Is a PB in secondary event always significant for the main event ?

These are great and wise words. Thanks for your conviction and passion and honesty. There are many of us who have gained tremendously from your posts. For every poster who criticizes you here, there are a dozen more who agree with you, but don't post because it's exhausting to fight with people who don't understand science, who don't know that much about running, and who don't want to believe anything outside their tiny little notions of what reality is.

Many great coaches have posted here in the past, and stopped, because they grew frustrated with the idiots. Thank you for still fighting - I'm amazed that you do it.

Renato, thank you very much for posting on this site. I for one have learned a great deal from your postings and I think that others who lurk here do as well.

I know that you have written in several different posts of the runners that you are coaching, but could you list them so that we could follow their progress as the Olympics get closer this summer. Again, thanks for taking the time.

many thanks for the detailed response Renato Canova. although i have had the passion for track in my bones for long time as well, i must admit your posts have reinstilled that passion due to your strong conviction and testimony of athletes achieving great things wihtout drugs. you even went as far as provide backup insight into your athlethes, their level of improvement due to different training, and ohter world class athletes training.

we need more like you.

of course it's stupid,paranoid and ridicolous to say that every top-athlete is on drugs but you have to agree that there is a big doping problem in the World of Track & Field as well as in other sports.

To say that taking EPO doesn't improve Endurance and it's just a Placebo-effect is funny, if it's true that's propably the best placebo-effect i ever heard of.

I think it's possible for really gifted athletes like the east-africans to run under 13min or 27min but i don't believe that 29-year old Spaniards can drop 30sec off their 5k-time after being 15 years in this sport.

Someone posted on this ´message board that he talked to some of the best spanish steeplechasers about taking drugs and they said something like "why shouldn't we use it when everyone else is taking it?"

It's great that you share your information about training and other stuff but it's not intelligent to defend Lagat with an example of Cova.Self-Bloodtransfusion improves Oxygen-Uptake so it improves endurance but not speed, so he can max-out his speed in middle-distances better because of improved endruance.Let's says there are two guys with 52.3 400m-Speed, same anaerobic capacity, same aerobic capacity, same LT same 1500m PB of 3:43.One guy starts to use self-bloodtransfusion and improves his Vo2max and as the result of improved endurance he will probably run 3:40.

So doping can change the relation between underdistance speed and primary distance PB.

I don't destroy myself because of the FACT that other athletes are cheating, i don't believe in taking any kind of drug, is it alcohol, cocaine, epo, actovegin, heroin...whatever.That's only a way hiding yourself and i want to explore myself to the fullest, cheating athletes can't be happy persons.I think there are too many stupid people with weak personalitys in this sport, without other skills than running fast so they have to do everything to be on top cause otherwise they'll feel pretty empty in their lifes.I'm much more inspired by athletes of the past like Coe, Walker, Jones,...people with great ability in running and life and not just running machines training and resting 24h/day.In his book "Running Free" Coe talks a lot about running as an amateur sport and that all this professionality, the money will harm this Sport.

Keep on posting Renato, keep on keeping your athletes clean.

Eldoret, of curse I know that someone can take EPO or other drugs for improving their performances. But, when I say that I don't beleieve that EPO can really change too much your performances if you follow a good and hard training, I say it not because of some scientific investigation, but because of reality of my athletes pushes me in thinking that effects of EPO are overestimated.

When I see Kemboi improving in 2 months till 26:30 only with training (he doesn't use anything else that ugali, chicken, vegetables and drinks only water : no integretars, no vitamins, no any type of medicine) ; when I see what Stephen Cherono eats and drinks ; and the same thing for other my top runners (like Paul Kosgei, John Korir, James Kwalia, Mark Bett, Moses Mosop, Rodgers Rop, the gold medals in Youth Championships, and a lot of Marathon runners under 2:10), how is possible for me to think that EPO can give them the possibility of improvement LIKE PEOPLE SAY ? Can I think that, because someone says that with EPO you can improve of 30.0 in 10000m, Nicholas Kemboi could run in 26 min ? Can I think that Shaheen coul run in 7:50 taking EPO ? I know that he can run very near 7:50, but problem is not EPO, is to improve his technique that is yet primitive.

But I don't want to speak only about Africans.

I have an Italian marathon runner, Nicola Ciavarella, that at 33 years of age was able running in 2:11:23, with a PB of 29:58 in 10000m and 14:33 on 5000m. He is a worker in a school (not teacher, but school-caretacker), with a normal average of 80 miles per week. When he had the opportunity to train in professional way for 3 months, because was at home for the birth of his first daughter, he increased his mileage to more than 150 miles per week, also increasing in specific marathon training. After 3 months, he moved from 2:16:20 to 2:11:23. He is 1.63 tall, not fast, not elastic : only very serious. Can you think that, giving him EPO, he could run 3 min faster (like many think possible), about 2:08 ? If your answer is YES, it means that Tergat and Gebre could run under 2 hours.

