Wejo the Doper (LetsRun.com in the NY Times)

I would like to hear what you think is the world of difference. Availability?

Either way you're using a something specifically for performance boosting purposes. If you justify caffeine to yourself because it's legal, you should be able to do the same for any other substance that is not specifically banned.

ten hut wrote:

Probably the 187th Airborne. Or did you mean regimen?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ranger Regiment douch!

Wejo is technically correct as well as ethically correct. If you eat a steak an hour before a race, it will be broken down in your gut and converted to energy which will help you run better. But not banned, of course.

Some of you are really insane. Should we ban anything that allows you to improve your performance? I know that if I periodize my training it will improve my race times. I know that if I rest properly in the days preceding a race my time will be better. I know that if I eat properly and at the right times I will race better. I also know that I can be more alert and react better if I have a cup of coffee or two. Should those things all be banned? How about training? Perhaps that should be banned too.

Caffeine is a completely natural substance, one of the few available to us which allows us to use our full human potential with little or no side effects. Drink up!

surprised me wrote:

I would like to hear what you think is the world of difference. Availability?

Either way you're using a something specifically for performance boosting purposes. If you justify caffeine to yourself because it's legal, you should be able to do the same for any other substance that is not specifically banned.

This has been pointed out many times but pretty much everything you consume has a benefit to running for various reasons:

Water

Blueberries

Vitamin C

Tuna

etc. etc. etc.

I guess you can argue, are you specifically consuming these items for their exact benefit to running or performing or because you like the way they taste of because they have a benefit to your overall health as a human being, or a combination of all of these factors?

And if we want to make running more natural, how about not stretching, know specifically designed hill repeats or track sessions (because we know those help performance and we are making a concious decision to partake in them. How about throwing away the new spikes, new training flats and the ultra light breathable rainproof gear that makes training easier, allowing us to run longer at a faster pace while exercting less energy and recover faster. That is not natural, we have made a concious decision to get the best gear in order to make whatever small gains we can to train better and as a result perform better.

There is no getting around it, there is a grey area and it really comes down to common sense as to weather it's ok or not. If it is not illegal than it's simply a moral common sense issue. There are plenty of substances out there that grow naturally that boost performance. Green tea, coffee, yerba mate, ginseng etc. etc.

For me I'm not sure why ginseng has been banned but coffee has not. I don't think either should be (in moderation). Both are natural products that are consumed quite regularly in major areas of the world. Ginseng is more familiar in asian cultures and is not as easy to come by, tends to cost more and be more difficult to prepare than a cup of coffee. Maybe this is why it has been labeled dirty and coffee is not.

You start getting into the chemical labs and serious side affects, this is when you have crossed the line in my opinion. I think most people see it this way.

On a side note, I remember hearing that Daniel Komen had the equivalent of 12 cups of coffee in his body after his 7:20 3K WR. If that is true that obviously falls under the abuse category and serious side affect category.

sinbandera wrote:

Caffeine is a completely natural substance

Ditto testosterone and HGH, to name just two.

finally some sense being talked on this thread, there are so many things which can "enhance performance" Caffeine is one.

The difference between designer steriods and coffee is that, designer steriods haven't been considered by wada, coffee has.

Coffee in the doses allowed, has none to very minimal health detriment. Which is the main influence on having stuff banned.

haha, you posted this just before mine, I couldn't agree more.

The 187 was obsorbed by the 101 after Korea so techinically it doesn't exist.

This thread is setting a letsrun record for mock outrage. At least I hope it's "mock." One cup of coffee for breakfast is a national and worldwide norm. I don't think we're talking about the vast quantities Bill Murray drank in "Coffee and Cigarettes."

Face it, the whole thing is arbitrary. Training itself is performance-enhancing, so should we ban training? Training at altitude is performance-enhancing, and not cheap if one has to relocate. EPO, also performance-enhancing, helps to achieve the same effects but at far less cost. So basically, the wealthier athletes can get the benefits of altitude within the rules while poorer athletes need to dope in order to achieve the same. If the issue is "fair," is that? Vitamins are performance-enhancing, and they're produced in the lab, which one person suggested should be determinate. As Wejo suggests, Gatorade is performance-enhancing. So is chocolate milk.

I'm not advocating PEDs. But we have three basic choices: (1) Nothing that's performance-enhancing. You can't eat, you can't train, and you get off the Barca-Lounger and waddle to the starting line. (2) Anything goes. (3) We have to draw an arbitrary line. I'm not happy with choices 1 and 2, leaving me with line-drawing. I'm sure most people would also choose #3. So now we argue about the line. Currently, it seems to be that anything that is not naturally produced by the body is illegal. While arbitrary, it certainly seems as valid as any other line.

