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

just when i thought we'd plumbed the depths of stupidity

Nope - not many of Ballengers runs on this trip have route or HR data on them, just paces and cadence. That I do find very odd!!

It’s not really stupid to point out that there’s pages of people saying the fact that they “come off badly” for swearing and “being aggressive” and therefore something shady is going on doesn’t stand up. If your evidence is “people got mad and used bad language” that is beyond even circumstantial. It’s nothing. Especially when you’re applying a silly standard of what you think is civil conduct. If your argument is “they seem like bad people because they used bad words” then yes, it actually is relevant to ask where you got that standard from, and whether it’s some universal standard of conduct.

I used to be on message boards that would actually warn Americans that they might be offended at British people because the Americans used to freak out when some British person called them a tw-t or said F- or whatever. Not everyone has the same hang up about curse words and if you’re using it to judge character and guilt it’s relevant to acknowledge that.

Can his team just post one video of one whole run? Is it that difficult?

How about 2 runs? 10? 30 until he’s done? I’d love to see it. Not to mention it’d be a great way to shut everyone here up!

Will C doesn’t have proof that the low HR isn’t happening when Will G is running.

Will G is refusing to provide proof that the low HR is occurring during running.

And I can’t see either position changing.

hell, I'll go out and live stream it, just need NuCalm to sponsor my journey

Agreed. WillC may have failed to definitively prove that Goodge is cheating, but Goodge hasn’t definitively proved that he’s legit either. We know that Goodge has lied about being a world record holder, so I’m inclined to believe he’s probably lying about the legitimacy of his current effort too, regardless of WillC’s report.

If you go back to #175, I laid out Will C’s grievance and have stated repeatedly that the timings of the HR discrepancies need to be explained. Succinctly - Will G has data where his speed picks up considerably and his heart rate drops to the clearly incorrect values.

The crux of Will C’s argument was the seemingly bizarre - impossible - timings of this wayward data - only happening when unsupervised in sponsored events. Never during official runs or training runs.

We now have data - presented by Will C - showing that 1) he was there when some of the questionable HR data was produced, and 2) he was also there when other questionable - or ‘unclean’ data, as he puts it - was produced on other days.

For 1), Will C laughably barely acknowledged it (read my posts over the last few pages).
And 2) is shocking, because it brings into question whether he’s simply overlooked these occurrences happening in the past, but more importantly shows that 1) can’t simply be written off as a one off.

Yes, ideally an explanation would be offered by Will G’s team. But for Will C to see the central argument of this entire thread unravel literally before his eyes, and then pivot to talking about Will G’s running partner, with zero hesitation or contemplation, is almost approaching parody.

That the man won’t leave his own Facebook group (of which he’s an admin, and inexplicably deleted pages of discussion in the build up to this big report) to discuss this is cowardice, and irresponsible.

Whilst I have consistently held back from accusing Will of cheating, not least because that would suggest a widespread conspiracy of people using his dead mother’s legacy for profit, I was clearly in agreement with Will C that something was very questionable here. I repeatedly wrote posts like #175 explaining the issue to people who simply wrote it off as a tech fail, instead suggesting that it must be a quirk of how Goodge and his team conduct these runs. That Will C has now noted the same anomaly during Goodge’s partner’s runs adds plausibility to this.

Will C needs help crystallizing the major development from and center.

The major development is:

The extremely low heart rates Goodge is showing in the 2nd half of each days running are causing suspicion, as no other runner has displayed these unnatural values….until the following development. Will C. has now found the only other runner in Strava’s database that has shown the same suspicious pattern in their own previous transcon (same route). That runner? …Robbie Balenger, an ultra runner that is part of Will G’ crew and is with him on this Transcon right now.

The conclusion is, something is wrong when the only two people in Strava history with these strange, unnatural HR patterns are Will Goodge and his current crew member (Robbie Balenger).

