The incredible story about supposedly breaking down in the Mojave desert while Young runs ahead and calls them from Laughlin has not been explored nearly enough.http://www.marathonmanuk.co.uk/2016/05/21/day-3-5-a-pick-up-for-a-hiccup/I'm piecing this together from the tracking data and from the blog post linked above.Day 5 is May 18. They start a little before midnight the previous evening outside of Danby, CA. Young covers the distance to Goffs, CA (around 20 miles) in a little less than four hours. The time stamp in Goffs is 3:35am. Youngs has been running on route 66; if he continues on 66 to highway 95, he'll be in Palm Gardens, NV in 30 miles. Should not be a problem for the marathon man.Instead, this happens:
You need to click the post and look at the picture to see this. They turn off onto an unnamed, unmarked road in the middle of the desert for no reason at all.
Also look at the tracking. If the two paths on the tracking map are accurate, and they turned of the highway about 20 miles into the run, then this all took place at about 3:30 in the morning.
They get stuck, as anybody would who isn't driving a Jeep or an ATV. And then this happens:
Look up the roads outside of Goffs, CA on Google maps. I don't know which part of this story is more unbelievable: that a tow truck would pick you up in the middle of the desert within 30 minutes; that a tow truck would PICK YOU UP AT 3:30 IN THE MORNING (note the time stamps for when the two paths diverge); that you'd let your friend run into the desert on an unmarked road in the dark by himself; that the sun would be out at 3:30 in the morning (look at the picture in the post, then check the timestamps); that your friend would call you from Laughlin, not Palm Gardens, which is the closest town. Laughlin is 20 miles (!) past Palm Gardens.
Maybe they didn't turn off of route 66 at Goffs where the tracking shows two paths diverging and as the narration would suggest. (This would of course mean that the second path was fabricated). Maybe they turned off later, where there is a weird squiggle in the tracking east of Goffs. That doesn't make any sense either; there is already a three-hour gap between timestamps on route 66 itself. From 4:35 to 7:45, they cover what looks like about a quarter of a mile on route 66. There are no side roads in the vicinity.
There is a little off-highway squiggle starting at the 10:03 timestamp, east of Homer but prior to the highway 95 exit, and it's 12:30 before they're back on 66 heading the right direction. Is this where they tried to off-road and had to wait for a tow? At this point Young would have been running for over 10 hours, but they are 40 miles from where they stayed the night, not 20 ("we turned left about 20 miles into his running, onto a sandy trail through the desert"). It's the middle of the day (high of 95 degrees that day, according to Weather Underground). So after putting in 40 miles, he heads out for another 40 miles in the middle of the day, leaving his friends and venturing out on an unmarked desert "road" that looks more like an ATV trail. It's a 90-degree day, his friends have broken down in the desert, but he doesn't stop in the first town-- he runs another 10 miles to Laughlin before checking in with them. Except he makes it to Laughlin before they even get back on the road ("Rob had called on the mobile since and told us to meet him in Laughlin.")
Obviously none of this happened. But if it was even attempted-- if there was any point at with Young ran ahead on a desert trail in the middle of the day in that part of the country with his friends and support crew behind-- he's lucky to be alive. The Mojave desert is no joke.
This is what happened instead (or some version of it):
Day 5 starts a little before midnight. They put in the usual ~20 miles in ~four hours. Then he starts walking, from 3:35 to 4:35, and covers about 3 miles. Then they decide to stop and sleep for an hour, but it turns into three hours (4:35-7:45, from earlier in the post: "Those 1 hour meal breaks can become 2-3 hour sleeps.")
When they wake up, they realize how screwed they are. It's already boiling hot at 7:45 in the morning, and they've only covered 23 miles in 8 hours. It's another 45 to Laughlin. They are five days in and it doesn't look good for the record, but hey, got to get started somewhere, so might as well keep running. The next 4 miles don't go too fast either-- they take a couple of hours. But look, a shortcut! Young figures he can cut off a few miles if they run on the dirt and cut the tangent to highway 95. That doesn't work; now it's 10:00 and they're stranded in the desert, with less than 30 miles on the day. They call a tow truck, say screw it, this day doesn't really count anyway, drive to Laughlin at regular speed, and hit the casinos.
Oh right, the tracking! Shit! We need to go on our tracking site and make up a second semi-plausible route for Rob which supposedly includes running in an EXACT STRAIGHT LINE from Christmas Tree pass to Laughlin, crossing a state highway four times but never running on it or on any trail at all, just "through the desert and over a big hill." Seriously, look at it. It's laughable.
And also, it turns out he does have a GPS watch? But it's only represented on the tracking page for this one stretch?
Yep. It all checks out.