How come "epo time" marathon times were weak?

money talks wrote:

So an increase in RBCs of 26% yielded an decrease in heart rate of just 5%?

I think Bad Wigins is making good point. One that phsyiologists seem afraid to confront.

Don't forget, their funding relies on agreeing that EPO increases oxygen delivery, and if they disagree, bye bye funding, credibility and career.

It's a bit like the statins prevent cardivascuar disease issue, Doctors are obliged to go along with it. Fortunately a lot of Doctors in the last few years are saying no to this diktat.

In fact, the fall in heart rate is 9 %, but even that isn't an exact figure as there are fluctuations in the data due to small experimental groups (5+5). It could also be added that heart rate isn't a perfect proxy for cardiac output at heart rates that low because it is possible that some of the subjects hadn't reached their maximal stroke volume. But still the mechanism exists in practically all rEPO/blood reinfusion studies where there is a significant increase in hemoglobin concentration.

I should emphasize that my earlier post was just an ad hoc-criticism of the particular idea of bad wigins in order to defend my position. Paradoxically he seems to hold the position that boost by rEPO/blood is "enormous" at middle distances, whereas I don't see it that way, even when I do think that a majority of athletes most likely gain some performance benefit from blood doping/rEPO. There are valid reasons why you couldn't directly extrapolate the results of blood doping studies with amateur athletes to elites.

And the key to performance isn't all about hemoglobin mass in any case, because - for instance - there does exist some interesting anecdotal and research evidence that high altitude adaptation for example works also in other ways than just through elevating total hemoglobin mass.

I think in epo times chrono in Marathon were weak(90's and early 2000) or better in times when antidoping

of blood doping were not like nowdays , is because different reasons.The first is because nowdays there are more money on the big marathons than in track meeting.

The second is because the training and here of course the coach Renato

Canova has explained many times the reason why.

There s been a change in the mentality of the greatest east africans in the past years, and more and more young talents go straight to the Marathon.

And also some workout like 40km at altitude on hilly red sand road (about six weeks before the race) in 2h06'

2h07' for the best ones , Or other types of workout where the specific speed

of the race is always present in the last two months of the preparation.

I think this different approach in training has given the times a boost.

Epo? Yes probably they still use it but the more important thing is training and talent so

without a good training and a great talent is impossible to do great times .

I know the changes that occur during exercise compared to rest. That's not what I was talking about.

What I'm saying is however the oxygen is sliced, the CV system is only going to deliver as much as the muscle is using, which in the case of a marathon is not very much. If you load up on rbc's, then sure, a lower heart rate may keep the working muscles happy. But that wasn't a limiting factor in performance, so what's the big deal? The runner will perform better due to energy saved from fewer heartbeats?

The difference in middle distance is that the oxygen demands of working muscle are far greater, made possible by the high blood-to-muscle pH difference which correlates positively with gas exchange rates. These demands are unsustainable and the capacity of the blood to deliver and remove gases is a limiting factor, so it is logically where extra blood cells should have the most benefit.

retardo is a fraud.

the EPO era was good for the marathon, the problem is it was 2:09-10 guys that were on them EPO and could only muster 2:06-7 range. now we have legit 2:06 guys and they hit the EPO and you have 2:03-4 guys.

its not that hard guys. the say EPO can give you a 4-5% increase, well do the math and you can figure out what the non EPO times would be. lets take paula ratface

2:15.25.....a 5% decrease without EPO puts her lying a$$ at 2:20.50

lets take the mens record from now 2:02.57, with only a 4% decrease that gives you a 2:07.51

now lets take the record from 1998 (2:06.05), at that point the record of 2:06.50 had been there since 1988.

with a 4% decrease gives you a 2:12 basically the WR in the mid 60s by a japanese guy.

think KB is a legit 2:06 guy and little training and some EPO he drops 3 min, where kimetto is prob a 2:07 high 2:08 at best natural, which is still badass. i think most of you guys dont like to do simple math.

when was EPO first being used? my guess is late 80s. and guys who were 2:12-15 types where now crushing sub 2:10. dont be so naive

Kid running after kipchoge wrote:

Don't you think a marathon time of 2:03-2:04 is more or less equivalent to the fast track times of late 90's early 2000's

Hey, I didn't say that I agreed with the 'epo era' hypothesis, I just gave an explanation that is consistent with that hypothesis. I am more inclined to think that people have been using it all along, although possibly in less quantity than now.

As for your question, no, I do not think that 3:26 1500 is more or less equivalent to 2:03. I'd put 3:26 as equivalent to something much faster, probably under 2hr.

Jeff Wigand wrote:

trollism wrote:

For every great East African distance time, there is a sketchy European doctor/agent/manager/coach in the background.

The 'Renatos' started off sending their science projects out on the track, it was only later on that they decided to hit the road en masse.

