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

Last 2 miles are a 1.01 and a 1.08 in 10 mins. Stratospheric stuff in the latter period of the day. I've been keeping an eye for 10 hours and they're all like that.

If you take any run, of any day, of any runner on a multiday you'll see huge range in the miles. Just off the top of my hat, you have PKs massive range when climbing on his day 11. Let's check out Women's WR Hoffman climbing on her day 11. Quick, yes or no, will there be range?

Right, a really steady climb from 5 to 25 miles, let's look for 10 minute miles:

11.36
10:51
14:46
11:20
11:01
11:18
20:13
10:55
11:41
22:31
10:39
11:09
10:50
13:53
14:59
14:01
16:11
15:55
15:21
10:35

And a later, shorter 9 mile climb:

11:18
11:20
28:02
12:53
12:26
16:25
16:37
18:22
16:29

Now that my friends is what real multidaying looks like.

Till the morning then.

I note that in the recent vids, he is slowly walking in them [on a still tender ankle], including very recently which coincides with a 10 minute miling spell. He has no company today [except Magic Mike feeding him water melon and Rob], and the van is just right behind him, he's on right side of the road, with the side door wide open - easiest thing in the world to just perch there on the floor of the van.

He is full of beans and happy and says stuff like, "40 miles today in 7 hours". They make no mention of how absolutely, ungodly, stratospherically good that is for a Transcon. Spot on world record pace.

Kostelnick did 38 miles in 6:48 on this equivalent day for his night run.

Hoffman did around 9:20 for 40 on her day 11. [Her day is 52 miles in 11:48.]

They make no mention of being ecstatic that he's 3 hours up on yesterday's pace. Rob just says it's a good day at the office. He's covered 7.7 miles in the last 80 minutes. A pace that hasn't moved all one iota all day. It's 3.20 in the afternoon and he's done 52.5 miles. He could have his 60 miles done in 12 hours, about 8 more miles than Hoffman managed in the same time. Yesterday [with all the company and downhills] he settled for 55 for 14.6.

He has gone from 3.7mph downhill with pacers, to 5mph uphill alone.

This is trolling of the highest order, and he looks defiant, edgy and fresh in the vids, full of beans. He should be absolutely smashed.

I've seen all I need, this is ludicrous.

Hey Brits: if you're so obsessed with running across America, why didn't you keep it in your empire?

Hahaha...1776 MFers!

But this is too good. He's just added 5 miles to his tally in 20 minutes.

1519 52.48m
1539 57.7

Someone’s gotta get some stealth video of him riding. Really expose this guy if that’s what he’s truly doing. The data seems pretty damning in itself. But the masses on IG seem more keen to hero worship him than examine exactly what it is he’s potentially up to

Impressive.

Really enjoying your updates and breakdowns of the splits, keep it up

The current runner we are discussing is serving in the US Navy, I assume he is American. Did the British leave because they thought stupidity was contagious?

Yeah, so I tried this today because it’s such a crazy idea.
Needless to say, it didn’t work at all. I used my phone for an extended stretch like you describe, and my cadence changed from 175 to 168 or so; a negligible amount, and it was the same both in my watch data file and on the Strava cadence graph. In short, doing anything like you describe doesn’t make a difference at all in the cadence reported, and I’d have been flat out astonished if it did.

Looks like some people report having the issue of wrong cadence and others don't. Likely a combination of how much your swing is attenuated and which watch/firmware version is used. It's widely reported on many sites of dropped or lowered cadence from things like trekking poles. Even discussed as a known issue on the official Garmin forums:

You know how to use an API key and yet don't know how to download the Strava data of others? Extremely simple, you are way, way overthinking it.

I just downloaded PJ's Strava data for the last few days to go along with the previous data. I analyzed the cadence, speed, and stride length in detail because I actually have all the details in the files recording every second or so. A level of detail you do not see just looking at the simplified Strava graphs.

And what do I see?

