than a slower run in bad weather. I don't feel very strongly either way, but a lot of people here just don't like the group and want a reason to call it fake.
You are correct. I don't think it's right that Instagram influencers that are relatively poor runners get better sponsorship deals than world record holders like Sania Sorokin.
It's not fair or just. And I think anybody that does think it's fair has poor principles.
It could become more difficult for all runners to get sponsorship once the likes of WG are exposed.
It's the sheer weight of strange stuff though. Balenger's 100 in Central Park in 18hrs is surprisingly frisky, but yet again the HRs are totally without any sort of humanity. Check this out:
0-70k 71-140k 180+ 2 0
170+ 20 0
160+ 35 0
150+ 49 0
140+ 65 4
Does that not strike you as odd that his heart goes over 140 65 times in the first 70k compared to 4 times in the second? Yes, he's slowing a tad, but there are still loads of 6min K's in there, and surely the effort should starting to bite?
Then, when he enters the final 20k of the challenge his heart explodes back into life and he goes over 170 11 times, nigh on identical rate to the first set. 160+ 4 times, and 150+ 4 times. His overal pace is just pretty steady for a natural fade overall. ie the last 20k is slower than 71-140 for avg pace, but at an Hr in the 170s, not 120 & 30s.
Now let's compare to someone like Rakonczay at the world trophy 6 days. Notice how there's barely a deviation at all on his first and second 70k:
170+ 0 2
160+ 0 1
150+ 21 11
140+ 56 52
130+ 68 67
Almost imperceptible difference really. Spiking a little more actually in that second 70, but the 140+ is largely the same, and 130+ misses by just 1.
People can defend RB and WG all they like, but they sure do come with inexplicable anomalies wherever they go. That's 5 huge events now with incomprehensible data. Two by RB and three by WG.
This post was edited 7 minutes after it was posted.