jemima sumgong went from being a 2.29 marathon runner ,to 2.20.are these improvements normal for an EPO user?

Mr. Obvious wrote:

This is some sort of weird loguc for arguing that EPO doesn't work. It makes absolutely no sense.

EPO allows people to improve. It doesn't magically make them run X time and it doesn't makebthem run within Y time of wjat some other person ran.

I do wonder where you come up with such weird ideas.

I agree...it doesn't magically allow a runner to achieve a certain time or performance level. And as with any other drug, there are individual variations based on type, dosage, duration, etc.

And according to this study, EPO is definitely effective on endurance trained, altitude native Kenyan runners showing a significant improvement in 3k running TT. Though not blinded, and not involving elites, these runners based on their average VO2max's pre-EP0 are far from "hobby joggers."

These ideas come from fundamental notions of the expected distributions of clean performance potential, and expected distribution of additional EPO benefits, in populations with large enough sample sizes, like the global sample of marathon times.Neither of these factors alone, or combined, should be expected to produce one single three minute outlier from the global population of performances.The fact that Paula is a significant outlier means that some factor, or combination of factors, outside of "clean potential" plus "EPO benefit", have uniquely contributed to Paula's performances. Unless the prevalence of EPO at the top is very small, or one, doping is not something that can be described as unique to Paula's performances.If EPO works for everyone, and EPO worked for Paula, there must be other factors more significant than EPO, required to explain the 3 minute gap.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

This is some sort of weird loguc for arguing that EPO doesn't work. It makes absolutely no sense.

EPO allows people to improve. It doesn't magically make them run X time and it doesn't makebthem run within Y time of wjat some other person ran.

I do wonder where you come up with such weird ideas.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

Just because there are multiple theoretically plausible explanations for an improvement doesn't mean that all explanations are equally likely

Just because therefore are other plausible explanations for improvement does not mean that EPO is ineffective.

If the point is that every improvement is not due to EPO, I would agree with that.

They don't grasp Occam's Razor do they?

Actually, really Lydiard was first to explain this, he explained that lots of endurance training increases stroke volume, but actually it is his intense sharp speed/anaerobic conditioning that really increases the volume of blood, but Lydiard always said that you could not do this for very long because having lower than normal hematocrit levels makes you vulnerable to all sorts of problems. But epo helps you to do raise Hct levels and go harder for longer in the season, continue to peak for longer. So when you see reports of an athlete that did training like:

Monday: 9 mile @ 5:00, later 8 x 800m in 1:57-59,

Tuesday: 20 x 200m in 25s, later 5 mile

Wednesday: 6 x 2000m in 5:35, 4 mile later

Thursday: (200m, 400m, 600m, 800m, 1600m, 800m, 600m, 400m, 200m) x 2

Friday: 10 miles followed by 20 x 200m on hills

Saturday: 6 x 600m @ 1:25, followed by 4 x 200m in 23-24s, followed by 4 miles

Sunday: 12 miles, followed by 10 x 200m in 24-27s

Chances are that athlete is on epo (and a recovery cocktail) because for any extended period of time this would harm the immune system, especially in third world countries.

I agree that EPO/blood doping don't alone explain outlier performances like Paula's but why do they have to? There have always been outlier performances. The simplest explantation is that EPO is both common and helpful and is one of the reasons that world class performances, outliers included, are faster than in the pre-EPO era.

Passport era wrote:

Mr. Obvious wrote:

This is some sort of weird loguc for arguing that EPO doesn't work. It makes absolutely no sense.

EPO allows people to improve. It doesn't magically make them run X time and it doesn't makebthem run within Y time of wjat some other person ran.

I do wonder where you come up with such weird ideas.

I agree...it doesn't magically allow a runner to achieve a certain time or performance level. And as with any other drug, there are individual variations based on type, dosage, duration, etc.

And according to this study, EPO is definitely effective on endurance trained, altitude native Kenyan runners showing a significant improvement in 3k running TT. Though not blinded, and not involving elites, these runners based on their average VO2max's pre-EP0 are far from "hobby joggers."

Interesting study. From my admittedly simplistic perspective, the larger discussion seems to be about whether, in positivist terms, EPO "works" or "doesn't work" to some defined degree. And your cited study certainly suggests that EPO might work with elites. Despite Coach Canova's assertions, perhaps the term "might work" is basically as good as "will work" to athletes, coaches and agents who are deciding whether or not to cheat?

