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

don't be so daft, of course I wouldn't drive alongside - people are going 90. I was just driving past to around 3 miles up the road.

That I agree with but the Outside piece missed mentioning me calling Cockerell a huge fraud and faking numbers

I'm pissed they used my quote that I came up with earlier in this thread, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," without attributing it to me.

Yes, but the good news is... you're still alive. Many feel that Carl Sagan died in '96, but he is alive and well and whining on LR.

I was on your side this entire thread and now I may have to switch to the Goodge side after that vicious insult.

How do you know? Were you there?

You seem to be writing with the authority of someone who has eyewitness knowledge. Did I miss it when you admitted you were part of the crew?

And who is 'everyone' whose life was being endangered? This seems to be the same WC type of hyperbole that you have refered to as lieing!

Overall, decent job. Wish he had looked into how much actually made it to the charities.

Anyhow, at the end of the day, even if they aren’t fully outed, WillC has caused them many hours of worry. And my gut feel is that they well deserve it.

One big miss in his article is he doesn’t capture that there are many more people besides Will C on the LetsRun thread who are suspicious, and that LetsRun is famous for busting many cheaters in the same exact way we undertook this thread. He should have referenced many of LR’s famous busts and that the LetsRun collective are the experts at crowdsourcing knowledge and analysis. He also should be getting quotes from Will Goodge directly rather than his handler. He also should have quotes some post posts from the thread (funny ones, insightful ones, etc).

Ultimately, his article doesn’t communicate that there is baseline history of lots of people cheating and LR catching them.

Yes, this is an excellent article! A few parts that stood out to me:

1. The author clearly outlined the heart rate issue, and he cited a professor of exercise science who agreed that the data “raised some eyebrows” and didn’t make sense.

2. We get a response on the heart rate issue (sort of) from Balenger, who said they didn’t have the “time or mental capacity” to sift through the data, and that Goodge ran the second halves of the daily runs in a “more relaxed and enjoyable manner” (invoking memory of Alan Webb). Translation: they are dodging this issue because they don’t have a good explanation. As noted by others here, they also have to be very careful to not say “tech fail” out of fear of being sued by the tech companies.

3. We get confirmation that it was indeed Kostelnick posting in this thread.

4. The issue with the tracker is raised, with damning testimony from both Kostelnick and previous record holder Frank Giannino Jr. saying that wearing a tracker is important for official record attempts, and Giannino affirming that not wearing a tracker is “a major red flag.”

5. Balenger said: “The live tracker in the van was always intended to be there strictly for entertainment purposes, not to verify the validity of his run.” Translation: this run was more about engaging social media followers and raising/making money than a genuine athletic performance.

Overall, I see this article as a huge win for those of us who don’t believe Goodge’s run was legit. The article raises awareness about the issues with this run, and it even linked to this thread so people can read more about it. Hopefully people see and read the article when they google Goodge’s name, and more and more people start to question Goodge and Balenger. Well done, Will C and team!

I was thinking today about the maffetone method and Goodge and Balenger. For those that don't know the Maffetone method is a way of training that is claimed to get you running (by force) into zone 2 of heart rate. I won't argue it's validity because I gave it a try and think is is at best a way to get you to slow down your running a bit. But the maffetone method says most people run too hard and need to slow down to get into their aerobic zone 2 area. He says 180- minus your age will give you the top end of your zone 2. (generally speaking)

When people try this, they really struggle to run slow enough. Even seasoned runners find they need to walk to keep their heart rate low enough and then give up on it.

Goodge is 29 and Robbie is 39. That means their Maffetone zone 2 are 141-151 and 131-141 respectively.

Now think about the fact that they are running 50 milers per day and have zero cardiac drift.
And they are running 2nd half of these runs at heart rate 105-115! (per strava). They are running 30 beats lower than the Maffetone method that most say is too low for zone 2!

This is just another way to visualize how off the wall those heart rates are.

somebody asked for the watch files a while back. has anyone put in a request to Team Goodge for these?

