Thank you very much for your excellent analysis. Yes, I observed closely yesterday and their excuses about added cloud cover interfering with the satellite don't ring true.
This is his mileage for the two hours before and a bit after that problem, and yes, it is right around mile 26.
These are time of day, and distance:
1036 15.6
1046 16.4
1056 16.9
1106 17.15
1126 18.8
1146 20.3
1226 23.64
1236 24.24
1246 26.6
1256 26.67
1306 27.03
1316 28.04
So, yes, it's that 2.36 mile jump in 10 minutes that I really hate. There is precious little explanation for the blob just leaping down the road like that. All most strange. And then we check his Strava and there's chaos with both his heart and cadence flatlining. Mobile phone images of the cadence graphs are much prettier and modern than laptops and yesterdays image [that someone sent me completely unprompted as to my concerns] had a complete cadence black out around the time of the 3-8 mile surge. And I have now observed yesterday on a phone and his cadence completely collapses on day 3 and is most odd from then on.
And yes, for someone hobbling on crutches with a daily rate of nearly 13 minute miles, it is incredibly unlikely for them to fire off a 48 minute 5 mile stretch - absolute world class level for sure. Especially if still on the poles. Are you sure the splits for 41-45 and 46 to 50 are right, frothrippah? They seem very high - I am seeing more like 72s not 92.
These are just two times I've caught something terribly off - but I certainly didn't follow the tracker like the last two days, although I remember thinking how quick the blob was jumping and was pretty surprised at some of the speeds, but it was so early in the piece.
I was very surprised indeed they still wanted 60s after the reboot, so I kept a much closer watch, and boom the big jump early. Then yesterday, glacial progress all day before a jolt. Annoying.
Re: Ultrarunningkid's remark about filming it: they only film parts - maybe 10 minutes an hour for footage.
Does anyone know if these RVs have flip-out jump-seats on the side? Paul appears to be sitting on one in the latest group pic and it looks like the outline of another next to him. But I'm really not sure. But we know the RV is usually close by. If he can literally flip down a seat every now and again, it's alluring.
Anyway, all eyes on him now. He will start getting swamped with concerns with any more of these jolts. There are a lot of mistruths coming out from the camp about how well he's doing, stuff like, "flying up these hills" etc. And yet when in the middle of yesterday he fires off a 48 minute 5 miles, we get no footage and aren't told about it.
I also found it offensive that in his speech about canning the record attempt he said, "we did really well last night, the pace was great..." The pace was 30 miles in 10 hours.
Otherwise, a pretty terrible effort from him really. As we suspected 60 miles was also dreamland. 50s will start becoming troublesome now. When will the US Govt. want their boy back?
And dear old Rob, the chief, is now in way over his head, with both his crew boys jumping ship [Mindo bailed before the start]. Rob's a nice guy, but only 25, and comes close to last in quite a few of the ultras he's tried. He left me a voicemail yesterday asking my advice on the sort of training you should do for this event... Er, bit late for that, mate!