curiously interested wrote:
CopyMyRun wrote:It appears for the first year or so our man recorded all his marathons on MapMyRun.
http://www.mapmyrun.com/workouts/47536076/If you go back to when it all started in April 2014 you can see the now infamous first week and the 10 marathons, only problem is that some of them appear to be direct copies of other ones with a number of marathons with exactly the same distance (go into the TCX files and they are the same to 6 decimal places). My guess is someone was using the "Copy" function and then just editing the times for some of them
Outstanding find! This is the best yet!
Ok, check out just the first 3 marathons he claims to have run in 4:07, 3:28 (3:27:53 according to mapmyrun), and 3:19. The dates don't really match up, but that's only minor compared to what he describes of the route in his book. I'll quote verbatim from the book the description of the course he claims to have run in Richmond Park:
"The route is almost all on a path called the Tamsin trail, which circles the park's [Richmond Park] perimeter. It's a complicated route: a 3.1 mile loop, followed by a 9.1 mile loop, then lastly two 7.2 mile laps of the perimeter. There's not too much overall elevation, 340 meters total, including a couple of small hills. You've got to watch your footing in parts, especially on the downhills (and in the dark). There are four or five water fountains on the course, all of which I'd need today. The route comes back past the start point at Sheen Gate four times, so leaving my bag there, full of snacks and drinks, would become my routine."
In his book, he is clearly describing a multi-loop course in Richmond Park that goes by the same starting point at Sheen Gate four times.
Now checkout the course maps that he posted for these marathons in mapmyrun.com:
Marathon #1 (4:07:31) - mislabeled as "AFTERNOON 2ND MARATHON IN A"
http://www.mapmyrun.com/workout/537962844Marathon #2 (3:27:53) -
http://www.mapmyrun.com/workout/537427974Marathon #3 (3:19:00)
http://www.mapmyrun.com/workout/537013760Observe that for all 3 of these personal marathons, it's the exact same course, but none of the courses remotely match the detailed description of his route in his book. These are point to point courses that start in Twickenham near Richmond Park, go three-quarters of the way around Richmond Park, then head off northeast towards London, and end at Regent's Park 11 miles away (the way the crow flies).
For comparison, here's the Tamsin trail around Richmond Park that he claims in the book to be doing loops on:
http://www.richmondparklondon.co.uk/cycling/mountainbiking/Something is rotten in Twickenham...
It gets even better in the book. In a paragraph before his description of the course route for his initial marathons in Richmond Park, he states this. I quote verbatim again:
"My next concern [with attempting to run a sequence of marathons] was getting verification for my achievements. How would anyone know that I'd actually done the marathons? I needed witnesses to verify my story and, as soon as I could, GPS tracking. I read different versions of this online, but most said I needed at least two people to sign off as witnesses of my runs. I asked Joanna [his GF/partner] to come down and then called a friend, Eva, and asked if she could come out to witness me running."
So no GPS he claims in the book. Another problem is what he claims for his first marathon. He says no one came with him to the start or while he was running, but "I saw Eva at Sheen Gate, just as I was about to start my final lap [around Richmond Park]. . . ."
Um, Rob, how did Eva witness you at the start of your fourth and final lap around Richmond Park, when you posted marathon data on mapmyrun that indicates you didn't loop Richmond Park, but instead ran out towards London and finished there?
Something is rotten in Twickenham...
