I had periodic tests with my athletes, Italian or Kenyan. How already I wrote, after the big marathon (I'm in Boston then I'll go London) I have some time at home, where I have the data, and I can start to publish them. I don't think I have to ask the athletes some permission regarding the privacy : everybody was clean, so I don't see any reason for making secret their data.
I can give you some anticipation.
We started to investigate, as research for the University, the blood values of Kenyan athletes at sea level in 1998, when they were in Torino for training with me. At that time, we didn't have any data for Kenyans in altitude, apart the first blood test, normally carried out the first day they were at sea level (so these data can be considered their data of altitude).
The tests were carried out every 2-3 weeks. The athletes, in that period, could remain at sea level for long time (for example, Paul Kosgei bettered the WR of 25 km on road after almost 3 months in Torino), because there were frequent races and opportunities to earn good prizes with continuity.
We used to look, at the beginning, at a lot of values. I organized the values in longitudinal columns, considering a very simple factor : the shape of the athlete at the moment, and I wanted to see which values could change, with the improvement of the shape. So, the same type of value was organized in rows, and we could see the relation between values and performance.
In some case, we didn't see any relation : some of the values could be higher or lower, without any connection with the shape of the athletes.
In these cases, after about 100 tests, we cancelled the investigation for these parameters, which didn't have any influence (or were not influenced) on the shape of the athletes.
At the end, we selected a wide number of tests which seemed connected with the shape of the athletes. These values were the EFFECT, not the CAUSE, of the shape, because the only factor changing the shape was the athlete's training.
In 1999, I started to go Saint Moritz (1800m altitude) with Kenyans too, and I started to have blood tests from altitude training, and long stay in altitude.
Already I had a lot of test with the Italian runners in Sestriere, but the period of stay for them never was very long (more than 3 weeks). Sometimes, we used a repetition of periods (3 weeks up, 3 weeks at sea level, again 3 weeks up, and so and so), but never a long period with continuity.
Kenyans going Saint Moritz directly from Kenya, instead, had continuity in their stay in altitude, so their tests were related with their stay, and I started to investigate the effects of ADAPTATION, instead of the effects of REACTION. All the tests were carried out in the same lab in Torino : one time every 2-3 weeks I moved by car from Saint Moritz to Torino (about 3 hours) with the athletes I wanted to test (normally 3-4), so the results belonged to the same lab.
I could see some trend common for everybody :
a) Increasing the shape, their blood values changed, and Hb and Hct went down. This is a phenomen everybody knows, because training in altitude with high intensity of aerobic effort produces the increase of plasma, increases the total volume of blood, and the Hct goes down.
b) There was a clear range inside which the performance of every athlete was optimal. For example, for an athlete who normally had Hct between 41 and 43 when well trained, and 45-46 when not trained, when he had 43 could compete better than when he had 41. This fact makes to suppose that the fact athletes can increase their total volume of blood is connected with the fact that, over some personal physiological limit, an artificial increase of Hct goes to inhibit some other function, and at the end the final product becomes negative.
c) We saw that, inside the optimal range for every athlete, the training could produce better effects when the athletes could take folic acid for some period, in order to increase the affinity between Hb and Oxygen. In other words, looking at what I wrote above, the athlete not trained with Hct at 45, who improved his performance with Hct of 41, could run better if, taking folic acid, could go at 43 (AT THE HIGHER VALUES OF HIS PERSONAL OPTIMAL RANGE).
d) Athletes arriving with the same performances, and using the same type of training, had at the end big differences in the improvement of their performances. This means that there is some SPECIFIC TALENT connected with the individual physiological situation, that is possible to exalt with aerobic training of high intensity, while for other athletes this possibility doesn't exist. I think that in case of this SPECIFIC TALENT there is no exogenous substance that can work better than training, in the other case blood doping can give some advantage.
e) The values for athletes having similar PB were so different and various that to speak about AVERAGE is a nonsense. At the same time, is a nonsense also to suppose that high Hct can produce better results. If athletes with 39 and 53 of Hct can produce the same result, it's obvious that there are other parameters which intervene in this situation. We don't deny that a higher Hct INSIDE THE PERSONAL RANGE OF EVERY ATHLETE can produce better transportation of Oxygen, but the range is very limited, and to increase artificially the level of Hct produce a decrease of the performance. So, it's clear that Hct is connected, in opposite way, with some other parameter that becomes a limiting factor for the performance.
I have tests regarding several different situations :
1- Short-medium periods in altitude for Italian of sea level
2- Short-medium periods at sea level for Kenyans
3- Long period in altitude for Chinese of sea level
4- Normal stay in altitude for people of altitude
Many of these data were already objects of clinics and seminars, in different part of the World.
From all these data, what of sure we can say is that THERE IS NOT A COMMON WAY TO REACT TO ALTITUDE, and for the same reason THERE IS NOT A COMMON WAY TO REACT TO BLOOD DOPING.
But there is not a COMMON WAY TO REACT TO THE SAME TYPE OF TRAINING.
The principle of INDIVIDUALIZATION is at the base of every top performance, and in case of exceptional athletes there is no possibility to further increase their natural potentiality.