Markus wrote:
Quote from RY book
"And now here I was running around in a park with dreams of world records and helping charities. You couldn't make that up."
Well you DID make it up!
Oh, he has definitely made stuff up. That's why I'm surprised I'm not finding noticeable smoking guns from the route on the initial 30.5 miles at 8 PM on 13 May. It actually looks like it was done on foot, even though the miles are just stupid (such as 6:21, 6:02, 6:17, 6:22, 6:32 for miles 6-10).
https://www.strava.com/activities/619872089Three noticeable places he deviates from the bike trail (well, a few others) but these three really stand out:
Mile 14.3 - he crosses the dirt river bottom near Angels Stadium at Orangewood Ave instead of using the bridge, or even the Katella Ave bridge about a half mile further up which is the normal route for the bike trail. The crooked route across the river is not crossing the Orangewood Ave bridge. The river bottom is all loose dirt there with no water. And that's why the pace slows to a walk. It would be very inefficient to cross that by foot or by bike, even mountain bike.
http://imgur.com/a/TopsHMile 19.0 to 19.3 - he backtracks (maybe to use a portapotty on the bike trail? or maybe a shortcut to Circle K but there's a fence?) and then goes to the Circle K convenience store probably for water or food. The tracking resembles a person on foot, not bike.
Mile 25.0 to 27.6 - he leaves the bike trail and goes up the embankment and crosses Weir Canyon Road diagonally to make a shortcut on streets and through parking lots to Gypsum Canyon Road. That would be really odd on a bike. He must have scouted that out in advance because you would not naturally know to leave the trail there to try to save some distance or how to find the trail again.
Again, I think he's a cheat and a scammer and that's why I'm surprised that this initial leg appears to be on foot.