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

So many red flags in this.

I often see comments on how unlikely the crew can be in on a cheat on this run. Not only did whole cycling teams keep omerta, the whole peloton did too.

"oh you keep banging on about heart rate" Well when it looks like levels more akin to someone doing much more leisurely activity but doing so after 80k it's worth a closer look. Those drug agencies kept banging on about hematocrit levels.

The heart rate comments recieve no reply from the crew. Perhaps "oh Wills resting heart is an incredible 30, so 95 is plausible (for some reason only in the afternoons and not when running other races) but here's a few stats for you doubters to look at". Instead we have someone who once they hit New York may want to find a cardiologist who it seems from the stats could then live off publications in medical journals about the extraordinary findings.

Supposedly a crew that has a carefully thought out diet and sleep enhancement programs, yet have a few beers, which if nucalm actually did anything for your sleep as claimed, the beer would have the opposite effect.

Originally I thought the whole, if you want to run with WG, contact the crew upfront was plausible as a lot to organize and don't want a circus, now we have the mornings only line. Juxtapose this with hardestgeezer (I didn't choose his moniker) currently running across africa at around 30k a day with all sorts of townsfolk joining him unannounced.

Ok, so you did a few slow miles with him before he 'speed up'. I have no idea why you think this can validate the whole run.

You ask, "Does he really speed up post nap? I see the mile splits relatively the same but the HR appears lower."

Have you read the debate? How the hell can you ask this?! You missapropriately claimed many times that the main argument is only about heart rate, and many times you have been corrected and told that it's about heart rate combined with pace!

Everyday people are talking about how he miraculously speeds up later in the day. Have you not read people qurstioning his negative splits? How can you possibly not have got this fundamental point?!

So now you say you're not easily swayed by these products. So why do you keep asking people why they don't believe it's possible for Nucalm to turn Goodge into superman?!

You said I was living in a pessimistic world. I considered that insulting. I called you a troll because I think that’s an appropriate word to describe how you’ve engaged throughout this thread. You took offense to that. So that makes us even. How about we agree to stop labeling each other and focus on the content of our respective posts.

Don’t worry about posting too much. I invite you, no, I ask you, to revisit my post about believability on page 74 and respond to it. Please, tell me how you see Goodge’s run in terms of the three factors of believability I presented: plausibility of the claim, credibility of the person, and quality of the evidence.

OK. the tracker is in the Jonestown AOK campground in PA. Off old route 72.

I know we have some brilliant Letsrun Sleuths in the area. Lets pay the caravan a visit and look for signs of cheatery. Ebikes, Scooters. Pretend that you know nothing about the transcon and befriend them. Ask them if they know about any good neurological recovery creams that could help you.

But be careful out there! They may be armed with rocks and foul language. Robbie seems to have a hair trigger.

Yes I have read the negative split debate. But you said he sped up post nap. As I’ve seen from both posts here and on IG, those naps have been in the 40ish mile range. Excluding last couple of days that leaves 10-20 miles. That does not represent half of the day. That means that some of his improvement in speed has been prenap. Negative splits are first half of distance compared to second half…surely you get that fundamental point.
Several has stated that 12-13 mph is not Earth-shattering. it isn’t like he is knocking down 8 min miles over and over again. So, negative splits as a “gotcha” really don’t make a strong basis. Show me anywhere on any of these days where he is knocking down fast miles repeatedly. Aren’t you able to run 12-13 min miles for long distances?

I am asking if it is possible. At no time have I stated that is the reasons for his endurance and pace. I have asked if it is possible, a question you have chosen not to answer.

I will absolutely do so when I can be in front of my PC in the morning. It will be much easier to read and respond.

I am absolutely good with dropping the names. That has been part of my point which each person who has attempted to call me a troll because I’ve debated the alternative possibilities.
A healthy debate allows for both sides to be heard without dismissing their opinions.

I'd like to address this one specifically, and in isolation from any other accusation made on this thread. This issue is separate from any claim of cheating, and is more about the very cavalier attitude towards tracking being taken here.

Earlier in this thread I pointed out a 3 mile discrepancy between where his Strava ended on day 15 and where it started on day 16. Since he doesn't wear a tracker on his person, the only real evidence of the run we have are his Strava posts. A 3 mile gap is, using very round numbers, approximately a tenth of a percent of the entire run. This is like someone running 42m short in a marathon - would you consider that run record-eligible?

Maybe it was a GPS malfunction (although let's be realistic - your example of being a few meters off and showing you in the water is not the same as being miles off), but as other have pointed out this is the reason many people attempting transcons use multiple tracking devices at the same time. This is a risk he accepted by not using a better tracking system. If someone wants to claim a record attempt, they should be prepared for the associated scrutiny that comes with that territory.

I live in central PA and saw William Goodge today. I had messaged his crew yesterday to see if I could run a few miles with him but they said they were going to only have him run with his crew. I had also emailed Rojo with this info as it seems odd.

But I did want to see what was up with him. I followed their van tracker this morning and saw them outside of Mechanicsburg, PA on 641 at 9:45am. William was crossing the road to meet his team at a pit stop. He was running.

I then saw him again about 45 minutes later. His crew was a mile or so down the road. William was running by himself and took a short walk break up a small overpass. I then saw him running solo again around 11am through Mechanicsburg.

