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

Hi all, sorry to sit this one largely out, but I was getting way too triggered! Loads of progress being made though by the community and this thread's campaign to shine a light on the runfluencers and their grifting ways remains vital. Here are some thoughts though:

1) Everything PJ has done and achieved is base on a filthy, unhinged lie that he was the best multiday runner in history by 5%. His astonishing follower count and massive sponsorship deals and cash for expenses and salaries, were all based off the premise that he was a very special athlete indeed, about to do something remarkable. After just 3 days we saw what he was: run of the mill, bog standard ordinary.

2) To give up on the record after those 3.7 days was an outrage and pathetic. And to add 25% to his goal, just like that, one of the biggest, "see ya', suckers!!" that running's ever seen. 'All funds and publicity secured, now we coast.'

3) All hope of anything special for the denouement came around 400 miles out, when they announced they would be "tapering" into the finish line. Never, in the history of a competitive run has someone announced they'd be "tapering into the finish line". What a sham and how completely tone deaf.

4) A massive spotlight on all things Balenger and Goodge has been shone with this farce though. PJ demonstrated simply and ably how to f*ck up your HR and make it read 80-110. He did this many times, and often would proudly proclaim, "I'm dead". But he wasn't. He was just reducing his pulse by 30 or so.

5) PJ had a tough, troubled run, but yes, of course he did most of it - totally bizarre data anomalies aside. I wrote to him in February to say "why not just go for 51-52 which I think you can do, because you train so hard." He got 51-52. But he had at least 30 really bad sessions. Goodge did not have a single one. Each 5-7 hour tranche of running was perfect.

6) Over the last 20 days of their Transcons Goodge destroyed PJ. If it was a boxing match it would have been stopped. Day after day of WG running a few miles more, in 2.5 hours less, off an HR of 100-105, to PJs 120+. And that was always a huge thing with WG - he would be done and dusted with the sun still up, broad daylight and some 12-14 hours to relax and put another shrimp on the barbie. PJ has absolutely shown how long you need to be out there: 14.5 hours, WG was for the most part a 11-12 hour man, so he and his mates could have a party.

7) All this relay-running WG does in the Speed projects is absolutely the metier for him and his cronies. Off the books events, with all but impossible to trace results, and when they went from Salt Lake to Vegas they weren't even given the win for their sector. Even WG complained and questionned that. Totally mysterious. His 6-odd hours for 60k runs does actually look impressive. But then you look closer at elapsed time and you see that's 22-24 hours. It's all a hoodwink, and smoke and mirrors and a dreadful standard of athletics. Imagine running a relay, with about mile reps, with huge recoveries and only doing 7 minute miling. So anodyne.

8) Balenger and Goodge carded 2:57s at London, which are dreadful times for quasi full-time runners, but they of course strut around as though they invented plutonium. Goodge then did a 2 minute commercial to camera saying he managed to go sub 3 due to Huel, who are now everywhere you look with the influencers. I wonder if WG doesn't deliberately take 1 minute a time off his marathon efforts, so he can keep saying he PBs due to his wonderful products he endorses. I notice he hasn't mentionned NuCalm for ages.

9) WGs heart at London was 172. As ever one of the highest, healthiest, booming, thudding pulse rates you'll ever see.

10) A year on and Goodge still hasn't released his Whoop. The situation remains that we have one day of it, and it clearly denotes 4 hours of running are missing. We are also no closer to finding out what happened to the missing £50k of his GoFundMe.

12) Goodge said a very interesting thing the other day, which totally gets to the heart of the man. On his [now broken] "record" for being the first man to run Lake Como, he added: "I've no idea if that's true by the way, but it is according to me."

13) So many are now alert to this war being declared on running by the runfluencers, and that's vital for keeping our noble sport clean. Netflix, Sky and Amazon have all bought into a series about cheating in endurance sport, with the key marker being that the scuba diving record is fake - and five have died trying to beat it. I have been flagged as a key consultant and it won't just be the likes of Fred Lorz and Rosie Ruiz I talk about.

