This thread was originally titled, "Incredible development in the $612,000 Transcon Goodge run, currently ongoing" but the new title is more descriptive. The description of the run is here.
Hi, yes, a complete misinterpretation, never said that. I put out a diplomatic peace giving them a chance to behave, but that was it. Nothing on my observation told me this was real, and ever since I left, there has been total chaos with the data.
Whatever, whatever, comes out of this, these 10 things can't be denied:
1) RB and WG eschewed a tracker for no good reason, when most everyone else wears them, and a Hall of Fame US ultrarunner has said that alone means, "all bets are off."
2) HR monitors pick up a credible pulse on a runner circa 99% of the time, and let no man say otherwise - and if they do they're in the 1%.
3) WG and RBs hearts work 99%+ of the time outside of these multiday fundraising events.
4) But during them, for 14,000k, over 5 events, 6+ watches, and two different runners, they only work 10% of the time. There is no debate about that, the debate is as to why. The grave fear is that RB and WG are tampering with their watches during these events. And if tampering has ever occurred, that is grossly untoward, and a hostile act toward the noble sport of distance running - much of which relies on the "Honours Code".
5) RB and WG have never once commented or tried to address their filthy HR data in these 14,000k and 4 years. Their intellectual and emotional curiousity about the issue has been zero; even though a human pulse for a professional endurance runner is a fascinating and critical piece of data. It tells onlookers that the runner is actually doing it, and how hard they're working, and it gives the athlete huge insight into how things are going, whether they need to back off... whether they're getting sick, etc etc.
6) Balenger doesn't record heart rate, maps or splits for his runs out here, but nobody knows why - he didn't for his Speed project to Vegas either, which is riddled with inconsistencies and strange moments. He blocked me on Strava the moment I started looking into his inexplicably bizarre Transcon. Check it out for yourself [March 2019], it's a nonsense, and has nigh on identical modus operandi to this. He then hooked up with WG and they've been inseparable ever since, and WGs Jogle a few months later is pure farce.
7) The chances that WG's heart will return to normal after this event is over 99%. We know this because it works perfectly for the hundreds of runs he has done outside of these events since 2019.
8) It is never too hard to find really weird stuff going on with these two's other runs either: Caught watch-sharing at RB's Transcon the very first time I clicked on another runner. Caught riding at Jogle the very first time I saw a strange kink in the road. A flurry of 2 minute Ks at RBs TSP. His Central Park run is a huge "tech fail", if you want to call it that, and more importantly some 4 hours up on what you would expect for him. 100 miles in hilly Central Park in 16:39 [18:07 elapsed] is ludicrously quick for a runner who did 87 miles in 33 hours, and 27 hours for a 100 miles in the same year.
9) The acute hostility, arrogance, rampant profiteering, lifestyle, and sheer disrespect these two show for running is far unlike anything I've seen in my 40 years in the sport. WGs big speech to camera the other day that other runners and their achievements are nothing to him because he's just done 121 marathons was a disgrace, as was his assault on Bruce Tulloh's legacy and his absolute cast iron certainty that he would demolish Bruce even though his MDS and other running pointed to a ca. 80 day Transcon. Bruce's daughter wrote to say she was keeping all this from his widow as she would find it far too upsetting.
10) As we now know the research of RB and WG was a sham and a downright lie. The British/English record was 53 not 64 days, but they knew darn well they could never go for that as they would simply have been laughed at from the outset. When this error was highlighted about 3 weeks in, NOT ONCE have they acknowledged the blunder, apologised for it, or corrected the media. News articles are now being released, saying WG is about to become the fastest Brit. It's a moral outrage - you are seeing skulduggery right before your eyes.
For all those who believe in the classic, historic ideals of running, dating back centuries, I urge you all to give these potty-mouthed, grasping, shady opportunists a very hard time in the coming years. They hide behind charity and Mandy's legacy as a means of turning their backs on the workplace and making wonderful living and a life of adventure in the outdoors. WG is to now go and live the life of an international playboy in 12 nations all over the world for the next 12 months, from his profits off these runs and his generous sponsorships and Gofundme raising. They're not obliged to hand one penny of their Go Fund Me to charity if they don't want to. He notes that when working as a model he was broke and living off credit. He's not broke any more.
In terms of their social media fans versus the relatively small community of serious runners who care about what is at stake here, this is a David versus Goliath conflict, and WG and RB know this, and it's why they laugh at us and viciously ridicule me in their videos and other media.
Well, let me remind them: David won.
1) Most is not all. So, one TC HOG's word is good, but the King of TC's word is not...why, because he doesn't agree with your opinions?
