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

Sure, I can ask, right after you re-upload your Facebook video describing your 10 minutes of alone time with Goodge

Wait a minute. Are you saying the guy who claimed to break a British record for running across America failed to finish a measly 100-mile race? Forget the heart rate data. THIS IS ALL THE PROOF YOU NEED THAT GOODGE IS A FRAUD!!!

Anyone who can run over 50 miles a day over 50 days in a row should be able to handle running 100 miles over a weekend. Goodge has been exposed.

Utter deflection. What on earth has two guys discussing their dead mothers and me saying to Will to please show me a human pulse from then on, got to do with him releasing his Whoop?

Nothing.

We obviously need to 'have a care' with comparing a DNF with fraudulent activity, but the truth is that anyone who knows anything about ultrarunning knows that completing one of the toughest 100 mile races in the world, at altitude, with 5,000m of climbing off a long-term background of under 20 miles a week is doomed to fail.

But the other key reason why WG was never going to get round was the cut-off times for the various checkpoints. They are extremely benevolent and the equivalent to a 5:15-5:30 marathon. But the evidence was overwhelming from his resume: the pace he runs in training, the tiny amount of ultraracing he's done, the dire quality of it when he does, and the horrific form he showed in the lead up to the race, that 36 hours was going to present a huge problem.

In other words he was stuck. The only possible way to get round was to take it steady, but then he would have been timed out.

But he and his handler Balenger don't understand this. Goodge simply bombed off at 18 hour pace, well inside the top 25 for the first 2 hours. He stated a week ago he was looking for a sub 24. How on earth?! At 16 miles he bleats: "I'm ahead of pace, but I would expect that. Whoo!"

He pace creeps up to 20 hours, then 22 and at halfway he is on course for a 24:30 finish... Small problem, his body is now starting to fail as the task is colossal for someone of his training and ability. He states he's upped his dosage of Cordyceps mushrooms from 2 to 5 a day. But they're not going to save him now. Nor is a NuCalm nap.

It was noticeable that in the last footage of him on his IG at 25 miles, he didn't smile, wave or speak to his pal with the camera. Too fatigued.

RB has put bizarre footage up on his IG of 55 miles. There is no commentary, no words of update, simply WG walking very, very slowly down the trail, with ski poles, at around 26-minute miling. The cut-off is already slipping away into the distance, and there are still supposedly more than 21 hours to go. My prediction of a 60 mile drop-out duly occurred.

And since then nothing! IG updates at 10, 16 and 25 miles and then just total silence for over a day. If it weren't for updating his Strava with "got what I deserved", I'd have to choose my words carefully. But we know from that he's fine, and not lying in a ditch or a hospital gurney.

His updates in the fortnight leading up to the race were full of joy, excitement and endless commercials. He was selling five products in a single image just before the race [Coros, Satisfy running, Nordarun, Puresport and 247 Represent.]

It is hugely cynical, now that the race has been a disaster - as it was always going to be - to simply go underground and say nowt. But of course his Strava fans are in ecstasy at his brilliant run:

"Legend".

"Incredible"

"Wow - fantastic. Ultra William"

"Unreal"

"Monster"

"How is that even possible?!?!"

"Looks like a win to me!"

"You're the best there ever was."

All this for someone who's dropped out 60% into a race - in which he wasn't going to make the cut-off anyway. Four M60s finished the course. 65 year old Steve Fry was over an hour and a half inside the cut-off... 62 year old Jaime Ortiz almost 5 hours inside with 31 hours.

This is the level of sleight of hand and false advertising we being dealt with these running influencers who are taking so much from the sport in terms of income and endorsements, stealing the glory from the far more deserving, and making absolute minimum sacrifice in their training.

And if they're faking runs too, which is the allegation at the heart of this thread, that is even more appalling.

Thanks for the detailed race report.

Fraudsters always stumble at real races. That's what I like about real races. You have to show up and everybody gets to see what you've got.

