Robert Young fakes run across America

Moar outstanding spycraft!

His route is taking him right through the heart of downtown Indianapolis. I'd check it out if he's not passing through during working hours. But I'm sure he wouldn't cheat in a populated area like that.

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Natty Dread wrote:

If you look last evening's video, Mr. Young is averaging ~20s between utility polls. Utility polls are spaced ~125' apart along highways - in urban environments they are often closer and there is more variance in spacing due to infrastructure (tethers/drops to buildings, driveways, intersections). This would mean Mr. was traveling at 6.25 ft/sec or ~9mph in the video.

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arealpersson:

1. The numbers posted for the first part of the run are simply not believable. This is what the super fanatics don't seem to get. The chances are that Robert Young is the best of the best all time super distance runners in recorded history is, well, slim. And even if he is, the numbers really don't make sense.
2. The day his van got lost in the desert and they reconnected later... the numbers are simply not believable. This one even more than #1.
3. Prior claim of being a cyclist on a specific team are not backed up by any actual information from that time period about that team... he was likely not on it.
4. The photo is interesting because, yes, wiki allows people to update a page... but there was lots of fiddling going on with this page that seems to have all been sourced back to the same address. Meaning that at some point in the past, someone was working hard to pump up his claims, and using a photo of someone else. Oddly, and while this isn't damning it is just weird, he didn't know about or remove a photo that is supposedly him looking very studly on a page about him that was not actually him. It's just odd. Very odd. However, the story about the photo has morphed and it is possible people just don't have these details correct.
5. There's a difference between coming in 3rd (age group?) in a triathlon and declaring what he declared.
6. Some folks are confused at the background. Is this a stud triathlete and cyclist who moved on to running? Or a dude that got off the couch one day and magically realized he could run fast? Or both.

As to why the van drove away from the OP and the OP's view on that, he has come back to this thread a lot. I assume he will see it and respond. It occurs to me that if the crew's story really is that they thought OP was a bad guy and this is why they drove off, then your question is a bit moot. They wouldn't have talked to him anyway because they feared for their lives or something.

Everything about it is weird.

But this is letsrun and yeah, you're right.

Side note to those making a big deal about the sunburn which has shown up halfway across the country. May not mean much since Mr Young supposedly was running at night. Or maybe it does. But that's not your smoking gun.

I keep hoping he has numbers that will make sense.

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RY runs for donuts wrote:

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Natty Dread wrote:

If you look last evening's video, Mr. Young is averaging ~20s between utility polls. Utility polls are spaced ~125' apart along highways - in urban environments they are often closer and there is more variance in spacing due to infrastructure (tethers/drops to buildings, driveways, intersections). This would mean Mr. was traveling at 6.25 ft/sec or ~9mph in the video.

Not a bad effort at the end of a 40 - 50 mile day, but it looked to be a show for the camera and Mr. Young was having far more difficulty with the pace than the fellow pushing/carrying the camera in-front of him. It makes it difficult to believe he held that pace (or better) for the first 2 - 3 weeks of the attempt.

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Your math is way off, 6.25ft/sec is like 4.25 MPH.

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all ultra runners are cheaters wrote:

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SpyVsSpy wrote:

Your spycraft is horrible.

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True. I don't play games.

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Oh many more links than that.
The 'Race Across the USA' that Rob "won" in 2015 is put on by one of the fake charities that is now "benefitting" from this super important "run" (the 100 mile club.)

The goal of the "charity" is "awareness" of childhood obesity. Their founder is 50 lbs overweight and has been laughing about this scam for the couple of years she's had it going as she begs for money "for the children" and "awareness" as she "needs to" fly around the country to set up "new chapters" of the "charity".
All of these folks link back to a few key scam artists.
Anyway I'm going to go swim and bike across badwater basin 4 times with no proof "for the children!"

Fake run benefitting fake charity. Anything donated goes to their pals "charity". They split the proceeds. They thought it would be the perfect crime
Lots more links to a few key criminals going on here.

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numbers game wrote:

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RY runs for donuts wrote:

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Natty Dread wrote:

If you look last evening's video, Mr. Young is averaging ~20s between utility polls. Utility polls are spaced ~125' apart along highways - in urban environments they are often closer and there is more variance in spacing due to infrastructure (tethers/drops to buildings, driveways, intersections). This would mean Mr. was traveling at 6.25 ft/sec or ~9mph in the video.

Not a bad effort at the end of a 40 - 50 mile day, but it looked to be a show for the camera and Mr. Young was having far more difficulty with the pace than the fellow pushing/carrying the camera in-front of him. It makes it difficult to believe he held that pace (or better) for the first 2 - 3 weeks of the attempt.

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Your math is way off, 6.25ft/sec is like 4.25 MPH.

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I got 4.26 mph but I could be a little off

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arealpersson wrote:
I know not everyone is that enamoured with Guinness but their standards are the ones Rob is using to verify his run. .

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The Scot wrote:

There are some guidelines on the Guiness records site for submitting an application for this record, here are some extracts I found interesting.

