Robert Young fakes run across America

I was having EXACTLY this conversation with a new runner last night. Do lots of small cumulative efforts, with significant time gaps, add up to a marathon, a half marathon, an ultra? I think it's personal opinion. For me, to claim I've done a particular event type it has to be all in one hit, or as near as possible excepting a pause to retie shoes, to swig water, brief toilet break etc. It also has to be running gait - not walking or power walking. This, however, is exactly why I will need to realign my own expectations if I ever get to do ultras, as I'll need to justify my walking.

If you want to break the Guinness World Record for most marathons in a year for example, they need to be official marathon races (presumably with certified courses, entry fees, a number of competitors, timing, results etc). The Guinness WR for males is 239 in a year:

Which seems impossible, but a number of these marathons were in the "I Ran Marathons" series which were race directed by Parvaneh Moayedi - the purpose of which seems to be for competitors to rack up a large number of official marathon races.

My suggestion if you want to break the Guinness Record for number of official marathons per year would be to get a mate to RD a marathon series (Monday to Friday) on a simple loop course with results, timing, course measurement, finisher medals etc, open to the public. This gives you 260 marathons plus other official marathons you can run on the weekends.

Finally went and had a look at that UK Ultrarunning Community FB site, you know where those fellas were from who were arguing amongst themselves here on this site they despise, and had a good laugh at this description of LR:

"Bryn Reynolds James Adams - they're utterly relentless at digging out cheats and have been the sport of track and field's main news resource for the best part of 20 years.

A more wretched hive of scum and villainy you will never find. But they sure as heck know running!"

Seems about right on all points.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/259647654139161/

wretched scum and villainy wrote:

Finally went and had a look at that UK Ultrarunning Community FB site, you know where those fellas were from who were arguing amongst themselves here on this site they despise, and had a good laugh at this description of LR:

"Bryn Reynolds James Adams - they're utterly relentless at digging out cheats and have been the sport of track and field's main news resource for the best part of 20 years.

A more wretched hive of scum and villainy you will never find. But they sure as heck know running!"

Seems about right on all points.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/259647654139161/

Yep, but your band is shit.

Lrexit. wrote:

I bet they're the ones complaining about Brexit too but didn't bother to vote.

My experience is that they'll have voted out, without really understanding what it means...

Gary Dalton wrote:

I came over to address someone who was insulting me personally on a site they knew I didn't use. Someone who's a coward and won't address me under their real name, here or on the uk site. I stayed to address some questions but that's it.

I'll leave it you now.

You'll be back. Perhaps not under this username, but you'll be back.

RY just updated his fb photo...it's all about the kids..."hi I'm Rob, and this is how I plan to cheat and lie" this needs comments!

I actually just went on UK Ultrarunning Community FB, and have to agree that the admin there is a joke! I can only see positive comments about Rob, any time there was anything negative (e.g. Elke Claessens post) there are lots of attacks (some of these personal) and these are allowed.

Elsewhere there are other comments I found offensive. I can't believe that the admin from there had the gall to post on here pretending that they had behaved in the interests of the sport, what complete ####s!

If any of the admin are still here reading, please look up the comments that are still publicly displayed. Look at how many are negative on Rob's (these are strictly to the point and very few) and then look at how many personal attack, that are offensive that you have allowed to remain.

I'm not a member of the group nor had I perused it previously, but if you are claiming that you acted in an even handed fashion, then you are completely taking the piss!

Gary Dalton wrote:

I came over to address someone who was insulting me personally on a site they knew I didn't use. Someone who's a coward and won't address me under their real name, here or on the uk site. I stayed to address some questions but that's it.

I'll leave it you now.

Gary, when you were replying yesterday it seemed as though you were responding in an honest way. Please look at the comments on RY on your page, and tell me if you think that it is in any way balanced and fair? It does look as though someone has done a complete whitewash. Look at the personal attacks on the likes of Elke when she showed evidence of RYs cheating. Why are you allowing these to be publicly displayed?