And what about Maura Viceconte, my athlete italian record holder, that has 4:26 of PB in 1500m, and in 2000 was able running marathon in 2:23:47 but expecially 10000 in 31:05.57 ? Do you think that with EPO was possible for her running 30:30 ?

So, that's the reason because I don't believe in the improvement thru EPO. Probably, with a training not very much extended, with EPO is possible to have a short cut, but not to overtake results in any case possible with continuity, extended basic training, patience and correct methodology.

Today, very few people are able to have big self-confidence without using something coming from "outside" their body and their mind. The "doping mentality" is connected with our society : if you have a competitive examination for a job, you try to have some reccomandation. If you have to submit a tender, you try to pay. If you want to be sure about yourself, take cocain or other drugs. And of course if you want to run, try to find something helping you BECAUSE YOU THINK THAT NATURALLY YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO DO ANY RESULT. So, all other people running fast are under doping, because you are the best, and if you take 3 minutes from the first, but you are the best like attitude, training, intelligence, knowledge, tactic, of course the first is under drug.

I want to continue in fighting this bad and weak mentality.

What was possible 30/20 years ago, must be possible today too.

It doesn't exist any doping better than the convinction of your possibilities and a correct knowledge about training and final goals. Not dreaming, but neither thinking that you cannot do what instead are able to do.

I believe you when you say that your Athletes are clean but i disagree with the "there's no such thing as doping" mentality.I'm sure there are a lot of clean athletes:black,white,yellow...who can run these incredible times because of their talent & their training.

I also share your "no-limit" attitude, and that's really a problem of modern society:no dreams, no confidence, no hope.Of course blood-boosting will not have such an dramatic effect on a highly talented and trained athlete as on an amateur but even if its just a little effect that brings an 32-year old who ran 8:13-20 constantly during his career down to 8:06 in the Steeple, just very little extra-energy, just some seconds can make a dramatic difference.

Probably Cherono can only run 7:54 instead of 7:55 after taking EPO but this second is maybe the difference between winning and being outkicked in the homestraight.

I KNOW about cheating from several athletes who were never caught because of help of their federation, look at what the USATF did for several decades, do you think that they are the only federation who hides their stars?

Doping is a sad thing and you are right, there are more interesting,fascinating things in the World of Running to talk about but to block Doping out is not the right way.

In the case of Lagat, if doping or not it's strange that he has only run 3 or 4 times under 3:30 during his career and once 3:26, very inconsistent.I know it's the same with Seb Coe only running twice under 1:43 and one in 1:41.7 but back then there was no Grand Prix Circus with every Race rabbited at World-Record Pace.El-Guerrouj has run 10-20 times close to his WR for almost a decade now, even when tired is able to run 3:30-32, beating everyone.

For me that is a proof that he has the natural ability to run 3:26 cause such a consistency is impossible when on a drug-program.So, my last words on this topic, i swear Mr.Canova.

Thanks for all the info. Renato and the great statement.

So, that's the reason because I don't believe in the improvement thru EPO. Probably, with a training not very much extended, with EPO is possible to have a short cut, but not to overtake results in any case possible with continuity, extended basic training, patience and correct methodology.

Rop must be upset?

Eldoret wrote:

I KNOW about cheating from several athletes who were never caught because of help of their federation, look at what the USATF did for several decades

With such outstanding effects and widespread unknown usages of these EPO drugs, surely with Kennedy's 12:58 the U.S. 10000 meters record must be 26:35 or faster than this, can you tell me what it is?

The point being, as Renato as said, maybe or probably some fools are taking drugs but the point is THEY ARE NOT NECESSARY for top successes and in my point of view not useful. And this for at least two reasons, (1) they delete the focus on top physiological training and (2) they come from and prepare the mentality to be weak.

I had previously posted about the false EPO test in Yegorova's case several years ago, as well as more recently, and met considerable derision here. Currently the accuracy of this test is STILL MUCH IN QUESTION. Thank you to Phoenix, and others, for clarifying the details of this.

From my own experience, and training with others, I know it is possible to have great endurance from a given speed and no drugs. Since one's endurance can be maximized (and considering the failures of modern medical practices, look in any hospitals, and all the people dying there, failures with drugs), without any use of drugs, with training and good living only, nothing else, this convinces me of this being the best way to live and succeed.

moo moo

I'm puzzled about how much EPO would work.

If a person trains and lives at high altitude, his or her red blood cell count will increase naturally.

1. Does EPO cause an athlete's red blood cell count to increase to a level that is higher than the level obtained when a athlete trains and lives at high altitude?

2. Does the fact of how red blood cell ratio partially increases for high altitude athletes because blood volume goes down, negatively effect an athlete's performance due to decreased stroke volume?

3. Do people...I mean cheaters, who use EPO tend not to live and train at high altitude and resultantly miss out on the other benefits that high altitude provides?

Renato,

What warm up do you recommmend for an important 10000 or 5000 meter race.