Hi all,

ok I'll make a special guest appearance, but the reason I left this group is that it's impossible to carry out a rational debate with anonymous souls, several of whom maybe in the WG camp. The abuse is appalling and often irrational - like them throwing rocks at me because I have a poor perception of depth.

Yes, it's not perfect that some dirty data was thrown up when I was around, but 90% was perfect in my 5-6 days, up from 40% before and about 30% or less now. I am not God. Why such a big difference when I'm around? And why the clean data on days 13 and 17 when I firmly insisted on it too? He went from 0.9% above 145bpm to 40% when I contacted the crew. Yeah, yeah, I know, tech fail.

My feeling is that the crew maybe tried to throw some dirty data out there during my visit to throw people off the scent, which has massively worked. I proved in my piece how freely RB shares his watch around - ie. with his future sister-in-law.

My case can be summed up in two lines: Runners on Strava file clean data 98+% of the time, and these two, over 7,000kms, four years, and two continents, at VERY specific events, file clean 10%.

That's my concern, and of course it is of great regret that this board sees nothing in that whatsoever. I was also amazed that RB had exactly the same traits on his Transcon, and once again this forum is waving that through as fine.

I cleaned up my page because so much had got lost or buried. As it has here. Better to have everything important under one roof.

Let's just agree to disagree. If I can't see who I'm debating, I can't win, period.

Will, I fail to see how being anonymous is relevant to discussion of the facts. But can you please answer to me (I am clearly not anonymous and I consider Will G a fraud) about day 26, which you marked as clean (correct?) while it had a massive drop in hr in the middle of it. Was it just overlooked by you? Did you observe Will G during that drop closely enough to notice any watch manipulations? Something doesn't really add up here.

What did I tell you all in my now deleted comment about Willvlc's dangerous driving? Even he admits he has "a poor perception of depth" that is the reason he got rocks thrown at him. That's actually illegal to drive in America if you can see depth properly, Willvlc.

If nothing else, this thread certainly has some interesting characters.

I think he was being sarcastic lol

If you're anonymous, the liberation to troll and obfuscate skyrockets and debating becomes tortuous.

In my piece I have labelled day 26 as unclean due to the physiologically impossible middle 20 when RB made a very rare appearance on the course. I am the first to admit that much about this case stumps me, but I can now predict to a degree of 9.5/10 certainty, how his heart will behave at certain times [like say, day 1 of a challenge, or a race, or a training run, or when I write them a tough letter]. The pattern has been set like a riveter for the past 4 years.

I don't have all the answers. I just know a lot of what he does is inexplicably world class, and off an HR of 80-120, and I'm flagging it. That is all.

Thank you for coming here to state your case. Regardless of what I think of the investigation, your tenacity and passion for fair play can only be admired.

But. You always said it's all about the data. But the data is against you. Initially you reported day 26 to be clean, but under gentle probing that fell apart. And as has been reported here, it's not the only observed day that has data you would classify as suspect, but you've not highlighted that.

I don't believe your being devious, I think you're just seeing what you want to see. No one here is going to double check the vast set of Strava data you've trawled through, so we don't know if these other numbers stack up. But given your record on the most important data there is, the days you observed, I'm sorry but it's very hard to have any confidence in them.

And please, don't torture yourself by coming up with an even more outlandish conspiracy theory to explain the data. They clearly don't care enough about it to bother

okay, maybe i'm unfairly projecting my own cultural biases and it's perfectly reasonable in england to chuck rocks at people's cars if they question your running bona fides.

maybe.

maybe it's an incredibly stupid point and trying to get all cultural relativist about this motley transatlantic bunch is ridiculous though.

If you're Willvlc, you just troll and obfuscate all the time no matter if you are anonymous or not and teaching you how to analyze data is like teaching a rock. You shouldn't be using heart rate data from a watch, of which you clearly have no technical expertise in.

I've asked PK on my FB page this, and I'll ask you. Why do the rest of us file normal data on Strava 98%+ of the time, but these two only 10% over 4 years, at specific events?

Don't you think that's a bit of an anomaly?