Rather than taking the absolute perspective of medical science, maybe the more important question is actually the sociology of decision making. How do athletes decide to take EPO?

For example, whether you're talking with your oncologist about treatments for colon cancer, or with a shady doctor about EPO to improve endurance, or with some quack about what to take for male pattern baldness, you don't decide to take a drug because of what it might NOT do for you. You might hope, of course, that you're like Lance Armstrong -- an individual some have described as an "ideal patient" in terms of having a physical and psychological profile that can maximize the benefits of pharmacological aids. Nevertheless, you understand that your results may vary from the optimum, but you're trying to maximize the possibility of your own success.

Moreover, I think that elites are particularly used to dealing with uncertainty and making decisions based on limited or incomplete information. Their decision making process often seems rather unscientific. They're disappointed with their progress, so they change coaches, adapt nutrition plans, ramp up training programs in different ways, find new training partners, switch training locations -- and maybe add some performance enhancing drugs to the mix. Then they have a successful, break through season. How much of the success is due to the drugs? How much from the new training program/coach/nutrition/training partners? It is all part of this successful cocktail. Once you find a successful mix of ingredients, you're probably loath to change.

paula was ridiculously talented to begin with.she was probably really a low 15 minute 5k runner,and mid to low 31 minute 10 k runner,and she would have been capable of running a 2.23 marathon,clean.i think she was clean earlier in her career,when she was world class,but beatable on a world stage,and she was a talented junior.give her drugs however,and she became a super athlete.

So then can we agree that if Paula hadn't doped, and nobody else had doped, that she would still hold the WR for the marathon? Whether that would be a 2:20 or a 2:24, I don't really care. I just want to believe that she's the GOAT.

logically wrote:

+1

Why don't they start TRAINING instead? Nobody (except for Armstrong) ever trained as hard as Paula.

And no British athlete ever had blood values like Paula ....

"The newspaper claimed that, of nearly 500 tests on British athletes between 2001 and 2012, Radcliffe produced the highest score above the threshold. To allay any suggestion that her blood values were always naturally higher than most, the newspaper said her results varied by as much as 47 per cent. "

rekrunnner wrote:

So then can we agree that if Paula hadn't doped, and nobody else had doped, that she would still hold the WR for the marathon? Whether that would be a 2:20 or a 2:24, I don't really care. I just want to believe that she's the GOAT.

Everyone's reaction to PEDs can be different. She could have benefited from a free doping pass. She could have had access to new PEDs others could not use yet. Someone better might have refused to dope and stayed in the shadow while she did dope. So no, we can't know that for certain. PEDs screw everything up.

You see her blood values as evidence that she was doping. I see them as evidence that she has the Greatest Blood of All Time--it responds to training and altitude and heat like nobody else's and that's what allowed her to perform extraordinarily. Coach Canova would agree with me. While others need EPO to make their blood values respond like that, Paula's did it naturally. So instead of ridiculing her, we should celebrate her uniqueness.

This is poor logical reasoning.

I miss Paula GOAT Radcliffe. I hope she can come out of retirement and teach the damn Africans how to run sub 2:18s cleanly!!!

rekrunnner wrote:

You see her blood values as evidence that she was doping. I see them as evidence that she has the Greatest Blood of All Time--it responds to training and altitude and heat like nobody else's and that's what allowed her to perform extraordinarily. Coach Canova would agree with me. While others need EPO to make their blood values respond like that, Paula's did it naturally. So instead of ridiculing her, we should celebrate her uniqueness.

Triple n, you are classic. The greatest blood of all time, that is funnier than the Ted movie.

More to these fast times than epo......................................

1.

kristiansen obviously had steroids at disposal at very least .

and

sumgong could easily and most likely was using IGF-1 lr3 also for that souped up

nervous system like may athletes in kenya at moment especially top male

marathoners and women who just broke half record.

easily give 1-2 minutes over whole race.

2.

repeatly stated the difference between paula and others was that she

used both blood doping and epo .

epo doesnt work as well on women and only takes hct so high ,

and why epo never led to same dominance from eastern african women

at the time .

need to blood dope too to get hct even higher before race

and not many women have been in position like paula to do this

and given cart blanche by iaaf .

only chinese women ever did the same , and always in controlled setting

at home race ,never went for marathon at time too .