You continue to be one of the more ignorant smart people on this board.

What's indicating that he is smart?

That is a good question.

In the sport of distance running, the "epo era" is like a great myth, which decades later still needs to be propped up by adding more unsupported allegations like European coaches/managers bringing their medicine to Africa, or the lack of blood testing (which only started *after* the EPO era) for a drug that was untestable everywhere in the 90's, and that marathon runners today have gotten better at hiding, or that the federations are allowing selected individuals and groups get away with it. Oh what a tangled web we've weaved.

While we do find fast times in the 90's and 00's, these times have not been clearly linked to EPO. The athletes linked to EPO have not run fast times "close to WR". To all those that have asserted "EPO leads to untouchable world records", they have largely failed to show any strong correlation between EPO and the fast times. The examples often presented as demonstrations of EPO effectiveness are both low in quality, and low in quantity. Sumgong's PB ranks her 27th of all time. Looking at the top-50 women marathon performers, we only have 3 that were "busted" for EPO. 3 out of 50 is an exception, not the general rule.

Compare this to cycling, where we have plenty of statistics like 7 out of the top 10 winners of every year were eventually linked to EPO use or blood doping, and the "clean" athlete remains the rare exception finishing 7th or 8th. In distance running, the incidence of EPO use, or blood doping, at the top seems to be a rare exception that we have to dig deep to find.

What is also strange, for a universal drug, touted to bring massive benefits, even for elites, is how selective great world leading performances were, largely favoring narrow populations in East Africa, the occasional North African, and a couple Spanish athletes able to set indoor European records, and one British woman. In an era where East Africans brought the 10K world record well below 26:30, the first non-African to break 27:00 was Solinsky, after the epo-era. This makes me wonder why all non-African nations were unable to leverage the powerfully effective benefit of EPO, something untestable in the 90's, and that Africans were allegedly able to hide, as late as Bekele in 2007, to be more competitive at any event from 800m to the marathon for two decades. They barely moved their own national records. Looking at all American, European, Australian, and all non-African performances, over all events for two decades, there were no massive progressions during "epo-era" for these nations. Looking at African performances, the case still needs to be made, that the performances were achievable only through EPO.

Trying to make the "epo era" hypothesis fit the observable results presents many contradictions, which require further and further creative "web weaving".

I don't believe the marathon relies on maximal oxygen uptake. Events that rely most heavily on VO2 max are 3000-5000 and to a lesser extent the 10,000 then the 1500m.

Efficiency is more important in the marathon. It's easy to get enough oxygen when running the marathon. You don't need more oxygen. It relies on technique, fuelling, the course and pacing.

Those last four have improved over time dramatically.

800ftw. wrote:

I don't believe the marathon relies on maximal oxygen uptake. Events that rely most heavily on VO2 max are 3000-5000 and to a lesser extent the 10,000 then the 1500m.

Efficiency is more important in the marathon. It's easy to get enough oxygen when running the marathon. You don't need more oxygen. It relies on technique, fuelling, the course and pacing.

Those last four have improved over time dramatically.

^This, plus the athletes go where the money is. Plus the current ABP allows for a 10 - 15% Hct increase via doping, which may be ideal for the marathon wrt the interplay of increased oxygen transport and increased viscosity, while more oxygen and thus more EPO may be ideal for the 1500 - 10000 m.

Again, about 600 athletes in Daegu 2011 admitted to being drug cheats, which was after the introduction of the various EPO tests and after the official onset of the ABP. Doesn't look like the ABP stopped the dopers - it may have caused a decrease in the amount of EPO used per cycle and person.

No it's not 9% of heart rate is it? Think about it? Yes stroke volume would have been submaximal. While we're on the subject, think about stroke volume variability, max heart rate variability, blood volume variability, all important regardless of hemoconcentration. Now think about how blood volume variability will affect hemoconcentration during the course of the day or a race or VO2 max test? Think about how profuse sweating towards the end of a VO2 max test mean that the subject cannot reach VO2 max, becuase a significant proportion of blood is being re-directed to the skin for sweating and cooling. And the lab technicians/pyhsiologistS are completely unaware of their own ignorance. incompetence in this matter. They also have no idea that the variables above often cause a similar inability to achieve maximal oxygen uptake.

Ponder these variables for a few years and how they are ignored or misrepresented, report back. Trying to discuss it either on a website, via emails or face to face, seems to be a waste of time, everyone seems to have very fixed ideas based on misinformation. My analogy with the statins nonsense is relevant here. If you are constantly force fed misinformation, it prevents serious intelligent analysis and debate and becomes more like arguing about religious beliefs.

I'm glad you and a few others here are more open minded than most, at least there is some hope. Young athletes will still be exploited and given various drugs new and old. That is never going to change. It doesn't make them better athletes. The insistence that it does is what more of us should challenge.

