Another Theory wrote:
He's Toast wrote:It's really difficult to truly tell, but the data from the first few days suggest they might've given real effort at the beginning. Five percent of the way into a long journey the three amigos might've realized they had no chance. Everyone involved, including the sponsor, would've looked foolish to wave the white flag on day three after hyping this thing up so much and making an expensive website. At that point a single young employee of the sponsor would be outnumbered in the RV and might be persuaded to go along with the ruse by the guys with experience in this type of activity.
I don't buy the theory that they started the run as a legit effort. Rob knows his past history of cheating and lies.
The main reason I'm open to the possibility that they didn't plan the cheating from the beginning, is that they did a monumentally shitty job of cheating.
If they weren't figuring out how to cheat on-the-fly, it seems like they would have figured out in advance how to make an RV GPX track that looks a lot more like a run, they would have acquired GPS devices that don't collect cadence, they would have shared that data more openly to reduce suspicion, etc.
I mean, if you know you'll be cheating from the beginning, why would you even bother taking cross-country crazy-ass shortcuts up mountainsides, or take the RV down a dirt road where it gets stuck (and risks forfeiting the whole attempt)? Just stick to the roads and make up those two-tenths of a mile overnight in the RV. Such risk-taking seems to have stopped once the cheating began in earnest.
Maybe I'm a sucker, but I actually believe Dustin's frustration that you can hear in the days of the blog at the lack of a plan/schedule (whether a plan to run, or a plan to cheat, they're probably both lacking!)
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"Our day starts at 8pm, the time Rob set off from Huntington Beach. Rob runs through the night as we try to get a marathon done in the first 6 hours. Then Rob comes in for some breakfast. Then it’s back out for another 6 hours to get another marathon done. After than an hour for lunch. Then whatever mileage he can manage before 3pm when we all go to bed for 5 hours.
That’s the schedule for the moment anyway.
In reality though things turn out a little different. Those 1 hour meal breaks can become 2-3 hour sleeps. And those gentle 6 hour marathons have been managed in 4 hours. But the plan is the best we’ve got at the moment and it gives Rob some structure."
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Lisa Smith-Batchen...has been sharing her own mileage plans with us. Given that Rob had no plan as such, Lisa’s detailed and well-thought out plan is a real blessing and something we are now using to make sure we are hitting the right miles at the right time. Essentially it’s about building up to the big miles, further down the line, once we have stopped climbing. For the moment it’s enough to be averaging 55 miles a day, and Rob is already ahead of that number.
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So it sounds like Dustin actually sort of wanted to follow a reasonable transcon plan initially. He's not saying "Rob is doing 4-hour marathons, which is normally a total no-no for a transcon, but because of his unique physiology he can do it and that's why we're going to set the record!!!"
Also, LOL, as they ended up doing the exact opposite of LSB's slow-through-the-mountains advice.
Of course they could also just be too dumb to know how to cheat well.
Regarding Michael Speicher, it's interesting that he didn't just passively look the other way. He gave a full-throated pledge that the run was legitimate on his Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Michael.R.Speicher/posts/10153798848599538"There have been speculations, that Rob has been "cheating" and not running at all, but I can confirm that Rob has ran every step, foot, mile on his own. I have been present every step of the way and will continue to do so."