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

recruiter57 wrote:

willvlc wrote:

Sure, in a nutshell a male model and Insta influencer, W Goodge, is claiming to be fastest Englishman to cross America, despite having no chance, and is performing some 20 days up on what may be expected for his ability, with no tracker, no human pulse, and a history of he and his business partner R. Balenger doing exactly this sort of thing for the last 4 years at up to 6 events, with identical modus operandi, of a normal heart rate for some of the day before it collapses, whilst the speed either maintains or increases.

So yesterday was a 51 minute negative split for instance. They tend to try to raise 50 grand for these challenges, but this time they're after half a million quid - not pointed to charity but to their Gofundme. The guy in question lost to a 3:58 W45 marathoner at MDS by 5 hours, to give some insight into his ultrarunning level. He will be the 13th quickest Transconner of all time if he keeps going like this [out of around 1,000 starters], defeating many noted legends of the sport.

Allow me to give an alternative summary...

A guy from England, who happens to have created an IG following, began endurance running as a way to honor his Mom who passed away from Cancer. He decided to do a couple endurance events in England to raise money for McMillan Cancer Support. Then, with the help of R Balenger, decided to take on a TC runs to raise money for both McMillan as well as the American Cancer Society. With the help of RB, they have put together several sponsors to have a well funded support system as he attempts to break what they thought as the men's English record of 64 days.

Thread:www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?th...

There have been several on here that have been skeptical of WG's efforts, most notably Will C, who challenged them before they even began. This group of doubters have gone on about HR, 5mile splits, no tracker on runner, too much support, too well funded, using GoFundMe, doesn't look like a runner, has covered face from heat, uses products from sponsors during run to aid in recovery, uses some foul language, gets angry when called a fraud, doesn't suffer enough, not enough pedigree in long distance running, and on an on. These same doubters have yet to show where the magic rulebook is, saying all the things one must do to be considered a legitimate run. They have most definitely voiced them on here with many variations.

willvlc wrote:

bedsbucks wrote:

To Will, and anyone else with experience on these sorts of multi-day ultraruns.

Devil's advocate. Going back to the topic of pedigree, and how performances over standard distances (marathon etc) can translate to events like this, could the recovery protocols available to Will in combination with his age, equipment and - possibly - physique, not be playing a large role in the perceived ease of his crossing vs far more talented athletes? The man has 6000 calories per day carefully prepped and fed to him, a team looking after him so all he needs to do is jog, a bed to rest in, massages, and very possibly, ahem, "special sports supplements" at his disposal - huge recovery advantages that most runners simply wouldn't have had.

There are so many red flags on this run (the HR data pattern being one of many), but it'd be good to examine some potential explanations.

Yep, the short answer is no. One good runner did Jogle with astonishing, multi-millionnaire backing and stated that was the reason he was going to do huge mileage, because no-one had ever had that level of support. I went to watch at the end of day 3 and he was so tired he was literally incapable of speech. We were scraping him off the side of the road early on day 5.

A nest is a nest... sleep is sleep... A carrot is a carrot. Pizza is pizza. Gatorade is gatorade. I guarantee you that Sandy on her WR mentioned above had exactly the same quality of nutrition - or better - from her single handler as WG gets from Pete. His deodorant who sponsor him doesn't harm animals - good - cutting edge stuff. But it won't help him run quicker. There's an old saying in running: "beware of the runner who turns up with his stuff in a brown paper bag." In short, supplement away, but nothing beats training [many, many hard years of it], background, ability, natural affinity, and most importantly, form: a CV showing what's possible.

WGs training is trite and very light, and his CV abysmal - there's nothing there - if so, what? His horrorshow at MDS? Blimey, transfer that to here and he's flirting with 90 days.

I remember standing at the start of London 2007 and Geoff Wightman the announcer saying it was the greatest quality marathon field ever assembled. And probably the most expensive. I remember thinking at the time, "let's leave all that till after the race shall we Geoff?" Of the 25 elites, pampered to the extreme, 7 dropped out, I beat 6, and lost to 12.

recruiter57 wrote:

Okay, that's pretty funny 😁

For your "mule" premise to work they would have to be able to match cadence, stride, HR, and obviously pace. Pace would be the easiest, but the others not so much. You really believe for miles and miles others would be able to match WG metrics? The sleuth WC would surely have noticed an abnormality in the thousands of data points he has downloaded. I believe that to be be virtually impossible that he would miss it. So, you believe we are dealing with the great running masterminds of all time, huh?

As others have pointed out, WG is also wearing a Whoop device. Someone also said they believed an analysis of his entire journey was going to be analyzed by them. Won't this all seem foolish if they share a fully validated report with all of the stats confirming that WG did this?

FartKing69 wrote:

recruiter57 wrote:

Allow me to give an alternative summary...

A guy from England, who happens to have created an IG following, began endurance running as a way to honor his Mom who passed away from Cancer. He decided to do a couple endurance events in England to raise money for McMillan Cancer Support. Then, with the help of R Balenger, decided to take on a TC runs to raise money for both McMillan as well as the American Cancer Society. With the help of RB, they have put together several sponsors to have a well funded support system as he attempts to break what they thought as the men's English record of 64 days.

Thread:www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?th...

There have been several on here that have been skeptical of WG's efforts, most notably Will C, who challenged them before they even began. This group of doubters have gone on about HR, 5mile splits, no tracker on runner, too much support, too well funded, using GoFundMe, doesn't look like a runner, has covered face from heat, uses products from sponsors during run to aid in recovery, uses some foul language, gets angry when called a fraud, doesn't suffer enough, not enough pedigree in long distance running, and on an on. These same doubters have yet to show where the magic rulebook is, saying all the things one must do to be considered a legitimate run. They have most definitely voiced them on here with many variations.

Yeah, I'm gonna believe the other guys for their myriad of reasons when compared to you, who appealed to emotion and cast doubt on their legitimate seeming grievances without proposing any solid rebuttals.

willvlc wrote:

FartKing69 wrote:

Okay, I checked him out on Strava. Something's definitely up. I recognize wrist based HR monitors aren't always accurate. What I've observed a lot is mine and my friends' gets torn between our cadences (~170spm) and our HRs (~145bpm) on an easy run. So my HR trends higher when it's "malfunctioning," and reports up to 170bpm. But his... just goes down to like 110? And then he goes up a big hill and it stays low? Just not adding up.

Correct. And just to be very clear, this precise pattern has been going on for 15,000k, at only these multiday fundraisers, since March 2019 for both him and Balenger, his training partner, manager, chief crew and coach. Their HRs are fine for everything else. On day 3 at Jogle in 2019 he clearly collapsed, and then day 4... HR of 88 for the day, and it never rose much higher again. Cue a magnificent 1.4 day negative split.

Rinse and repeat. This negative split here will be around 3 days.