"Witness statements are statements of authentication from independent* individuals who verify all
relevant details of a record attempt. At attempts where Guinness World Records representatives are
not present, these witnesses are essentially the eyes and ears of our Records Management Team. They
are tasked with observing the entire record attempt, confirming whether all Guinness World Records
guidelines have been followed, and providing a detailed account to us of precisely what took place.
Without this independent verification, it is impossible for us to approve your record attempt.
*In a select few cases, it may not be possible for witnesses to be completely independent, especially in the case of certain medical
records. Please consult your Records Manager or your Specific Guidelines to determine if this applies to your record attempt.
What does “independent†mean?
An independent witness is an individual who is neither affiliated with nor related to the individual or
group attempting the record, the record organisers, participants, venue, or any persons involved with
staging the event, nor should these individuals have anything to gain from the outcome of the attempt.
The witnesses must also be independent of one another, except in those cases where officials from a
specific professional body are required to verify the record, e.g. a national sporting organisation."

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/Images/GWR-Guide-to-Evidence-2016_tcm25-412531.pdf

I find it hard to believe that either the current attempt or previous ones actually had such a witness?

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The only way Rob could believe those are his real PRs are if he's delusional, since he's not done anything to indicate he's capable of anything remotely close to those times. So nothing close to an explanation there.

Why no data? I don't care how 'off the cuff' he may be, it doesn't take 5mins to arrange a couple of garmins uploading to a strava account.

As several others have said more recently, the guy is an overweight middle aged man. If he'd really been running for 3 weeks at the kind of mileage he's claimed he'd either have an injury from all the concrete pounding or he'd have lost some damn weight.

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RY runs for donuts wrote:

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Natty Dread wrote:

If you look last evening's video, Mr. Young is averaging ~20s between utility polls. Utility polls are spaced ~125' apart along highways - in urban environments they are often closer and there is more variance in spacing due to infrastructure (tethers/drops to buildings, driveways, intersections). This would mean Mr. was traveling at 6.25 ft/sec or ~9mph in the video.

Not a bad effort at the end of a 40 - 50 mile day, but it looked to be a show for the camera and Mr. Young was having far more difficulty with the pace than the fellow pushing/carrying the camera in-front of him. It makes it difficult to believe he held that pace (or better) for the first 2 - 3 weeks of the attempt.

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Your math is way off, 6.25ft/sec is like 4.25 MPH.

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If he is only running at night, that would mean only running 6 hours a day for the 60+ miles each day he was doing. Which is impossible. This is the spring and summer when nights are short.

He would have to run more than half his hours in direct sunlight and have much more of a tan than we see in his pictures.

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Natty Dread wrote:

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RY runs for donuts wrote:

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Natty Dread wrote:

If you look last evening's video, Mr. Young is averaging ~20s between utility polls. Utility polls are spaced ~125' apart along highways - in urban environments they are often closer and there is more variance in spacing due to infrastructure (tethers/drops to buildings, driveways, intersections). This would mean Mr. was traveling at 6.25 ft/sec or ~9mph in the video.

Not a bad effort at the end of a 40 - 50 mile day, but it looked to be a show for the camera and Mr. Young was having far more difficulty with the pace than the fellow pushing/carrying the camera in-front of him. It makes it difficult to believe he held that pace (or better) for the first 2 - 3 weeks of the attempt.

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Your math is way off, 6.25ft/sec is like 4.25 MPH.

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You are correct ... I made a simple, but significant error.

I was off preparing dinner for the family when it occurred to me I inadvertently (and carelessly) flipped the numerator and denominator when I went to convert from ft/sec to miles/hour. I figured folks would be all over it before I returned.

Yes ... 3600/5280 makes for about 4.25 mph and not 9mph (as would be the case when I multiplied by 5280/3600).

Now I need to go back and count sidewalk sections between the utility polls because 4.25 mph seems far to slow for the amount of effort on Mr. Young's face.

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Robs Opentracker wrote:

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Natty Dread wrote:

If you look last evening's video, Mr. Young is averaging ~20s between utility polls. Utility polls are spaced ~125' apart along highways - in urban environments they are often closer and there is more variance in spacing due to infrastructure (tethers/drops to buildings, driveways, intersections). This would mean Mr. was traveling at 6.25 ft/sec or ~9mph in the video.

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The 3 min 15 second video covered the distance from 38.819742N, 90.496883W to 38.822352N, 90.490602W ( or thereabouts from Google Maps ). Straight line distance is just under 2000ft. Closer to 7mph. And then followed by a period of 20 minute miles.

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The number one and first rule in being a con-man is to convince everyone that you are a nice, great and genuine person. That's usually the first thing you hear from someone when you talk to them after they've been conned.

"Rob's PR times. I'm sure he will talk about them afterwards. My guess is he has quoted what he thinks the fastest time he's done that distance are, probably segments in longer runs, not the standard way to report your PRs but Rob doesn't always do things the regular way."

You don't just THINK you ran PR during a run and then go by that assumption with no proof.

- "His bronze triathlon place - somebody posted links to that from a forum in 2004 which put him in third place."

2004 Annual Fake Run For Fun
1st Place- J. Meoff
2nd Place- D. Bag
3rd Place- R. Young

It's posted on a forum now so it must be true.

Oh, I will need to look into more details of that 2015 race. It seems like we need a social graph of who Robert Young is associated with.

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ThunderThighs wrote:

If he is only running at night, that would mean only running 6 hours a day for the 60+ miles each day he was doing. Which is impossible. This is the spring and summer when nights are short.

He would have to run more than half his hours in direct sunlight and have much more of a tan than we see in his pictures.

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RY runs for donuts wrote:

I have read they are closer to 180' between each, which would make that closer to a 6.1 mph pace, seems more reasonable given his stride.

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