Desert Misadventure - Attempt to Delete Evidence

Rob Young has cropped off a portion of a critical run preceding his presumed hitchhike from Bannock to Laughlin.  That cropped portion? By simple math, it was 1.1 miles covered in 1 minute, 28 seconds.  It seems perhaps the vehicular assistance occurred even earlier than predicted, and Rob had to try and cover it up:

Run from broken down RV: Strava vs. TomTom

Strava Uploads

In recent days, Rob Young has been uploading some of his "runs" to Strava.  He spent most of Friday June 24 slowly trickling out a string of uploads, admitting that he apparently has to inspect each one before making it "unprivate".

Source: https://www.strava.com/activities/617321199

LetsRun forum members have documented instances of uploaded-then-deleted activities, unrealistic paces, likely areas of RV-riding to running transition, etc.  The Strava activities, of course, do not contain any cadence data that would have been recorded by the model of TomTom GPS watch Rob uses, and preserved on the TomTom MySports website.  Instead, carefully curated, stripped-down data is being presented on Strava.  Around 700 miles out of his 2100 mile journey are currently missing from the site - including the time of the Asher Delmott incident and of the Bannock to Laughlin "run".

The Strava data is also being manipulated.  Here I will focus on the run from the broken down RV discussed in the other post on this site to illustrate this general point, and to bolster the evidence of cheating on this particular day.

Run From the RV

As we previously established, Rob's RV broke down in Bannock, CA on May 18 around 6-6:30 in the morning.  Around 7:30, he proceeded on foot to Hwy 95.  At this point, given the photographic evidence of his presence in Laughlin 34 miles away no later than 12:52PM, and obscured TomTom data, we were able to conclude with relatively high certainty that Rob must have ridden in a vehicle for the ~13 miles up Hwy 95.

With the uploading of this run to Strava, new details have emerged.  Here is the run from the RV as uploaded to Strava:

Source: https://www.strava.com/activities/617391631

To refresh our memories, here was the original version of the run from the TomTom screenshots:

Source: Marathonmanuk Facebook

Elapsed vs. Moving Time

You'll notice that Strava presents both the elapsed time and the moving time of the activity.  To make sure we are comparing apples to apples, we need to figure out which method the TomTom site is using.  Easy, let's just compare some activities to each other.  Here's the run before this one:

Source: https://www.strava.com/activities/617268853

Source: Marathonmanuk Facebook

This was the one where he left his other watch running, so the large differential between moving and elapsed time is obvious.  TomTom is showing the total elapsed time.  Let's do another to be sure.  Picking one from the prior day:

Source: https://www.strava.com/activities/617264839

Source: Marathonmanuk Facebook

Once again, we can see that the TomTom website is displaying elapsed time.  It's just important we compare the same thing, but elapsed time is probably even better as we can know the actual time of day if necessary.  Anyway, let's get down to business knowing we can do an equitable comparison.

Strava vs. TomTom

The original TomTom activity above showed the run from the broken down RV as 4.61 miles, 48:07 elapsed time.  The Strava activity is 3.5 miles, 46:39 elapsed time.  Doing some quick math:

TomTom	Strava	Difference
4.61 miles	3.5 miles	1.11 miles
48:07 elapsed	46:39 elapsed	1:28 elapsed
10:26 min/mi	13:20 min/mi	1:19 min/mi (45.2 mph)

Yes, that's right... The Strava upload has been cropped, and the missing portion was a little over 1 mile done in a minute and a half.  Rob may be something else, but I'm pretty sure he's not running 45 miles per hour.

Let's superimpose the activities on the map to summarize:

Run from broken down RV: Strava vs. TomTom

The implication is obvious.  The Strava activity shows that Rob ran along the dirt road leaving the RV at about a 10 min/mi pace, then began walking at 16-20 min/mi once he reached the main highway.  Are we to believe that he somehow turned on the jets immediately after these mediocre paces, running 35 miles through the desert with NO support and minimal fluids, at a sub-7 minute pace?  No sir.  He walked about 3/4 of a mile north, while looking for his ride, or perhaps being ultimately offered a lift.  He entered the vehicle and only remembered to stop his watch a mile down the road.  A 1:20 mile pace would not pass the sniff-test, so he had to crop it off.  We're still waiting for any other runs from May 18 after this one to be uploaded, but something tells me those aren't coming.

Conclusion

Rob Young began his hitchhike about a mile before previously thought and had to crop off a recorded activity to hide it.