Just finished a 64 mile run wrote:
Can you pull the gps/time data from his log?
That is where I got the overnight pace data I posted earlier - courtesy of another ultralister. Not sure if I have permission to share the link as it's on his site not my own. And I'm not sure how he dumped the data from the tracker site, but it does match up in total distance to what Rob's crew reports on their site, and the timestamps match the live tracker on their webpage. What I have only goes through 6/6 2am.
At this point there are 2 blatant documented "incidents". That I can't see legitimate way for them to excuse.
a) Covering 38mi to Laughlin in at most 4.5 hours according image timestamps while solo and self-supported after their RV got stuck in the sand outside Mojave.
b) the video from this thread of 2 drivebys over a 15 minute span where he was nowhere to be found on the road, yet was recorded as completing 15.3 miles in 1:36 by the tracker (according to the tracker, RYoung was still running 9.5 - 10.5mph through the 1st video and 2nd video despite no runner found in the vids). It looks like the videographer spooked them though, because sometime in the next split *right after* the 2nd video was shot of them clearly moving along, they stopped/slowed the van and only moved about 1 mile over the next 24 minutes.
I must make 1 amendment to my earlier attempt to match the tracker to the video by the OP of this thread. I thought the slow period lined up with the video, but that's actually incorrect. I had the timezone wrong on the comparison. In actuality, the 1st video is taken while RYoung covers 1.89mi in 12 minutes.
The rest is speculation that the strategy of burst running ~3 marathon pace for 20-40 miles every day and then walk/jogging the additional 30-55 left over is not feasible. Check out these splits as recorded by the tracker (all times converted to local time):
May 29th starting at 11:20pm he runs 18.6mi in just over 2 hours, a 2:53 marathon pace. Then he takes about 30 minutes to recover, before going back out again for another 5.25 miles in 35 minutes. Then 1.5 hours of rest followed by 23.6mi in 2:53, or a 3:11 marathon pace.
On May 30th at 10pm, 18.25mi in 2:12, or 3:09 marathon pace... kind of wears him out and he slows down to finish a total stretch of 27.1mi in 3:27, or 3:20 marathon pace. He stopped for about 90 minutes to gather himself, then turns in what may be one of the greatest all time mid-transcontinental stretches of running ever: 14.1mi in 1:24 (2:36 marathon pace, 1:18 half).
Then he takes another 30 minute break before jumping back out there and logging another 9.8 miles in 1:16, or a 3:24 marathon pace.
On the 31st starting at 11pm, another great section of running yields 19.4 miles in just under 2 hours (2:40 marathon pace)
And it's like this for almost every night of recorded data. All of these are steady-state splits like the ones I posted earlier, where it records 1.8 - 2.1mi distance covered every 12 minutes for up to 2 hours solid... which negates the argument that the van is driving up ahead of him or something to cause erratic looking times. In the entire period there is only 1 or 2 instances (other than where they drove to Laughlin after the sandpit) where the tracker in the van exceeds a speed of 12mph for a 12 minute period. So they're almost certainly not doing the drive-ahead stop-and-wait method. More like the drive-9-to-11mph-with-the-runner-in-the-van method.