3.

igf-1 lr3 is very important as see with right women like dibaba these

records can be broken .

that is if can dope with epo also and tracks covered like for dibaba.

the speed this peptide offers can overcome endurance lose over whole

race.

rekrunner wrote:

Paula had "altitude-esque" values. Not enough years on EPO? Shobukhova started in 2005.

Does anyone believe Ingrid Kristiansen, with medicinal help, could have run 2:12? or even 2:15?

Facts:

Paula had off-scores of 80 - 92 after her altitude stays in 2003 and 2005 two - three days before her HM and 10,000 m, and then off-scores of 115 - 110 thereafter.

These ludicrous changes are either coming from grotesque measurement errors, extreme dehydration of 20 - 30% after running for 31 - 67 minutes in the low 70s, or blood doping.

As for dehydration, Prof. Tucker reported:

"an athlete who raced at that event has stated publicly that the testing wasn’t done immediately after the race, but only after all the competitors had finished, allowing Radcliffe what he estimates as at least 90 minutes to chance to shower, change and most importantly, drink."

Let's leave it at that, so Gary doesn't start ranting again.

The IAAF then target-tested her for EPO, which turned out to be negative. Obviously, directly in competition.

In 2012, the only OOC of Paula that was leaked, she had an off-score of 110 at altitude, despite having the reticulocytes in the normal range (which are supposed to be lowered by the altitude effect). A whopping Hct of 16,2 g/dl, compared to 12 - 13 g/dl in the cases above. All of that combined points towards EPO use; even the IAAF under Diack started an investigation back then, which however officially ended with a hung jury. Saugy anyone? Unfortunately she was left off the hook because of the IAAF regulations (verdicts have to be unanimous for bans by design), but coincidentally retired directly after that.

Does anyone believe Kristiansen did not use blood doping? Early 80s? Scandinavia? Oh well...

grox wrote:

rekrunnner wrote:

So then can we agree that if Paula hadn't doped, and nobody else had doped, that she would still hold the WR for the marathon? Whether that would be a 2:20 or a 2:24, I don't really care. I just want to believe that she's the GOAT.

Everyone's reaction to PEDs can be different. She could have benefited from a free doping pass. She could have had access to new PEDs others could not use yet. Someone better might have refused to dope and stayed in the shadow while she did dope. So no, we can't know that for certain. PEDs screw everything up.

Yeah, we may argue about the scientific evidence that EPO enhances performance or not but there certainly isn't sufficient evidence to support the claim that it uniformly raises performance. It's possible it does, but it's also possible that some people, for whatever physiological reason, are higher responders. My guess is that people with naturally lower hematocrit have more to gain because they can add more RBCs before their blood begins to thicken.

grox wrote:

rekrunnner wrote:

So then can we agree that if Paula hadn't doped, and nobody else had doped, that she would still hold the WR for the marathon? Whether that would be a 2:20 or a 2:24, I don't really care. I just want to believe that she's the GOAT.

Everyone's reaction to PEDs can be different. She could have benefited from a free doping pass. She could have had access to new PEDs others could not use yet. Someone better might have refused to dope and stayed in the shadow while she did dope. So no, we can't know that for certain. PEDs screw everything up.

I would agree that we can't know it for certain, but here I am somewhat on rekrunnner's side: the 2:15, albeit most likely doped, is extremely impressive.

rekrunner wrote:

The fact that Paula is a significant outlier means that some factor, or combination of factors, outside of "clean potential" plus "EPO benefit", have uniquely contributed to Paula's performances. Unless the prevalence of EPO at the top is very small, or one, doping is not something that can be described as unique to Paula's performances.

If EPO works for everyone, and EPO worked for Paula, there must be other factors more significant than EPO, required to explain the 3 minute gap.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

This is some sort of weird loguc for arguing that EPO doesn't work. It makes absolutely no sense.

EPO allows people to improve. It doesn't magically make them run X time and it doesn't makebthem run within Y time of wjat some other person ran.

Yes, Rekkie, Paula is and was an outlier. She ran 160 mile weeks at altitude.

Did you run any of them with her? How hard did she run them? How many days was she on the verge of breakdown? Would you call it " redlining"?

The difference between world class and wannabe is having a body that will take the stress of multiple overloads without breaking.