And this afternoon around 3:15pm I saw him running on Allentown Blvd outside Harrisburg. He was running with one crew member. It’s a hot day so he had on a hat and a shirt. I had pulled over to see him go by and he stopped and we chatted briefly. I asked him about yesterday and where he might stop today. He said 23 miles down the road.

So, as best I can tell with my one pair of boots, he’s doing the running and putting in the work. Has he done it every day of their journey, I don’t know. But I saw him 4 times today and he was always where they said he’d be based on van tracker and he was always running.

Maybe he’s just doing it?

This poster seems like one of the crew. Or the runner knows that he is being closely watched.

At this point, any logical person would agree that this run is 99.995% NOT legit.

Please don't let this one review dissuade. These guys are charlatans.

The one thing I am still confused by... will c, you seem mostly legit, but after you visited the "run" didn't you say you still would say it was more than likely legit? I don't understand this... or perhaps I just misinterpreted.

As a non partial thread reader, this has always reaked of scame since very early on.

Be well ya'll ...

Not part of crew. I’ve been following the thread since Oklahoma and was interested because I knew they’d be coming by where I live in PA. It’s hard to extrapolate the 4 times I saw him today to what happened on the other 50-odd days. But he was running at each of the random points I saw him in their route.

1800 posts to discuss a run which, while certainly challenging and requiring some planning, is roughly the equivalent of a 3 hours marathon?

Good for WillG if he is doing it, I hope he is enjoying it, but who cares if he is faking it or not? I certainly don't.

How can we know your testimony is true?

Exactly what I said a few weeks ago, but got laughed off this board. Which just shows how much the wishful thinking is that he’s a cheater. I did 55 miles a day pushing my gear from Alaska to Key West no problem. Could have run it back if I had time. On the other side of the coin, I did 73 miles per day with a full crew across the US and could barely run for months. 50 miles per day, no matter how much Will C churches it up as a big deal, is anything but. For the record, there is no such thing as an imperialistic “fastest Brit across America”.

Pete,

For most normal humans, even humans who run a lot, 50 miles per day is a big deal. I have to take with a grain of salt the calibration scale of a person who ran from Alaska to Key West. :-)

Now this has given me a very interesting idea!

Mabe, just mabe, there is the smoking gun on cctv in car parks and other areas the support crew has stopped? One picture of WG is all it would take to prove he wasnt running when he claims he was.

He cant be 2 places at once!

Perhaps you can also come up with a reason why every time he has company for prolonged periods he slows right down and his heart rate goes up??

This guy is a very average runner, what he is doing is very extraordinary for an average runner - 60 and 70 mile days tossed in there?? He's going to cross in probably the top ten of all time - are the rest of these guys who did it slower than him very average - there are some big names in there?

With the greatest respect Pete, I feel that having a good friendship with RB makes you more than a little biased on this.

You may not care about average runners doing extraordinary things but many do believe in keeping the sport clean. I will happily withdraw my opinion that this is a scam and apologise if they can clearly evidence he covered the miles under his own steam day in day out. However their chance address the concerns about this run was fifty days ago by putting the tracker on the runner, allowing outside scrutiny at any time, and not switching the route and then having tracker off on the day they covered the most miles, having low mileage walking days when they had company and so on and so on. Given the current evidence I can only conclude this is a huge scam.

Just looking at his Day 52 Strava ('Big f***ing day'). Aside from the ridiculous distance, the big hills included and the 4.44 km thrown in after 33km 52 days into a Transcon, there's another thing - with the time taken for this run, he would have been running a couple of hours in pitch darkness, along a fairly narrow rural road with trucks thundering along it. One thing I have noticed from reading Björn Suneson's blog (he's a Swedish 74 year old running legend he is currently running his 8th Transcon - and a great contrast to this nonsense) is how often he is stopped by the police on his runs. And yet we expect WG to be running along small roads in the dark and not attract any attention?

Anyway, the facts - the day's run started at 7.00am, and the elapsed time was 15:40 (moving time 14:47.....only 53 minutes not running over a nearly 16 hours day also seems ridiculous - when do you eat? and rest?). That means that the day's run would have finished at 10.40pm. On that day in the Philadelphia area, the sun set at 20.14 and civil twilight (when it starts to feel dark and the streetlights come on) was at 20.47. So we're expected to believe that he ran around 2 hours down a narrow road in the dark? Oh, and then after arriving at 10.40pm he is then back on the road the next morning at 7.20am. Just nonsense.

Even the little details don't make sense. The finish point for that day is about 150m from a large car park for a local restaurant, a safe place to stop perhaps, but instead we're told that he continues down the road for another 150m to stop on the side of the road with no safe place to pull in.

Whats the problem with running at night - People do it all the time. How do you know he didn’t get stopped?

Generally on ultra distance runs you eat on the go, rest little so the 53min resting time doesn’t stand out to me as being odd (though i will point out the other stuff such as the fast pace etc does)

Finishing at 10:40pm and starting at 7:20am. Again whats the issue with that? Thats a longer rest than a lot of transconners would average each and every night.

I expect the finishing point was chosen to make sure he hit 70miles. If he stopped at the car park he would be on 69.9m or something. Its a bravado / ocd runner thing! If you look on google earth there is a verge here to pull a vehicle in. Also a ‘east 641’ street sign. Its normal practice to pick a sign or something and touch it at the end of the day, so you know exactly where to start from the next day.