2) I sure hope you have evidence to back up your tampering claims...those are rather dangerous to slander. Then, real lawyers get involved, not us arm-chair ones
3) They don't have to address it to you, particularly when you came in attacking their efforts before they even began.
4) Does every person post their Strava maps and all details? I know for a fact that each user has a choice to turn off certain details for privacy. Is he not allowed any privacy now? Boy, you love to say that he blocked you on Strava. So what?
5) Do you have his Whoop data to validate against the Strava data? You may look very, very foolish if/when a report comes out showing all of your stats to be bad. Or, is Whoop now a snake-oil product too?
6) Caught watch sharing? Your 1 single example of that was with someone who literally said they were out running with him. Strava has a little checkbox that allows you to include another runner on yours. Is it a crime to check a box to share that data?
7) The hostility towards you, while not the way I would have handled it, is actually reasonable. In the same video you use are your calling card as the victim you are seem telling them they are a fraud. Are you saying they should have just taken it and been nice? They aren't allowed to be angry for you calling them a fraud? I agree that line was a bit harsh, but everyone has their own choice of words to use.
8) Profiteering? Because they have sponsors? And saying he is going for the record as the fastest Brit to run across the US is a marketing line. There is no record for it. Even Bruce's record isn't a record because there is only 1 record...fastest period, and that is PK. Bold statements get sponsors.
9) Up until those stated that Bruce's record wasn't really the record, you kept claiming that it was. So, you were lying as well...or your research was poor. You try to sweep that under the rug. Did you apologize and say you were wrong? Is wrong a word in your vocabulary?
10) Why don't you wait until the donation checks are made before you claim fraud? Oh wait, didn't you already contact Scotland Yard? You really think they aren't going to make a big publicity push with the donations being made. I can see the monstrous checks already!
Your name is Will, not David. You are not the little guy who conquered the giant, just a WG and RB are the giant. You said long long long ago that you were a reporter. A reporter is supposed to be unbiased and follow the story, not be the story. You have attempted to insert yourself as the story.
Alright dorks, if you wanna put together something more interesting I have an idea. I'm past my prime scripting and statistics days, but surely someone here could bang this out in Python pretty quickly. A few ideas:
* You can get all the data you'd ever need from Strava's API. Not sure if this is what Will C did earlier or not. Here's an example from Will G's most recent day:
* I would obviously be interested in the correlation between HR and pace, there's a million different ways you could do that. Maybe you could try looking at bands of HR and their associated pace and variability. For example, just making this up:
* I would at first do the above with the standard pace that Strava provides. I would then repeat with the GAP, because I suspect it's even more damning when you take into the account that it looks like he didn't slow his cheating on big uphills.
Just some thoughts, I'm nowhere near as good at these things as I used to be.
Adding on more thoughts...
If someone does track him for the final 2 days, it totally plausible that he slogs it in on his own. However, that doesn't mean they didn't generate more evidence.
You could expand upon my previously outlined data analysis by comparing the days where he was observed by Will C and potentially this new observer to the days he was unobserved. There's another strong data point.
Anyone fresh out of college, looking for a data science portfolio builder project? I'd love to hear you tell me about this during an interview instead of some made up case study!
Bumping this because a few people mentioned getting access to the raw data. You can get a good chunk here in JSON. You'd have to manually grab the JSON for each activity, but you could just gather the IDs for each event and make a list and plug that into a loop to grab all the files. Happy to help more, but I don't have the time now to actually write the scripts. I'm extremely confident that a rudimentary analysis of this would be pretty damning. The "professional" analysis of Rob Young's data wasn't anything fancy, so I don't think you need to do anything too challenging.
PK, this is a bizarre claim. It's quite obviously Will Goodge and Robbie Balanger that are the ones who have 'given life to some ridiculous record that no one in the USA crossers community will acknowledge'. They are the ones that plastered 'Fastest Englishman to cross America' across their van before the run even started, and made big claims about this record in the media. So how you can blame Will C for this is quite frankly ridiculous.
It.Is.A.Marketing line. Big bold statements bring in sponsors. It is really that simple.
Tomorrow I could go out and say that I'm attempting to become the fastest left-handed, brown haired recruiter and I am going to run 13.75348960394853025 miles.
What stupid point are you trying to make now? Of course it's a marketing line. I doubt anybody will disagree with that.
The point here is that PK is blaming WC for raising the issue of the British record when it was obviously Goodge and Balanger who did so. This is highly disingenous.
It's written on their van, they've boasted about it online. It is 100% obvious to anybody capable of rational thought that it is Goodge and Balanger to blame for raising the issue of the UK record.
