Robert Young fakes run across America

[quote]further information? wrote:

After questions arose about his transcontinental run, online scrutiny turned to other details of the celebrated running career of "Marathon Man UK." In April, Simon and Schuster published Young's best-selling account of how he became an instant marathoner, reeling off 370 marathons in twelve months with no training. Questions now linger about details in the book since the description of the times, routes, and order of his initial marathons do not match information he posted online in Facebook at the time of those events.

Information on his website (www.marathonmanuk.co.uk) also seems exaggerated. Young claims personal records of 2:41 for the marathon, 1:08 for the half marathon, and 30:47 for 10K. No verification has been found for any of these marks. Possibly, the 10K time is simply a 7K split Young posted in the 2003 Cambridge Duathlon (http://www.duathlon247.com/results_1129.html). His best known marathon mark is 3:07 at Virgin's London Marathon in April 2015.[/quote

Not only doesn't match Facebook, doesn't match his contemporaneous MapMyRun routes and records for those dates.

Doubler wrote:

https://twitter.com/marathninvestgr/status/744169141817450497

So, count back 2.5 weeks from yesterday according to his FB page - by his own admission this significantly predates his mileage dropping and being knowingly observed. They didn't think through their backstory, did they? He was kicking footballs and jumping gleefully from rocks with a minor stress fracture, but it only became an issue after running on it for 2.5 weeks. I cannot think of a sane medical professional who would state categorically an injury was a specific length of time ago without details of a specific incident, or before and after Xrays to determine healing. No incident recorded in blog or FB, no 'before / at time of injury' X-ray. Do we think he has had an X-ray or just gone for the cheapest 'diagnosis only' deal?

Racergirl wrote:

Doubler wrote:https://twitter.com/marathninvestgr/status/744169141817450497

So, count back 2.5 weeks from yesterday according to his FB page - by his own admission this significantly predates his mileage dropping and being knowingly observed. They didn't think through their backstory, did they? He was kicking footballs and jumping gleefully from rocks with a minor stress fracture, but it only became an issue after running on it for 2.5 weeks. I cannot think of a sane medical professional who would state categorically an injury was a specific length of time ago without details of a specific incident, or before and after Xrays to determine healing. No incident recorded in blog or FB, no 'before / at time of injury' X-ray. Do we think he has had an X-ray or just gone for the cheapest 'diagnosis only' deal?

He was showing off in front of the geezers 3 or 4 days ago, doing some unnecessarily 'fast' miles (on the feet that are causing him so much pain).

The interesting thing about that 7K split in the duathlon is that was his closing split. His opening 7K was 26:58. Can't claim that as a 10K PR though, that would've broken the British record and made him the first non-African to run sub-27, a decade before Solinsky.

Racergirl wrote:

Not only doesn't match Facebook, doesn't match his contemporaneous MapMyRun routes and records for those dates.

The Facebook posts are links to mapmyrun.

Racergirl wrote:

ok but that is far too long. we need a concise press release, not an essay

So quit being a lazy millennial and turn it into bullet points. I'm not a writer, not a journalist, not (gasp) an ultra-runner. You asked for the recap, you got the recap, with extras. Who you approach and with what version is up to you.

BRAVO Racergirl! Dude, crawl back in your mom's basement and get working!

further information? wrote:

Information on his website (www.marathonmanuk.co.uk) also seems exaggerated. ..... His best known marathon mark is 3:07 at Virgin's London Marathon in April 2015.

I must have missed something. How did he manage to run the London Marathon in April 2015? He was supposedly running his first US transcon?

Or are we supposed to believe he:

Ran two marathons in Alabama on April 24 in a combined time of 7:59?

(click on RAAL and scroll down).

Drove to Atlanta and flew across the pond?

Ran 3:07 in London on April 26 and then flew back to Atlanta?

Ran 4:27 on April 27 in Georgia and continued on his way across the USA?