Quotes from the FB thread, in response to Elke showing evidence of RY's cheating:

Gary Kiernan

Elke you joined this forum this morning seemingly just to post this so called evidence. From what I can see of your profile you don't appear to be a runner yourself nor can I find any history of you on any running sites or DUV.

So my question is who are you and what is your motivation?

James Adams

I was just thinking the same. Her profile looks like one of those spam bots that try and follow you every now and then

Stef Schuermans

No such name in d-u-v nor in any Belgian database. As she is belgian it is sad to see she just goes for the gossips and sees herself as a point of reference ...

Ben Hartley

Got a great idea Elke, go for a run.

Neil Brie

Wow, someone has way too much time on their hands!

Rich Cranswick

You really have trawled the web extensively. Kind of ultra trawling.

Jessica Williams

This is obsessive to the point of weird.

So a sceptical comment gets abuse, and the positive ones are left unaltered. What a ridiculous piece of vandalism, no wonder posters thought what the admins had been doing was unacceptable!

Steve Ways quote needs to be posted on there!! Wonder what the response would be to that.

Steve Way's comment is buried in the Ultrarunning Community FB discussion about Rob's strava uploads. Steve's comment has 93 likes, so plenty supporting Steve's view on the RY affair. The discussion has morphed to unpicking LRC: "I get the impression there's a lot of knowledgeable people on there [letsrun] who care deeply about the sport but there seems to be some who use the anonymity to troll and wind people up"

conveniently he's now made all that data 'private'

Racergirl wrote:This, however, is exactly why I will need to realign my own expectations if I ever get to do ultras, as I'll need to justify my walking.

You do know that you don't *have* to walk?

wretched scum and villainy wrote:

Finally went and had a look at that UK Ultrarunning Community FB site, you know where those fellas were from who were arguing amongst themselves here on this site they despise, and had a good laugh at this description of LR:

"Bryn Reynolds James Adams - they're utterly relentless at digging out cheats and have been the sport of track and field's main news resource for the best part of 20 years.

A more wretched hive of scum and villainy you will never find. But they sure as heck know running!"

Seems about right on all points.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/259647654139161/

I can understand wretched hive of scum, but don't notice much villainy going on around here.

There is nothing wrong with walking! Ultra running is all about covering very long distances on foot. Most, if not all, ultra runners employ some kind of a walk/run strategy.

James Adams wrote:

I don't believe by not yelling "cheat" I am defending him.

I don't think life is that binary.

I can't be sure Pistorius meant to shoot his wife.

But I'm not going to have a pint with him anytime soon.

Whaaaaaaaaa, james adams has run off back to URC, to have his eyes dabbed dry by his sycophants, because us grubby people were mean to him, whaaaaaaa.

"James Adams

Has anyone here registered with "Let's run" on the back of all this? Am thinking of setting up a support group for people who still feel grubby. And I probably should get an eye test from trying to read all those 5 layered nested comments.

Bryn Reynolds

James Adams - they're utterly relentless at digging out cheats and have been the sport of track and field's main news resource for the best part of 20 years.

A more wretched hive of scum and villainy you will never find. But they sure as heck know running!"

Another thread that Gary locked on URC facebook group, uk. And i suspect the poster was banned, because they are now not a member.

James McGill

4 July at 13:46

..

Rob Young cheated.

Katy Marie Who?

James McGill Read this

...

Robert Young fakes run across America

letsrun.com

James Adams

James Adams I think you meant to say "what Hokas should I buy?"

Like · 19 · 4 July at 13:53

James Adams

James Adams Your name does not sound very Belgian James McGill

Jens Zwirner He gets a dime for every klick 😉

Like · 1 · 4 July at 14:00

Gary Kiernan

James McGill we've done this to death. We're not doing it again. I'm not entirely sure if your profile is a genuine one or if it's been created to stir but everyone gets the benefit of the doubt at least once here.

Like · 17 · 4 July at 14:05

..

An admin turned off commenting for this post.

Take a look at this thread from July 2015 from URC facebook in the UK.

RY makes a long post in it