I sent the link to my dad. He doesn't follow running, but the other day he was telling me that caffeine caused an increase in his blood pressure. He naturally has high BP though. I do not mostly because I run (mine is very low, but I forgot the actual number), but it does run in the family (my sister's is high even though she runs too). I like caffeine (coffee mostly), and feel that I run better if I have a cup about an hour before I run. But my dad still thinks it is unhealthy. Here is what he had to say about the article:

"Thanks for thinking of me, Steph.

I won't even get into the ethical issues raised in your article about

caffeine and sports competition. If drugs like cocaine or methanphetamine

were legal, I'm sure that there would be at least some athletes who would be

using it to give themselves an edge.

However, I do have something to say about the health aspects of caffeine.

First of all, caffeine is a drug. As Mr. Johnson admitted, "My body was

shaking." Caffeine is an alkaloid, which the coffee bean plant produces as

its own insecticide. Because caffeine is socially acceptable and came into

widespread use before there was such a thing as the FDA, does not make it

harmless. Tobacco and alcohol have been legal too, but they are not

harmless. Because of social conditioning akin to that which has surrounded

tobacco since the day that it was first smoked by Native Americans, it can

take a long time before the truth finally comes out. For years, the tobacco

industry lobbied politicians and suppressed scientific evidence about the

harm caused by tobacco. After hundreds of years and a lot of denial, most

people finally have now come around to seeing tobacco for what it is.

I've had a lot of caffeine in one form or another throughout my life. I've

had a little more experience with it than you have. Caffeine has some

positive aspects (otherwise, it would not have been so hard for me to quit

the stuff), but in my own experience they are far outweighed by the negative

aspects (see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Overuse

; also note what it

says about caffeine's inhibition of calcium uptake).

My advise would be to NOT use caffeine at all, but certainly I wouln't

recommend using it to excess; i.e., more than 2 cups of regular coffee or tea

a day or Red Bull or similar products.

Dad

p.s. - You said "After I am drinking coffee regularly I don't notice having

much more energy. I think I get used to it." That's because caffeine

unnaturally forces your body to release the glycogen reserves that it

normally stores for energy for use in emergencies (e.g., running from a

man-eating lion or rapist, thinking fast on-your-feet in a job interview,

etc.). That glycogen boost can't be sustained for long if you use coffee

regularly. Regular intake of caffeine, especially at higher levels, uses up

the glycogen reserve faster than your body can store it up for emergencies.

Heavy coffee drinkers will often complain that they seem to have no extra

energy. This is also consistent with what was written in the beginning of

the article you sent me: "Mr. Johnson, a founder of LetsRun.com, would avoid

caffeine, even in soft drinks, for a few weeks before he competed in a race,

wanting to have the full stimulant effect." He wanted to give his body a

chance to build up its full level of glycogen reserves until he needed them

for the day of the race. The only problem there is that this would cause a

greater shock to the system. Not good if you have high blood pressure or

heart problems."

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the fact that in many ways, caffeine functions like a mild form of adrenaline or epinephrine.

You are right that it was absorbed, but it was reformed a while ago and now is the only complete ranger regimen (haha).

Yanqui wrote:

This thread is setting a letsrun record for mock outrage. At least I hope it's "mock." One cup of coffee for breakfast is a national and worldwide norm. I don't think we're talking about the vast quantities Bill Murray drank in "Coffee and Cigarettes."

Who says anything about our outrage being mock? If this coffee boost is so widespread then I wonder how many guys have beaten me by 1 second over the years when they would be 5 seconds behind me "clean"?

Suddenly I feel like I have to start popping caffeine pills an hour before my race just to level the playing field.

My outrage is real.

Bill Murray, performance-enhancing drug user

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwCy6yn4SDY

What does that have to do with anything?

Go ahead and downplay this by comparing it to some dumb Bill Murray movie, but it sounds like the effects are real. You're a 30:15 guy at 9 am, pop a pill, and by 10 am you can run 29:59. Yeah, that sounds sporting.

"EPO, also performance-enhancing, helps to achieve the same effects but at far less cost. So basically, the wealthier athletes can get the benefits of altitude within the rules while poorer athletes need to dope in order to achieve the same."

Not disagreeing with your overall point but would disagree that EPO and altitude have the same consequence. If that were true, the world records wouldn't have dropped so significantly after EPO became available. I can see two reasons for this. One is that while altitude training has its advantages, it also has disadvantages; with EPO there is no tradeoff. Also, EPO use appears to convey an additional benefit even for those athletes who have altitude training available to them.

EPO can create a Cathal Lombard. Altitude (alone) can't.

Wow - he didn't even sign it "Love, Dad" Are you able to express love better, tRg?