A new across Australia record or a whiff of Robert Young?

A quick Strava search.

He ran 2.57 at the GCM in July, seems like a training run as he ran 1.28 half the day before.

18/7 100 km 9.11 and 23/7 100 km 9.09 training runs.

His actual days crossing Oz with elapsed times.

Sept.1. 103K. 11.41 2. 102K 13.16. 3.101K 13.38. 4. 100K 13.00. 5. 100K 12.50. 6. 101K 11.44. 7. 100K 12.01. 8. 100K 13.22. 9. 101K 13.25. 10. 100K 13.30. 11.100K 14.49. 12. 42K 9.20. 13. 41K 8.35. 14. Zero. 15. 100K. 13.57. 16. 100K 14.11. 17. 100K 15.01. 18. 101K 13.55. 19. 76K 11.45. 20. 100K 12.59. 21. 76K 11.45. 22. 34K 8.16. 23. Zero. 24. 100K 14.15. 25. a) 67K 10.05 b) 33K 4.13. 26. 80K 12.46. 27. 26K 5.40. 28. 102K 12.39. 29. 100K 13.00. 30. 70K 10.36. Oct 1. 85K 12.25. 2. 55K 11.17. 3. 85K 13.01. 4. 100K 14.38. 5. 80K 13.32 6. a) 62K 8.31 b) 34K 5.17. 7. 56K 11.07. 8. 100K 13.34. 9 100K 12.43. 10. 80K 13.43. 11. 100K 13.48. 12. 95K 13.41. 13. 101K 14.04. 14. 81K 13.17. 15. 106K 14.44. 16. 114K 15.22. 17. 60K 9.03.

That's not bad, but indicative of 2:4o plus marathon potential.

You list should have active running time instead, so that you can work out the pace. Some of his segments will have him running close to a silver at Comrades

I'll sponsor him to Comrades, if he doesn't run 6hrs, he triples my money back.

I would be really surprised if this guy did that for real. Since he has no ultrarunning background I would think he his a cheater.

Running 100k back to back is not that easy and it doesn't get easier on the open road.

Yes. You need to 'appoint' respected runners in every area, easy to crowd source these days , especially for something so big. Every day is 'signed off'.

Otherwise this is rubbish.

seems to me like this guy took a few liberties. perhaps not to the extent of Rob Young but I seriously doubt that this is 100% legit.

As far as I can tell, these splits look legit. Based on this information, I don't think there is reason to believe that he cheated. The only big question mark is that pulling this off would require a substantial ultramarathon talent, but this guy is relatively new to the sport.

The Strava data looks legit enough, but the vagueness is the real issue. What’s to say he didn’t share the watch around with his team etc. etc. especially when he was injured. I don’t buy running through a suspected stress fracture on day 13, by cutting kms from 100 to 80, and said injury disappearing over the next 30+ days of running through sheer ‘mind over matter’. For $2.5 million donations (public idiocy) there should be a lot more transparency. I also don’t really buy the lack of running history, but maybe that was a ploy to heighten the dramatics of the story for SM/gofundme.

Quite the opposite really.

There is no reason to believe that this guy did this. This is pretty much telling you that I ran a 2:05 Marathon. Nobody just runs 100k days for weeks without being known from other ultrarunning events.

Has he done a 24 hour race or 100 miler? No
Has he done a 6 day or longer race? No.

What’s most suss is he was sponsored by Puma.

The Strava data is plausible, but there are a few things that just seem strange.

The Charity he donated all his money to is a very small, unknown charity founded in 2020 (the same year he took up running and ran 50 marathons in 50 days)
https://www.acnc.gov.au/charity/charities/830d8b68-8369-ea11-a811-000d3ad1fbf8/profile
https://wearemobilise.com/

He jogged the City2Surf a couple of weeks before the beggining of the 47 day run and covered 14.2km @ 4:54/km with an average heart rate of 153 bpm
https://www.strava.com/activities/7633910380

Compare that with 09.10.22, where he has run 100km @ 5:25/km at a heart rate of 129 bpm.
https://www.strava.com/activities/7933951607

Even with rest breaks and heart rate depression from weeks of running that just doesn't seem right.

The other thing I find interesting is that his heart rate really only gets above 140bpm on day one when leaving and the final day when running to the coast in Sydney.
On Day 1 he covered 103km @ 6:05/km at 146 bpm.

Then for days and days he runs huge distances with an average heart rate in the 120's.

Then on the final day it cranks up at the end of the run, when admittedly he does speed up. Both of these days there were large crowds around watching him run.

Maybe his heart rate monitor is no good? Maybe he's just a genetic freak? Maybe he rode his bike for 3,000 km?