Look at the Race across USA results. He ran the April 25 leg a day early and April 26 was a rest day in the stage race. He flew to London and flew back.

Sorry. Posted too quickly to your first question.

MAJOR red flag. 7:59 for 50.34 miles on April 24.

They exaggerated the diagnosis. If the fracture and cellulitis were in advanced stages there is no way he would have been able to put in 60 miles the previous night. I caught cellulitis in boot camp in my younger days, and it isn't fun but easy to treat and manage if you detect early enough and don't ignore its progress. I am not saying it's a lame excuse to drop out, but it's definitely another example of our boy embellishing some issue to make himself appear superhuman. "I pushed on running on a broken toe for a month. I would have gone to NY even as this bacteria continued to easy all my flesh, but the doctor ordered me to stop".

further information? wrote:

Sorry. Posted too quickly to your first question.

MAJOR red flag. 7:59 for 50.34 miles on April 24.

I think his London time is too fast to be real. But I guess it is pretty hard to cheat at London.

London 2015 was discussed earlier. He has all his splits and pics. Seems to be legit. 5K splits fade as expected since he started too fast, which is his MO.

5K splits: 17:31, 19:00, 19:49, 21:28, 21:32, 23:08, 23:54, 31:52

Supposedly did a brief interview in the last 5K.

What looks off is 7:59 for 50 miles 2 days prior to the London Marathon.

+ 1 brother. Maybe some would consider it morally wrong to find this all amusing, but I'm sick and tired of hearing about cheating scum getting getting away with it. I don't wish him death, but cellulitis and a toe fracture is a small price to pay for duping all those people and making a mokery of our sport.

Bully for you, girl.

Racergirl wrote:

Young claims personal records of 2:41 for the marathon, 1:08 for the half marathon, and 30:47 for 10K.

Don't think anyone's pointed this out yet, but for someone who claims to be a great ultra distance runner his supposed PRs actually get worse with increasing distance.

I am much faster than 2:41, close to 1:08, but not even close to 30:47.

A capable amateur duathlete will generally run his two splits in a combined time similar to what he'd run the total distance in a stand-alone running race. In other words, if the duathlon was 5k run/20k bike/5k run, the total run time would equal the athlete's stand-alone 10k time. It's typical to positive-split the two run legs.

If RY ran two 7k's in a total of 57:15, that means he'd run a stand-alone 14k in that same time--a 6:49/mile pace. That, ladies and gentlemen, would net a 1:03 stand-alone 15k. Good enough for middle of the pack, I suppose.

Equivalents to that 1:03 15k, btw, are 19:57 5k, 41:21 10k, 1:31:35 half marathon, and 3:10:49 marathon. So it's in line with the 3:09 marathon. The 1:09 half is BS.

further information? wrote:

London 2015 was discussed earlier. He has all his splits and pics. Seems to be legit. 5K splits fade as expected since he started too fast, which is his MO.

5K splits: 17:31, 19:00, 19:49, 21:28, 21:32, 23:08, 23:54, 31:52

Supposedly did a brief interview in the last 5K.

What looks off is 7:59 for 50 miles 2 days prior to the London Marathon.

Thanks!

I’ve been following this along for the last week. The whole episode has me captivated. If it was another sport other than running or someone from somewhere else in the UK, I might be less interested. But as a runner (of a fairly reasonable standard) and based in East sheen (which is set to have minor infamy thanks to a cheat!) I’m super intrigued.

Unfortunately, as RY was steadily building his following and outlandish claims in 2014, I was suffering with injury and burnout and was thoroughly sick of hearing about anything running related, so I didn’t pay that much attention.

I knew ‘of him’ of course as he was getting himself known to all the local running clubs, running stores etc and many of my friends are runners in the local area. A good number of my friends and running club members are part of his fanbase and have probably met him and found him to be ‘a lovely genuine guy’ or whatever. I guess the first rule if you are trying to con people is to be nice to them – no-one is going to donate cash to someone that pisses them off!