Just to show how wrong you are, I downloaded the full Strava data for today from PJ's account, all 39465 data points recorded at 1 second intervals from his watch. A huge amount of data you just do not see in the simplified Strava graphs or from that tracker. The downloaded data shows nothing of the sort of your accusations about PJ.

The speed line plot shows nothing of the tremendous increase in speed at any time of the day you are accusing him of. PJ actually had very consistent running speed today on 2024-03-11 ranging from 5.5-7 mph as he ran. His walking speed today was easily visible at 3-3.5mph. In fact, today was the most consistent that PJ has been out of all the days so far.

I've also included the cadence line plot I created using the downloaded data. Even in such a small graph you can see it has much, much more detail than what the Strava graphs show you and how misleading the Strava graphs are. It is simply irresponsible to be accusing PJ of something based on dumb Strava graphs that in no way are accurate.

2024-03-11 - Speed Line Plot (in mph):
2024-03-11 - Unsmooth Cadence (in rpm, multiply by 2 for spm):

ibb.co

PaulJohnson - 2024-03-11 06_00 - Smoothed Speed (MPH) Line Plot - Copy

Image PaulJohnson - 2024-03-11 06_00 - Smoothed Speed (MPH) Line Plot - Copy hosted in ImgBB

Link:ibb.co/pvcmN9C

ibb.co

PaulJohnson - 2024-03-11 06_00 - Unsmoothed Cadence (rpm) Line Plot - Copy

Image PaulJohnson - 2024-03-11 06_00 - Unsmoothed Cadence (rpm) Line Plot - Copy hosted in ImgBB

Link:ibb.co/ZxxTsrk

His cadence was fine on Strava too that day. It's the other days. Something was very different then. I don't want to see your unverified data plots - I want the Garmin Connect data via.

I walked with my arms folded for a few hundred metres, felt slightly odd but cadence works just as you would expect because the accelerometer is registering footstrike. The people who report none are I suspect using their devices wrongly, maybe they need to be recording at the time.

I have contacted Strava support for their reply on this.

Day 11 review:

This all ties in to the pandemonium of what these Runfluencers cause. We don't need anything like this level of depth of downloading and computer programming. The big picture is what this thread talks about: Unreal running by no hopers. WG waltzed across the US without a scratch on him with some of the most outrageous splits in multiday history, and no human pulse. His 2nd half of 25 days is the 7th quickest of all time, only four days slower than PK, off barely any training or multiday experience. Now similar sorts of magic are happening here. Nothing is as it seems. We're constantly questioning reality.

The perfect cadence of the last two days is more damning, not less. Many of us screamed as one: "show us a cadence", as his cadence between March 6-9 was a bunch of garbage, but it's suddenly largely perfect again. I said to WG and RB to show us a pulse on April 12 last year. On April 13 they did - a big one. Then it collapsed again. On April 16 I said I'd report them to the authorities if no pulse, on April 17 it screamed back to life. It was then spot on for well over 90% of my time out there, but the moment I left it was only good around 10% for the rest of the journey. And what a journey it was.

Who knows what happened 6-9 March here, but all we can see to the naked eye are dozens of Ks of 0-32spm with lots of those Ks around 7 mins. Very, very odd.

And yesterday's run is unlike anything you'll see in this type of event. No suffering or bad Ks, or commentary or footage of his amazing running. Just talk about his injured foot and lots of footage of him walking very slowly.

His six best miles were: 8.44, 9.03, 9.06, 9.19, 9.26, 9.30. Absolutely stunning for uphill. Hoffman's best on this day, where she ran very well, was a 10.11. Kostelnick tries to match but falls short with his six best of 9.05, 9.06, 913, 9.14, 9.22 and 9.28. What about slow Ks after the walk to start and end? Johnson only goes over 12 minutes twice: at 12.33 and a 13.18. Kostelnick has to turn in a 12.57, 13.18, 13,38, 14.57, 15.52, 16.48, 17.02, 17.06, 17.44 and 23.55. Hoffman's +12 minutes are 12.07, 12.25, 12.26, 12.53, 12.58, 13.53, 14.01, 14.05, 14.26, 14.46, 14.59, 15.21, 15.27, 15.55, 16.11, 16.12, 16.25, 16.29, 16.37, 18.22, 18.59, 20.13., 21.33 22.31, 28.02. Pretty scrappy? No, just how it's done if you want 47 days...