It wasn't much in this case.

Yes, all very well to excel in private, manufactured adventure runs, where there are no rules and you can basically do what the fugg you want, but he got burned here.

He says in a piece to camera: "I'm going to focus on real races in the coming year, and stop making sh*t up all the time..." So race then. And that means do some training and complete the courses.

I fear he'll somehow still finagle it to a triumph. Where the heck is he? What's going on? We know he's out there somewhere because he put that pithy status update on Strava. All highly bizarre.

Lol he has wiped off the race video and the preview posts he has posted. Just gonna pretend like this never happened.

Whuuut!? Surely these are bots, or some guy in Albania or somewhere who is paid to create accounts and post generic well wishes all day

Goodge is a parasite but if those are somehow real people, I've more contempt for them

Yes, someone else wrote me recently and said he felt very strange reading the comments on his Berlin Marathon, and that they didn't feel human or normal.

It is odd that out of an eye-watering 32,142 followers only couple are moved to comment on the race itself, with one saying: "U suck, I could easily have finished that", and another: "What happened?"

And that's all she wrote; about the Kodiak 100... except for 20 other souls telling him he's awesome. Such little intellectual and emotional curiosity.

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Another thing to note is that his falling 40 miles short, is actually a great deal worse than that. The entire heart, secret dread and savage fear of this race is the colossal six mile climb that starts at 67.7 miles. That is what people train so much for and have nightmares about. It's the race's USP and it only truly begins at here, and where true fitness, effort, ability and background count. And WG was out of gas 7.5 miles before that, with the dnf was on the cards significantly earlier.

So this wasn't a 40 mile dnf, it was physically and mentally more like 60, a simply colossal shortfall. Even 10 is a lot! [As it feels more like 20].

Hi all,

The following is a strong insight of what this thread has covered. The Kodiak shows us precisely what Goodge does at what pace and heartrate and we can compare his miles 42-48 there, with his momentous 42-48 at Transcon on May 12 of which much has been said.

And for further comparison we can take Miles 42-28 of Pete Kostelnick's World record which I've taken to ensure randomness as October 13th, [the same day as Kodiak], and it comes fairly late in the challenge, as May 12 did for WG. I have taken Pete's stretch as some 10 miles from the day's end to match Goodge. I have also included a fairly late Robbie Balenger Transcon 42-48 sequence [9 May 2019], and the men and women Jogle world records for Dan Lawson [day 7] and Carla Molinaro [day 9].

I include elevations too as some like to highlight that as possible reasons for all this:

Figures from left to right: time for the 6 mile stretch; elevation; HR

Goodge Transcon 56; 8; 127

Kostelnick Transcon 73; 37; 169

Balenger Transcon 74; -32; 105

Lawson Jogle 74; 139; no HR

Molinaro Jogle 91; 10m; 120

Goodge Kodiak 97; -107; 120

There are many things to note from these numbers but here are six:

1) The ludicrous nature of Goodge's 56 for 6 miles very late into the day at Transcon, off a pulse of just 127 is clear to see. The next best on the list, the world record holder by four days, is running 17 minutes slower, with a pulse of 169 to Goodge's 127.

2) Balenger neatly sandwiches Kostelnick and Lawson for time which is pretty amazing considering the discrepancy in class of the runners. Balenger has regularly demonstrated that 100 miles in 24 hours is his limit, but Lawson and Kostelnick are 165 men. So for him to be punching at the same weight as them, late into the challenge, having been at around 50km days in the early stages, before a massive revival, is very odd indeed.

3) And this doesn't even touch upon the heart rate. Kostelnick is at the alarming heights of 169, Balenger at just 105, as he was for some 90% of his Transcon. For him to just have had a 65 day tech fail is implausible, particularly as his protege Goodge then ran his Jogle a few months later with identical HR traits [dropping to as low as 88 for day 4].