Thanks for the analysis. Bicycle seem to be the only reasonable option.

He allegedly ran ‘50 marathons in 50 days’ during lockdown, which is where the media hype began. As for any official ultra race or event, seemingly no.

Funny you say that as I had the same thought when I saw the Puma logo on the RV - even mentioned it to a mate.

I've contacted a colleague in Australian news media about my suspicions and was told that Brockmann is "too much of a hero in the eyes of the public and too good a feel-good story" for his outlet to touch it.

BTW, I'm the OP but have corrected the username as autocorrect changed the legendary Asher Delmott's name when I first posted.

Now that someone mentions it, there are a lot of very fishy things about this run.

The physio from his team is doing some self promo by blogging about Brockman’s injuries, which seems patently incriminating:

“Alright, I arrived on day 3. Nedd had run over 300km by this point into some ferocious head winds and constant rain. Nedd was in bed when I arrived from Perth but I was keen to get my eyes on how the body was holding up. The next morning and the first thing I noticed was his knees. There was a good amount of swelling in both of them. Something that we knew we would be dealing with given Nedd was dealing with knee pain before the ran began. As Nedd’s mantra in his home gym goes “no one has ever died from busted knees”.”

Hmmm but were they capable of running 80+km for 45 days subsequently?

And later:

“Day 12 I got the call. Nedd can’t run. He can’t pick up his foot anymore. His plan was to walk the 100km until 1am in the morning. I called Nedd - a strange sense of calm even as he was dealing with the potentiality of what could lie ahead. I distinctly remember him saying “I am just going to keep walking until the wheels fall off.” And he would have unless we convinced him otherwise. I still think about that moment. How far would he have gone if we didn’t convince him to pull up stumps at 42.2km that day? It’s scary to think about really.”

The quick fix, after a 13 hour drive off course to the nearest town with an MRI machine:

“I must give a shout out here to Sports Doctor Dr David Samra. He played a pivotal role in assisting what followed with regards to the cortisone injection and his communication with Nedd was incredible. I remember Nedd telling me it really helped to hear Dr Samra acknowledge his frustrations and he laid out the options very clearly. We put you in a boot and let it settle or we trial an injection into the tendon sheath. He knew the answer he was going to get.
An ultrasound guided injection followed - one injection into the tibialis anterior tendon sheath and one into the extensor digitorum tendon sheath. If you ever have to have this done, it’s not pleasant. Here is Nedd’s description.
“The cortisone didn’t really inject very well as there was so much swelling, it felt like expanda foam going into a tiny little nerve, but we got it in.”
We opted for the use of a dictus band (great suggestion from the doc). Now this band is a type of neurological brace - essentially we use them in people with foot drop. It is a brace that attaches around the ankle joint with a small rubber band that attaches to your laces. When the toes point when you push off it assists in pulling the ankle upwards. Nedd had lost his ability to lift his foot up by this point and in fact he couldn’t really move his foot and ankle at all without severe pain.”

Nice find.

So the guy had already huge problems after 300k and then magically "things worked out"?

Yeah, right.

Nice find. Just unbelievable that the public and media falls for these stories.

The Puma references are to the fact that the brand isn’t renowned for distance running shoes.

My media colleague has come back to me suggesting that his organisation (the ABC – the Australian one) is interested in digging a little deeper.
What are the keys points/suspicions that they should investigate?
Do they require raw data from the watch(es) or can you do a decent analysis just from what’s publicly available on Strava?

My quick thoughts are:
1. The pace of many of the runs just doesn’t seem believable.
2. The constant heartrate seems suspicious.
3. Over coming the early injury doesn’t seem believable.
4. His body shape (very little leg muscle definition, lots of upper body muscle definition), doesn’t seem to marry up with 3953km in 47 days. I admit, this is more of a gut feeling rather than anything empirical.
5. The brand-new charity seems suspicious – again, a gut feeling.

And, I’m equally happy to be proven wrong as it would be an amazing story if legit.

It seems like you have covered most bases there. I did a little reading about the Robert Young case and I think to truly discredit him the watch would need to be investigated. Cadence seemed to be Young’s undoing because he was riding in the RV, but the data for Brockman’s cadence seemed to be fairly consistent when I had a brief look.

Would be very interested to see what some journalists with trained investigative capacities could do. I spoke to a friend who is a clinical physician about it and he seemed skeptical specifically regarding the injuries. I am also happy to be proven wrong about it. It’s a great story, but if it’s a lie, it sends a pretty terrible message to a lot of people about running/the body/injury/altruism/masculinity etc. And then there’s the money.