I didn't hear the name Kostelnick ONCE in the 100 days of those PJ videos before this. It was as if he didn't exist, which Pete movingly states he almost didn't after the accident. As he's on the long road to recuperation, this guys trashes his legacy and attempts to grab it all for himself, with absolutely nothing to back it up. It's a crime against the sport. A no-hoper rookie lying to the world about how good he was. His Mont Blanc was absolutely dire as were his two efforts to run to Boston and back from RI. But anyone who questionned him was shot down in flames. I literally lasted 5 minutes and he expelled me with withering sarcasm and wouldn't engage at all. The only thing he asked me was, "what did the guy before Pete ever do"? And I was able to provide him with a good essay of Frank's "lifetime of running" before his Transcon, his 71 for the half, his brutal duel with Lasse Viren at 1980 New York before they dnf'd together, both battered at about 20 miles. I don't see this guy duelling with quadruple Olympic gold winners any time soon.

And all the while the followers grow and the free swag builds to the tens of thousands of dollars of value. These influencers simply don't know when to stop gorging their faces on the free product they get after they've boosted their followers, and the ignorant, fawning companies fall over themselves to back them due to their numbers, regardless of their quality.

Quitting the record like on Day 4 due to "caloric shortfall" was a disgrace. Hang in there, be humble and come down from 40 to 42.2 - still up on PK. That was my original advice before the start, that he rejected. If that's too painful, reduce again to 44, then 46. Don't just immediately jump to 50. How can you have been so dumb? Many people are feeling duped, hamstrung, double-crossed and lied to. That's because they have been. It's just like Goodge saying he has a 2:51 marathon - total trash, or that's he has the British record for Transcon, another lie, or that he's the "world record holder" for the farcical 48/30. All lies for the glorification of his massive ego.

Over in Cali, Camille's stunning run is 9 miles short of the long-standing 6 day WR, but it has been a death march for the last day or so. She has nearly a quarter of a million less followers than Johnson - yet is one of the most pioneering and spectacular ultrarunners of all time. The women's Transcon world record holder, Jenny Hoffman has about 1,000 Insta followers, she'd like more but says all the ones with huge followings pay to have their pages pushed to people. Not her scene.

Crew chief Rob Sembiante has been charming and we've had many pleasant parlays. He's doing his best in difficult circs and is a breath of fresh air after the horrors of Balenger. If this is all on the level I accept it, but I do have grave doubts, what with all the anomalies of the last week, and the van shadowing his every move yesterday on the same side of the road with the side door open so he could "leap in a grab something." His quick miles smash PK out of the water in this event. If it was a boxing match it would have been stopped. PJ has 50 sub 9.30s for days 3-11 to PKs 22; and 21 sub 9s to PKs 3.

I won't post again till completion - let's see what gives, and speak on the other side. It will be an intriguing denouement whatever happens.

An American bragging about a war that was all but won on your behalf (in this case by the French, no less). How on-brand.

Lmao there is no point in trying. Will starts off thinking it's all fishy and if anyone dares to run differently than his God, then they must be cheating.

"Hmm cadence is screwy and the tracker is going fast" Finds out the tracker isn't 100% accurate. "Ohh well that doesn't prove anything".

Even now, "Oh well that is just too smooth! Proves he's dodgy"

I couldn't imagine getting emails from him as a crew chief and still bothering to respond. He just wants them to fail/cheat and takes glee in it

Paul doesn't help himself. He boldly announced that he ran more miles than anyone else in the world last week. Comments are full of mention of Camille...