14) The outing of Kate Carter, a Runners World editor, for faking her runs is a big deal and shows this all goes right to the top. Kate says she faked a London marathon on strava due to her ego, and that she bitterly regrets it. And that she ran 1:32 for a half instead of her 1:44 aim because she wet herself, stopped, changed, and mistakenly rejoined the course a few miles later. But my questions there are wasn't she suprised when the mile markers had jumped a couple, and wasn't she amazed she carded such a quick time after all that? Who runs 12 mins quicker in a half than intended AFTER stopping to get a change of clothes post-wee? We have never been given those answers. Also, in that run, her race number becomes completely repinned in another part of the shirt, and about half of it is obscured, possibly to avoid detection from the cameras.

15) Many of you have written to me about the Hardest Geezer, and flagging quite a few concerns, particularly his lie that he's the first. He leaves me cold. 352 days is an almighty faff. Throughout it all I found myself muttering, "get on with it, ffs." The stories of being offered up for sacrifice in the jungle not once but twice, and endlessly p*ssing blood, were pretty far fetched, and one early day he found himself without water and isolated in some deserted region. I found it all very half-baked, and yes his heart was 60-80 a lot of the time, particularly on those missing weeks in the Sahara. I'm not calling foul on him per se, because the guy literally crawled it most of the time, and the key with WG and RB is that they have massive precedent for this sort of thing, going back 6 years, more than six events, six different watches, but always only on their massive multiday fundraising stunts.

I'll let you go for now, but yes, Season 2 of Transcon was a another disgrace and insult to running, just as with Season one. I'll leave it to one of the greatest Transconners of all time to sum up this up more eloquently than I could:

It's just the new world order, since the advent of social media and AI, charisma >> intellect >> physical skills. A similar shakeup happened 100+ years ago with the industrial revolution, when intellect >> physical. It's hard for us old folks to adjust; I'm struggling with it too.

@willvic

Please could you expand on your comment about the hardest geezer not being the first. This had completely passed me by, and I thought I was reasonably well informed. Shameful if true. Thanks.

Fyona Campbell hiked already through Africa in the early 90ies.

Read: On Foot Through Africa

Jesper Olson ran through Africa in the 2000s, I think. Both did every continent on foot.

cliffs:
- influencers can make money despite having no talent for anything other than exploiting social media.
- willvic is angry
- that is all

Lmaoooo the war on running. Sneakers is trolling, but he's certainly right. The old guys are angry about new popular runners.

If he's actually a consultant for that series about cheating, I'll be watching though. I'm still here after 190 pages like the rest of us haha.

It's more that they're just not very good at running

You sure you are feeling alright, Will? Before you left in a fit, you were hourly accusing PJ of riding in the van or RV at high speeds. You even sent your secret sleuth to follow PJ because you were so sure it would be easy to find evidence of "cheating".

The daily mileage dropped after he had to run with others all day long. Funny how that works.

WC > SOTG + SOTG 2.0 + SOTG 2.1.

So, not to be that guy, but didn't he say we could have all the Garmin data we wanted once he reached NYC. That was three days ago now. Do you think, maybe this was another lie? Like the one he told about shutting NYC streets down when they were already shut down for earth day? This man is a buffoon.

The Garmin data wont ever be reveled he shifted the goalpost to a donation goal which didnt get hit

I only learned of Paul a few days before he started his transcon attempt, and I've been HOOKED on this whole ordeal ever since. The reddit threads eventually led me here, and I gotta say, it's oddly relieving to know that drama exists in even the most niche communities. Y'all wild over here.

PS: SOTG/2/2.1 is right about one thing and that's that PJ is pretty damn good looking, but my God, he's insufferable as a human being. Ick.

Whos next? This is my favorite thread on the internet

I'm impressed someone can run 3000 miles and actually look bigger than when they started. How is this possible?

Consuming 7000 calories of sugary garbage daily whilst only burning 6000 by speed walking 12-14 hrs / day.

unfortunately for you, he swings the other way

We should start asking for the Garmin data in his IG comments. The data not being released by now it crazy IMO

its not coming brother. never was

Hi all, thanks for all the interesting feedback and remarks to my piece. Somewhat 'from the heart' which people picked up on, and 44-2 in votes is a tangy return.

The overwhelming theme to these 190 pages is: who do the all the fashion, shoe, energy, drink and supplement companies want to endorse? A superb, national class runner with 40k followers, or a nonentity mid-packer with 3-500k? It's the latter. Every, every, every time.

And how to get to 300-500K? Well Jeremy Irons said it best in Margin Call. There are three ways to get ahead in this business:

Be first.
Be smartest.
Cheat.