Your criticism, while correct, ignores the rapid rise of the few drug cheats that were caught, from Ramzi to Sumgong, and the fact that the coaches experimentally optimized the use of various drugs over many years. Even Canova has openly stated here that drugs, including steroids and EPO, do work to make you faster, with the exception that EPO does not help 1) optimally trained athletes 2) born, 3) raised, and 4) trained at altitude. (Note all four criteria must be fulfilled for EPO not to work, according to Canova.)

These coaches don't continue to administer drugs - despite the risks and costs - because of some theorists, but because of their own positive experiences with their own athletes.

That makes your claim, that athletes cannot improve from doping, absurd.

1 + 2: of course; 3: absurd, see above.

Hi Jon! Why are you not boldly using your name anymore? Are you losing confidence in your delusional quest to show that doping doesn't work? How's the book and lecturing engagements coming along?

Your position makes no sense. Are you postulating that the athletes "busted" for EPO were the only ones using it? IOW, a 100% detection rate? And how would you know that the "fast times in the 90's and 00's" are not linked to EPO or blood doping? Just because they never tested positive nor were involved in a blood doping scandal? If you look at the statistically estimates of PED users compared to the actual athletes testing positive or sanctioned, the vast majority will never get caught during their careers. The detection rates with anti-doping is very low, and in many cases they get lucky with a careless athlete who failed the "doping IQ test"...nothing new there.

On the contrary EPO era times were very strong relative to the basic talent levels of the marathoners of that era.

Back then athletes still used their fast years on the track and then moved to the marathon when older.

A lot of 2:06 -2:07 performances from guys with only 2:08- 2:10 ability clean.

Um, ever heard of Paula Radcliffe? Tell me EPO doesn't work.

Finally we have someone making rationale arguments on this topic. Half of the idiots on this topic ignore the data and probably also believe the earth is flat.

Bad Wigins wrote:

What I'm saying is however the oxygen is sliced, the CV system is only going to deliver as much as the muscle is using, which in the case of a marathon is not very much. If you load up on rbc's, then sure, a lower heart rate may keep the working muscles happy. But that wasn't a limiting factor in performance, so what's the big deal? The runner will perform better due to energy saved from fewer heartbeats?

The difference in middle distance is that the oxygen demands of working muscle are far greater, made possible by the high blood-to-muscle pH difference which correlates positively with gas exchange rates. These demands are unsustainable and the capacity of the blood to deliver and remove gases is a limiting factor, so it is logically where extra blood cells should have the most benefit.

I brought up a few possible mechanisms none too convincing, but it is almost unescapable that the rate of perceived exertion is connected with heart rate for one reason or another. Interesting part is that we don't even have to know the exact mechanism, because the science doesn't back up your claim that the largest improvement is at distances around mile and 3k.

How much blood reinfusion elevates performance was actually more researched in the 1980s and there are total of five double-blind placebo controlled studies on the effect of blood doping with time trial protocol from that decade with the following results from longest to shortest routes:

15 km: 5.3 %

10 km: 3.5 %

8 km: 2.5 % (5 mile)

5 km: 2.0 % (3 mile)

1.5 km: 1.7 %

The elevation of hematocrit and the amount of blood reinfused (2 units) was almost identical from 1.5 to 10 km studies. If one should draw any conclusions, it would be that the longer the duration of the effort, the more elevated hematocrit elevates performance. The 15 km test lasted close to 50 minutes and even the improvement was highest, but the protocol was different. It should be added also that the 10,000m and 1500m papers were from the same team only two years apart.

But it is true that the research papers aren't fully comparable, because it is very difficult to control the training status of the cohort and even the protocols are never almost identical. The 8 km study used treadmill test ("simulated race"), whereas the subjects of the 15 km paper were cross country skiers and slightly different blood reinfusion protocol was used (the increase in hematocrit was still quite similar). And even when there are five studies, the total number of subjects is something like 30-40, which isn't really a huge amount.

I'll admit that you are on the track when you point out correctly that the submaximal mechanism is rarely discussed if at all. In the 2013 rEPO study (Durussel et al) the authors actually do point out that "indeed, as oxygen supply and demand are adequately matched during submaximal exercise in healthy men, the rHuEpo-induced augmented oxygen transport capacity cannot be the reason of the improvement in time trial running performance observed in our study" and they discuss some central governor stuff and enhanced mood - theories.

Bad Wigins wrote:

epo doesn't help marathon. Why would it? It's a relative jog and nowhere near stressful aerobically.

90's track stars successfully converted to marathon because of the efficiency they gained in running at fast paces, probably.

Lol. No.

For once, we agree. Literally hundreds of athletes plus their doping doctors and coaches won't be wrong over decades, as they see the changes in their daily life, regardless of which mechanism you believe in.