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

Quite a lot of vids being circulated now of his dreadful data. His tracker has just done the biggest jump so far, right after what looks like very intense physio:

1228 40.7
1248 41.78
1308 51.34

And over a longer period the tracker has advanced 20.4 miles in the last 3hrs15. Stratospheric pace.

We are right in the grip of this thing - whatever the heck it is...

Thanks for your help people, need to ensure this is legit, but I do have grave concerns.

Naaaah, he's about 80 miles off Pete now, however much that blob leaps down the road it's totally gone.

The chat about it being back on backs up the cynical, ignorant narcissism of the parade, and urinates on history from a great height. All about him, and the warriors that came before were just insufficient and incompetent.

But the news will cheer up his devotees, many who have been saying to not give up, and some have said they'll lose interest now.

It really helps all round for the record to still be on, from a propaganda, media and public relations point of view.

Although he didn't admit it, when Goodge learn the British record was 53 not 65, he quite simply recalibrated, and had a dart at it, and went up to 70 mile days. Similar sort of nonsense here. 50 miles by noon, blimey.

Postscript to this is that the tracker then jumped by a 7 then a 5 to progress 12 miles in an hour. The only plus side is that the blob is now not moving with it. So still 30-odd miles short of Flagstaff.

I simply don't get what's going on, but it's all straight out of the influencer's manual:

1) Blame anomalies all on tech.

2) Rise like a phoenix when you blow up.

Back to back 55+ mile days on some pretty rough terrain + some elevation is surely some kind of second wind.

The double edge sword of having 2+ people filming all the time is that it is super easy to dispel the cadence concerns if you want to, and super suspicious if you don't. Given we have had a few hours now of weird cadence data fallout, it should be super easy to release some videos at those locations of Paul running.

Tech issues happen and some are uncontrollable, but if you have the proof it was an error, share it.

Based on what's in this thread, I feel like the "anything dodgy" ship has already sailed and that the record is therefore off the table. Unless there's some totally innocent explanation for not having a cadence, but yet a really solid running pace, going uphill.

I'm curious to see what happens. If he continues to have cadence drops without a sufficient explanation then without a doubt its not a legitimate attempt.

But I also think its not exactly reasonable to expect his team to fight every claim of illegitimacy in real time while also supporting their runner. I can't image crewing someone for 15 hours a day and then trying to also handle the logistics and handle constant questions.

In all fairness, there are a lot of people hurling claims of illegitimacy on Instagram with zero evidence, so it's not exactly easy to know which concerns are actually honest questions.

This is going to take a few more weeks, and it will get harder and harder to hide any real cheating, and if by some miracle he does set a fast time then he will have all the time in the world while recovering to explain with video evidence why parts look suspicious.

IMO the tech fail excuse is out the window. He’s wearing two watches. Last night he put the file from both on strava briefly before deleting one. They showed matching zero cadence with a moving pace. I’ve sent a screen capture of both to Will, so I assume we’ll hear from him on this before too long.

This is the smoking gun. And he posted it on Strava himself.

So where is the data file you downloaded from Strava proving what you saw? I would rather trust a blind man observing PJ's run than anyone in this thread.

Are you going to be flying out to America again?

a voice of reason among the hysterical prattle.
you don’t belong here.

Hi all,

Yes, I am barely bothering Rob, he just sends me the odd comment or update. And it's fine just to observe and gather data going forward and not push the panic button. It's an astonishingly fast, quick and able day's running for someone so tired with 1,800m of climbing. 7:20 Ks are world class for such a challenging day.

But the cadence drop-outs are now gargantuan, lasting up to 4 miles at a time, particularly on steep climbs. I have the video of both Garmins indicating movement on zero cadence, [before one was deleted] so one of them can't be blamed. Thank you for that. Lots of videos now starting to fly about now, and today's cadence data is simply wild.

Kostelnick couldn't find a single sub 9.30 mile on this equivalent day, despite being in imperious touch with 6:25Ks, and only 1,000m to climb [compared to 1800] and loads of friendly downs. PJ has found seven, with three sub 9s, plus that 7:42. Yes, of course a 7:42 is possible on a steep down, but it comes after 5kms of all but no cadence before it on a steep climb.

These are Kostelnick's fast miles on days 3-9:

Sub 9.30 sub 9 sub 8:30 sub 8

13 3 0 0

And this is PJ:

sub 9:30 sub 9 sub 8:30 sub 8

39 10 6 2

We have barely, if ever, been privy to the incredible speeds that he finds. We have one of our top sleuths joining today before Flagstaff, who will be able to tell us more.

Onwards.

Regarding Flagstaff - he was supposed to be there after 6.6 days. It will take him around 9. It's exactly 1/6th of the way. This gives him a 54 day crossing. But let's say each section takes .4 of a day longer, we have:

9
9.4
9.8
10.2
10.6
11

60.0 days. Heh, that's neat and seems reasonable, but have he and his crew banked on an extra 140 days on the road combined?

Ok, circa 15 miles in 3 hours today. The tracker is just a worthless piece of garbage, and I'll stop sweating that.

His incredible mile splits, completely unheard of for this sort of thing, certainly not by WR holders and Jogle or Transcon, are a grave concern, but maybe he's just literally the world's worst judge of pace and does bonkers stuff.

The sleuth has been with him all day, so I don't think we'll see any freakishly quick miles, and hopefully they don't pop up after he leaves at 20. The cadence wipe-outs are an anomaly too.

We'll know more in a week, but it sounds like he has a bad ankle and at least three niggles, so not sure how much longer this has to go.

I have his cadence through from the sleuth which is absolutely perfect today, no wipeouts, not a quick split in sight and a heart rate significantly higher than the last few days although the pace is lower. All good data anyway.

Limping badly now, and has a very early morning physio. The identity of that physio?

Pete Kostelnick.

That's the difference between you and Pete. Pete actually helps out whereas you literally just go up to Goodge and PJ on the first time meeting and say, and I quote, "You're a fraud! You're a fraud! You're a fraud!"

If it talks, walks and runs like a duck, it's probably Mike Rossi

That's because Pete thinks Goodge is clean, and I don't. And I've never met PJ, it's just that his data is a mess, and there are many anomalies, which we're all trying to get to the bottom of.

But this is a great day: He's been chaperoned for 30 miles by sleuth and PK and their data is posted. No cadence breaks, no super quick miles, although plenty of swift stuff as they cruised down the verts. PKs heart at 150, and sleuth v similar. Goodge was at 110 for his day 10, with loads in the 80s and 90s at a swift pace. And still not a word about his Whoop or what happened to the $100k.

But this is about PJ! Good luck for the second half of the day. The tracker is behaving slightly better but seems perhaps to lag by 3 miles or so for reasons unknown. It is currently at 28.92 at 1435, and they've been out there for over 10 hours, so looks like it could be rather a long day.

If only there was a way for you to actually download PJ's Strava data to analyze it instead of frowing your brow at things you don't understand

I've been following this a bit. All Paul has to do, seeing as he is using a Garmin Enduro, is to post the link to his Garmin Connect account, or even make his data visible and say which of the many Paul Johnsons is him. This locks cadence precisely to pace in a series of graphs. I'm not saying Paul IS genuine or bogus, but he can shut this down FOR GOOD, with that link. 100% proof, instantly.