4) Goodge ran his 56 minutes at an HR of 127 [to Kostelnick's 169]. This compares to him running the Kodiak at 120, for a time 41 minutes slower for the 10k.

5) The 42 mile mark is early doors for the Kodiak. Goodge should really still be fresh as a daisy. And the stretch is benign, with a lovely 107 metre descent. And yet he could still only find a 97.

6) WGs Kodiak heart rate is clearly perfect - as it always is for him in both training and racing.

These massive anomalies are the reason this case is so important, and the damage that Digital Doping by Influencers is doing to the sport. As ever, Balenger and Goodge point blank refuse to address any of these concerns, refuse to release Goodge's Transcon Whoop, and blame this investigation on the death of my mother 21 years ago.

RB is a mediocre hobby jogger just like most of us who is trying to be a runfluencer by doing dumb circus acts. I categorize these stunts as entertainment, not as an athletic achievement.

Goodge just seems like a straight up fraud, and a cocky one at that. He's better looking than RB so his dumb stunts receive more likes.

A chilling example of how Goodge fakes runs to make him appear vastly superior to what he is able to do, is here from 10 April 2021:

There is no way Goodge runs this well. His recent workout of 12 x 400 with huge recoveries at 80s is more his mark. That's a world away from this which is 3:10 - 3:14 Ks, and a sequence of 4.5k in around 15 minutes in the middle of the session.

But then you see it is ALSO the session of Jack Bywater who was there that day who says he's coached by WG:

strava.com

Lunch Run - William G's 5.9 mi run

William G ran 5.9 mi on Apr 10, 2021.

Link:www.strava.com/activities/5103132475

strava.com

Session with coach Will - Jack B's 9.6 km run

2x5’, 10’, 2x5’ (2mins recovery) some happy splits today

Link:www.strava.com/activities/5101283032/l...

Quite incredible: "Coach" a far more able runner [sub 2:50 marathon, 34 for the 10k] and then just fling his session up and claim it as your own, happily accepting the 60 kudos, with an image of you running at the track.

I have asked Strava about this and they said that as it hasn't taken WG to the top of leaderboards they will allow it. But "we don't understand why he has done this."

I do.

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I also pointed out to Strava that WG's leisurely hike the other day of 11k in 2hrs18 was exactly the same heart rate [108] as a vast majority of his and RBs fundraising adventure runs, where they do stuff life 90k in 12 hours.

Their reply was legendary: 'an HR of 108 is just right for a 2:18 11k hike.'

I had to gently point out that it's not the hike that's the problem, but the other 15,000kms I've flagged as anomalous, with loads of 5-7 min Ks at 108.

But it's tough to make progress with Strava as they sent him a big goody box recently and sponsor him.

Thanks Will. We need more people like you to defend the integrity of the sport.

I don't have a strava account so can't see the details of the runs, but if Goodge has genuinely misrepresented someone else's data as his own then that removes all doubt about his honesty. That doesn't happen by accident and there would no longer be any excuse for 'benefit of the doubt'. Are you able to post the numbers here?

That’s something else the way Goodge just took that Strava run and duplicated it exactly on his Strava. I’ll never understand these Social Media types…I find them fascinating and very sad at the same time. Good work Will.

Yes, sure. This is what Bywater posted that he did.

1 1.00 km 3:11 3:11 /km 3:11 /km 0 m 166 bpm
2 0.56 km 1:48 3:12 /km 3:13 /km 0 m 174 bpm
3 0.15 km 2:00 12:56 /km 12:53 /km 0 m 135 bpm
4 1.00 km 3:10 3:10 /km 3:10 /km 0 m 173 bpm
5 0.56 km 1:49 3:13 /km 3:13 /km 0 m 180 bpm
6 0.16 km 2:00 12:31 /km 12:50 /km 0 m 135 bpm
7 1.00 km 3:23 3:23 /km 3:23 /km 0 m 171 bpm
8 1.00 km 3:24 3:24 /km 3:25 /km 0 m 178 bpm
9 0.93 km 3:11 3:25 /km 3:25 /km 0 m 179 bpm
10 1.00 km 3:17 3:17 /km 3:17 /km 0 m 172 bpm
11 0.51 km 1:42 3:18 /km 3:19 /km 0 m 179 bpm
12 0.17 km 2:00 11:45 /km 12:05 /km 0 m 137 bpm
13 1.00 km 3:14 3:14 /km 3:14 /km 0 m 174 bpm
14 0.54 km 1:45 3:14 /km 3:14 /km 0 m 180 bpm