This post was edited 51 seconds after it was posted.
Bumping this because a few people mentioned getting access to the raw data. You can get a good chunk here in JSON. You'd have to manually grab the JSON for each activity, but you could just gather the IDs for each event and make a list and plug that into a loop to grab all the files. Happy to help more, but I don't have the time now to actually write the scripts. I'm extremely confident that a rudimentary analysis of this would be pretty damning. The "professional" analysis of Rob Young's data wasn't anything fancy, so I don't think you need to do anything too challenging.
I already downloaded Goodge's data back in the middle of this thread and did the analysis on it like I posted, which all you Will Cockerell shills want to ignore. The only "damning" thing about it is that it highlights how much of this whole drama is solely because Will Cockerell faked and falsified so many of the numbers.
Agreed. Can we also agree on standards of proof for those who claim to have witnessed his running? Anyone can come on here and claim they saw him running. How do we know they’re telling the truth?
If Goodge won’t adhere to any norms of tracking, at least our witnesses can. I would think at minimum witnesses should provide at least one photo. Multiple photos and video preferred.
Video is from when I saw him 5/24 at 10:34. Pic is from when I saw him at 3:16. And to clarify, his crew said no to me joining to run with him, and I left it at that. Didn’t say I’d stop by or where. I just saw their route and found them on it.
Thanks for your report. It seems genuine. You obviously aren't part of the crew as you have reported that they wouldn't allow you to run. You shouldn't have had to put up with accusations just for a quick report, but this debate hasn't always been rational or polite.
Bumping this because a few people mentioned getting access to the raw data. You can get a good chunk here in JSON. You'd have to manually grab the JSON for each activity, but you could just gather the IDs for each event and make a list and plug that into a loop to grab all the files. Happy to help more, but I don't have the time now to actually write the scripts. I'm extremely confident that a rudimentary analysis of this would be pretty damning. The "professional" analysis of Rob Young's data wasn't anything fancy, so I don't think you need to do anything too challenging.
I already downloaded Goodge's data back in the middle of this thread and did the analysis on it like I posted, which all you Will Cockerell shills want to ignore. The only "damning" thing about it is that it highlights how much of this whole drama is solely because Will Cockerell faked and falsified so many of the numbers.
Sorry, mind linking me to the page? I haven't read a good chunk of this for my own sanity's sake.
So, total elapsed time for the day = 14:00, compared with Strava = 14:05:47... fine, BUT:
Total MOVING time from 5x whoop "runs" = 2:36 + 1:03 + 2:03 + 1:03 + 2:53 = 9:38!!!
vs Strava moving time = 12:51:55!!
He has a circa 1h stop after run 1
20 mins after run 2
*2.5 HOUR AFTER RUN 3!*
14 mins after run 4.
Are these possibly the times when someone else is "muling", between 9:25 & 10:32am, and between 13:55 & 16:39pm?
I'm not tech savy or smart enough to download the Strava file to cross examine this, is someone else able to compare these times?
The whoop run times can be seen in a screen grab on his latest video on IG.
Also following up on this, a smaller point but he also shows/states an average of 6,500kcals burned per day... that seems EXTREMELY low vs what I'd expect for someone to be burning running for 8-12h per day?
I already downloaded Goodge's data back in the middle of this thread and did the analysis on it like I posted, which all you Will Cockerell shills want to ignore. The only "damning" thing about it is that it highlights how much of this whole drama is solely because Will Cockerell faked and falsified so many of the numbers.
Sorry, mind linking me to the page? I haven't read a good chunk of this for my own sanity's sake.
The first time I did the download and analysis was on page 12 before Cockerell went to America to call Goodge a fraud to his face:
Hi all,here's an update on another thread about the British runner William Goodge doing Transcon at the moment and some worrying irregularities.Namely that he runs at 150-170bpm in the first two days of his multidayers, colla...
The second time I did the download and analysis was on page 22 after Cockerell posted on Facebook that he found his smoking gun and went on a Facebook post deletion spree while in America. My analysis showed nothing changed in Goodge's Strava data even with Cockerell observing him and which Cockerell even had a Facebook video posted (he then deleted) with him saying he is now believes Goodge after spending 7 minutes alone time with him talking about both their dead mothers.
Hi all,here's an update on another thread about the British runner William Goodge doing Transcon at the moment and some worrying irregularities.Namely that he runs at 150-170bpm in the first two days of his multidayers, colla...
is that possibly the times where he took walking breaks? Strava will still count moving time if he is walking, its only if he completely stops that it doesn’t count it. If whoop just records ‘running time’ or its level of activity trigger is a different setup to strava then its probably going to record different to what strava does.