I heard about the marathon-a-day quest as it was getting going and I thought, ‘Hmm, whatever, good luck, mate’, thinking that it was not an impossible task if you had a solid long distance running background, ran the marathons very slowly and were a decently economic & efficient runner and not susceptible to injuries. However, I still thought it would be difficult to do without ending up injured/burnt out.

How I wish I had done a bit more research at the time and discovered that he was claiming to do these marathons at 3am in the morning, still work full time, etc and that there was no real proof or evidence to back up his claims, and he had no long distance running background, just some fairly average parkrun 5k times. I think the alarm bells would have been ringing for me at that point.

Forward to the longest run without sleep thing. I had some awareness of this via social media posts from friends/runners etc. I had no idea until following this thread & checking out his website that he had claims to have beaten Karnazes’ record. Didn’t Karnazes run roughly same distance in 24hrs that is RY’s (official – fully observed?) best for 48hours? If so, how is breaking that record ever possible for RY? And if his best for 48hrs treadmill is 147, how did he do 130 in 24 hours (http://www.marathonmanuk.co.uk/2015/07/) on this jaunt? Bicycle? Car? Who knows? Who cares?

And that’s why he has got away with it, until now. Because no-one has really cared enough to properly check out his claims. We live in a society where we are all so super busy, and we absorb bite-sized snippets of information and take them at face value without digging deeper – we rarely have the time. Politicians and the media play on this in a big way – through out ‘facts’ and ‘headlines’ that we skim over and often trust and believe.

People who make themselves into social media/PR machines like RY do the same – plenty of hype, amazing claims, doing stuff for charity, ‘look, aren’t I wonderful’ social media posts – most people just lap it up and believe it all – usually it’s just the right side of believable and vague enough to not arouse too much suspicion – but RY & Co went too far this time and I’m hoping the British media are going to get a hold of this and take down this fraud.

I’ve trained and raced at altitude, in 35C+ heat, over mountains and done multi-day ultras. I’ve got a marathon PB 17 minutes faster that RY and I know that I would NEVER get close to any of those splits he was posting early on a flat multi-day in the UK, never mind in heat and at altitude. Without a doubt in my mind, they are completely fake. Full credit to the people here who have gone over the data so meticulously and to the people who met up with him and introduced him to what multi-day ultra running is really like.

The con that they have been up to has meant that people have parted with their hard-earned cash to support a liar & his entourage for a year or two of living it up. But not only that, they are making a mockery of anyone, in any sport or endurance endeavour, who has put in the miles/hours of training to complete an honest race or event, whether that be one mile or 3000miles or more.

I would like to take this story to the local news sites here in SW London but it looks like there’s a big group of locals involved in this – they might hunt me down and make my life hell!

PS – this is sold out (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-evening-with-robert-young-marathon-man-uk-tickets-25198212532) but I wonder if it will actually go ahead? If so I hope there are some real runners there with plenty of probing questions for him!!

If he was just running cross country and not trying to claim a record or promote himself, I'm not sure this story would've gained traction. But this blew up for a combination of several reasons.

1. Trying to break a record.

2. Massive blatant cheating, not just 2-3 miles here or there in the RV when exhausted. Based on the blog posts of his free time when logging 70-80 mile days, he was probably running less than a third of the mileage out west, maybe only a fourth. Blatant cheating. Intentionally deceptive to cover up the cheating. They intentionally showed only FB pics of the TomTom data to give it the air legitimacy and to avoid scrutiny of the routes, cadence, hr, or any other data that could expose the con. Team Skins were way too tech savvy to not know how to click one button and upload to TomTom. They also encouraged people to run with him to make it look legit since they knew no one would probably show up to run or bike for an entire day with him. And even if anyone did for a day, RY could pull one 40 mile run if need be and not jeopardize the entire event. One massive scam from start to finish.

3. Living off of charities in a fraudulent manner.