And this is Goodge. Identical, except with heart rates removed [and he always posts HR]:

1 1.00 km 3:11 3:11 /km 3:11 /km 0 m
2 0.56 km 1:48 3:12 /km 3:13 /km 0 m
3 0.15 km 2:00 12:56 /km 12:53 /km 0 m
4 1.00 km 3:10 3:10 /km 3:10 /km 0 m
5 0.56 km 1:49 3:13 /km 3:13 /km 0 m
6 0.16 km 2:00 12:31 /km 12:50 /km 0 m
7 1.00 km 3:23 3:23 /km 3:23 /km 0 m
8 1.00 km 3:24 3:24 /km 3:25 /km 0 m
9 0.93 km 3:11 3:25 /km 3:25 /km 0 m
10 1.00 km 3:17 3:17 /km 3:17 /km 0 m
11 0.51 km 1:42 3:18 /km 3:19 /km 0 m
12 0.17 km 2:00 11:45 /km 12:05 /km 0 m
13 1.00 km 3:14 3:14 /km 3:14 /km 0 m
14 0.54 km 1:45 3:14 /km 3:14 /km 0 m

I don't even know the complex logistics of how you put someone else's session up as your Strava. Balenger does it too, sharing a Transcon run with his sister-in-law, who posted an identical run and stated how thrilled she was to have run so far, and so well.

I know that people can do it in an honest fashion if their watch breaks or something and they definitely did a run, but it's incredibly rare; and so many of Goodge's runs are far, far too quick. The very next day after this fake session, he posts a half-marathon that he calls: "Easy Long". It is a 1:33!

That's not easy, and he knows it darn well. HR switched off again. Six months later he did the Bristol half in 94. We're just supposed to buy that he fired off a 1:33 half on London's streets, taking in pretty much the whole capital, at PB pace, after a stonking track session, with at least 50 busy roads to cross and/or traffic lights to wait for.

The run gets 89 Kudos and one person saying: "that's good sexy pace." He dips down to a 3:58k for the 17th. The first half [10.55k] is 47:50, the second is 45:34. Absolutely smoking, for more than a 2 minute negative split.

Now that it's shown just how easily he flings up clearly faked runs - you can't even click on the Laps button for this one - everything about the last 4.5 years, and this entire million dollar operation becomes clear.

It is up to this thread to continue to shine the light. We'll never get any interaction or explanation from Balenger and Goodge, only excoriating insults that runners are losers and that I'm deranged.

keep up the good work willv!!!!

Hear, hear! Well done willvlc!! There have always been prima facie red flags on Goodge's achievements, it has felt all wrong. But your work has uncovered some real discrepancies and I reckon there's a heck more to come. I don't know if any of it will convince his army of
Kudos followers but if it goes some way to stop him cashing in for the future then that's something. As many have said from the start it's all about integrity.
Please keep up the good work if you can.

Thanks Will. Those numbers are damning. I'd love to know what he was thinking. Blatent dishonesty, but for what reason? The online approval of a handful of strangers? If so, that's more than a little sad. If it didn't seem like a successful grift I'd feel sorry for him.

Not sure how I missed a 130 page thread developing over the last 6 months… Maybe I thought this was the same one as a few years ago.

Can Gault write an article on this guy and get him even just a tiny bit more mainstream blasted? Chavez should write an article on the recent history of running cheats