Im certainly not sure on the above as don’t own a whoop, but could be one explanation.
is that possibly the times where he took walking breaks? Strava will still count moving time if he is walking, its only if he completely stops that it doesn’t count it. If whoop just records ‘running time’ or its level of activity trigger is a different setup to strava then its probably going to record different to what strava does.
Im certainly not sure on the above as don’t own a whoop, but could be one explanation.
Could be but looking at his pace graph on Strava there doesn't seem to be a consistent 1h gap in the morning and 2.5h gap in the afternoon where pace is "low" for the whole period.
Well I don't think he'll be backing up his stats with the whoop - that thinks he ran 74 miles on Monday - Vs the "reality" of 60 on Strava - I guess that's just counting those teeny tiny steps though.....
Well I don't think he'll be backing up his stats with the whoop - that thinks he ran 74 miles on Monday - Vs the "reality" of 60 on Strava - I guess that's just counting those teeny tiny steps though.....
Those numbers are not miles run, they're "strain" - a made up number by whoop that tops out at 21.0 and gets exponentially harder the closer to 21.0 you get. So it's harder to jump from 20.0 - 20.1 than it is from 18.0-18.1
"What is WHOOP Strain? WHOOP strain is a measure of cardiovascular and muscular exertion that quantifies the amount of physical and mental stress you're putting on your body. We track your strain on a 0-21 scale, both for your entire day and for specific workouts and activities."
Could be but looking at his pace graph on Strava there doesn't seem to be a consistent 1h gap in the morning and 2.5h gap in the afternoon where pace is "low" for the whole period.
Only newbs and Will Cockerell use Strava graphs to accuse someone of cheating. Strava graphs apply smoothing algorithms to prettify the lines and which removes lots of data. It is beyond dumb to use Strava graphs for details like this because it is intentionally garbled to make it look pretty. This is why experienced analyzers, like me, download the data and graph it ourselves.
Could be but looking at his pace graph on Strava there doesn't seem to be a consistent 1h gap in the morning and 2.5h gap in the afternoon where pace is "low" for the whole period.
Only newbs and Will Cockerell use Strava graphs to accuse someone of cheating. Strava graphs apply smoothing algorithms to prettify the lines and which removes lots of data. It is beyond dumb to use Strava graphs for details like this because it is intentionally garbled to make it look pretty. This is why experienced analyzers, like me, download the data and graph it ourselves.
If you check my original post comparing Whoops vs Strava for 22nd May, you'll see I said:
"I'm not tech savy or smart enough to download the Strava file to cross examine this, is someone else able to compare these times?"
Sounds like you are, so why don't you have a look and tell us what "he" was up to between 10:32-11:35 and 13:55-16:39? :)
Thank you for taking the time to respond. It’s fascinating how people can perceive the same things so very differently. Some thoughts on what you’ve written:
You’re very generous to brush off his lies and exaggerations as mere “marketing lines.”
Waiting until the end to provide better evidence seems messed up when he’s been asking for money and attention the entire time.
Waiting until the end to provide better evidence also raises questions about manipulation of data.
It’s hard to find/monitor him and catch him in the act of cheating if he’s not wearing a tracker. Super shady.
Pushing Nu Calm is a major issue for me. Yes, it’s his job to push it now that they are sponsoring him, but he has a choice in who he accepts as a sponsor, just as we have a choice in where we work. I would never work for a company whose products and practices didn’t align with my values. The products an athlete or celebrity endorses says a lot about them as a person. His promotion of what nearly all of us agree is a snake oil product says a lot about his integrity, or lack thereof.
I get it. Waiting till the end to see enough evidence to satisfy you/others is not ideal. But, is that better than accusing without evidence? Then, if/when evidence is shown, those that accused WG of cheating will, unfortunately, be unlikely to recant their accusations.
On the product/sponsor choice, I get your thoughts on that as well. Please don't interpret me saying that I don't have a problem with WG being sponsored by NuCalm as an endorsement of the product. I don't know if it works or not. I never had heard of it prior to seeing them as a sponsor for RB on some Youtube video. I just googled "is Nucalm a scam" and nothing of merit came up. Me? I sleep like a rock and fall asleep pretty darned quickly. Now, if it solved snoring, then my wife would be the first customer in line :) On the choice of sponsor, lots of people wear Nike even though there were validated reports that they used sweatshops/forced labor up until last year. So, what makes them a good or bad product. You get to choose if you want to use them.
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