The English TransCon mark of 64 days that Goodge initially believed he was going after belonged to the late Bruce Tulloh, a British athletics legend who won gold in the 5,000-meters at the 1962 European Championships. Cockerell, who knew Tulloh personally, seems to have been agitated that a swaggering TikTok adonis with a very modest running resume wasn’t treating Tulloh with proper reverence. (Tellingly, neither party knew at the outset that the actual English record is believed to belong to John Lees, who crossed in 53 days in 1972.) Indeed, Cockerell sometimes comes off as a disgruntled oldtimer who resents what it means to be a professional endurance athlete in the age of social media

The Outside article shows that Will Cockrell has a personal vendetta against Goodge for not having enough "reverence" for Bruce Tulloch that Cockerell knows personally. This explains why Cockerell is such a lunatic, he has a personal agenda to destroy Goodge and Ballinger for what Cockerell sees as them not bowing down to his personal friend Tulloch that Cockerell believes should have the record forever.

So not only did Will Cockerell commit repeated fraud by claiming he did Strava data analysis he never did, Cockerell is not a neutral party and has as big of a personal bias as you can get to personally see to it that he destroys Goodge and Ballinger no matter if Cockerell has to lie or not.

outsideonline.com

Why Did an Unofficial Run Across the Country Turn into Running Internet Drama?

mmirhashem

When fitness influencer William Goodge ran across the country to raise money for charity, his feat received unprecedented scrutiny from hardcore running fans

Open link

even if you remove Cockerell and his analysis entirely from the picture there are still enough red flags to make most discerning running fans question the validity of Goodge’s claims.

Yes very good, balanced article.

Also I could hardly have asked for a better way to underline my advice to you. Even if everything you say about heart rates is accurate, you will still come up against lines like this.

So stop wasting your time.

I don't think it was being evenhanded when it gave credence to the trope that Will C's driving was to blame for Will G throwing a rock at his car.

In most sports that I know of, if you assault a referee you get banned for life. And the media aren't going to stand for any of your excuses. You'll get villified.

This was a disgusting violent act against somebody who was genuinely motivated by keeping our sport clean. Even if you believe the Goodge run is clean and Will C was out if order in his criticism, this violence still deserved to be condemned.

And the lies about being the fastest Brit to complete a transcon should also be condemned. This is 100% proven beyond all doubt that this is a lie. So again, Outside magazine has not given proper criticism to this. I don't think the article is close to being fair.

On balance, i find that 'sneakers' actually leads me to beleive that the run is fake since there is always some moran pretending to support the accused. and he has already admitted to lying but hasn't answered me when i pointed it out.

and i said the 'extraordinary claims' line.

This is another major flaw of the article. It also gives credence to the Goodge/Balanger red herring that Will C is a biased, crazed madman out to defend his close friend Tulloh's record at any cost.

This has been a huge red herring from the start. Will C is a passionate supporter of British running and I have no doubt that if Dan Lawson, myself, or any other multiday runner from the UK went out to have a go at a running a Transcon then he would be extremely supportive in an attempt to break any record.

Will C was not angry or upset that Tulloh's record would be broken, he was angry because somebody was bragging about beating it who looked like he may be cheating! It quickly transpired that Lees actually beat Tulloh's time decades ago, but Will C perservered to expose the fraud, because he was motivated by a desire to keep the sport clean, not protecting a friend's record.

To be frank, all this supposed jealousy about records doesn't seem to exist in ultramarathon. People are always very friendly towards others who are attempting to break their record, and I've never encountered a single example of someone getting angry or upset because a friend's record has been beaten.

I think it's very shoddy of Outside to have given more oxygen to this trope from the Goodge/Balanger camp. It's part of an attempted character assasination against Will C that has consistantly questioned his sanity and tried to depict him as derranged. It's below the belt and out of order.

It's always a very sinister and desperate attempt of criminals and their lawyers to question the sanity of victims and witnesses, especially in crimes against women like rape and domestic abuse. And it's disgusting that Sneakers On The Ground has stooped to this level. It's the behaviour of lowlife scumbags.

Right. The article speaks positively about Pete K being part of the crew that initiated the scrutiny of the Rob Young scam. They certainly did not offer any of Rob Young's viewpoints or opinions as to why he might have felt Rob K was biased and untrustworthy. The attack by Balenger on Will C's motivations is a sign of guilt IMO. Just like Lance Armstrong used to do.

Good point. After giving the article another read, I also object to us being described rather derisively as a “tiny minority of running nerds who obsess over this stuff.” Such characterization makes it seem like our concerns are trivial. “This stuff” consists of integrity, accuracy of records, and respect for other runners. I think “this stuff” warrants our attention and care.