Is doping prevalent at a sub-elite or hobby jogger level?

I know a fair amount of older runners who take various heart, arthritis etc. meds and/or various vitamins and supplements. In nearly all the cases, it’s for health related issues, does that count? I know one guy who got prescribed steroids after a minor knee surgery to ‘promote healing’ or something. He joked about getting banned from they Olympics, but honestly, he’s like 65 and I don’t think a 19:xx 5k is going to qualify him.

it wouldn't surprise me. Roids and doping in general are becoming much less stigmatized, even glorified. Especially in lifting and young men.

I personally know of some collegiate wrestlers and long distance folks that are on gear. I think we would all be surprised by the number of folks taking something

I have been semi-competitive at the masters level over the past 15 years (e.g., going to national championship races and some major road races. Before that was masters/open hobby jogger [15 min 5K PR schlub], so at a level your average letsrunner--sub 14K/$400K annual income, and onto their second or third trophy wife--would make fun of). Don't think it's all that common. I'm sure it happens but doubt it's rampant.

For one thing, there is not much money unless you are competing for overall masters prize money at major road races. There is more testing and now (most USATF Grand Prix races), and there have been a few higher level busts. However, most out there are in it because they like the sport. There is not a lot of prestige for masters racing unless you are setting world records or winning overall masters titles at World Marathon Major level events.

I used to think this, but I was prescribed prednisone once and it changed my opinion. Not only are times better, but you feel better too.

It felt like I had been marathon training all summer and was peaking as fall began, but better. It gave me an effortless ability to keep pushing.

Predisone isn’t even considered a very potent ped.

Overall, the benefits aren’t just the times, it’s how you feel too. There is a reason why the elites look so good at the finish of races.

How about these:

https://mynewsla.com/orange-county/2016/07/23/sprinter-62-with-oc-track-club-gets-ban-for-testosterone/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/en.triatlonnoticias.com/noticias-ciclismo/ciclista-master-positivo-10-sustancias-prohibidas/amp/

https://masterstrack.blog/2018/06/suspended-m55-cyclist-scott-gross-says-he-took-banned-dhea/

62 yr old racewalker banned for using T:

https://www.usada.org/sanction/scott-mcpherson-receives-doping-sanction/

In the 80s when I was in high school, at least some of the baseball and football players claimed to be using PEDs. I never saw anything myself but they'd brag about being able to obtain the steroids of the day. Kids were trying to get scholarships and figured steroids would help. My son said the same was true of his peers circa the mid-late 2000s in those sports. I wouldn't even know how to go about obtaining our sport's PEDs, but apparently even teenagers can do it in other sports, so it wouldn't surprise me if some non-elites were taking sauce of some kind. Since there's also a large "just in it for my health" aspect to running beyond college, I bet the percentage is incredibly low on the whole.

This is wild to me. I’m a 2:23 marathoner (I will leave it up to LetsRun to decide whether that’s sub-elite or not) and I have never, in competing for several teams, living in several states, and talking with a lot of runners, come across anyone who admitted to/hinted at/knew of doping.

Does it exist? I assume so; there are probably 4 hour marathoners who take banned substances for performance reasons. But I have to think the percentage is so massively low that I would not consider it an issue.

It's not surprising that of all the runners you encountered, none of them even mentioned PEDs. That's their little secret! Since we are talking about runners who dope for what seem like, at first glance, impractical reasons, it makes sense to assume that doping for them is something they do to make themselves appear like better, more successful athletes than they really are. In that context, it wouldn't make sense to give away your little secret.

As far as the numbers - is it widespread, or just a few outliers? - I think we can agree that the vast majority of the "masses" at a major race are not doping. However, among those who are at least somewhat competitive in their age groups, especially age 40+, I have the feeling that it's probably quite common. I'd hesitate to put a specific percentage on it, but I would bet that any road race of decent size has at least a few masters runners who are taking PEDs.

I ran at a decent D1 college. We had a kid on the team who was a walk-on. Mediocre high school runner. His aunt was a doctor and started providing him with unneeded thyroid meds, an albuterol inhaler, and eventually he was somehow able to get a hold of EPO. He ended up running 14-low for 5k.

The kid was an absolute utter a*shole and clearly had no problem cheating others out of their hard work. Of course our coach at the time ate up his performances as a walk-on attributing it to "hard work" and praising him to recruits while the rest of us knew the truth. He kicked my a*s 90% of the time. I was fine losing and not cheating.

Its much more popular than you think to cheat. Look at all the runners who are not in contention for prize money using carbon bouncy shoes....looking for that time to brag about on social media. They also take supplements like "C4" which has meth in it (old version)

Exactly.

I'm sure there are some hobby joggers who want a Boston time .. and if that prescription of prednisone helps them recover, helps them push a bit more .. they'll justify it to themselves. I mean, they're still the one running the race .. it's not like they're cutting the course like those people online. It just helped them recover a bit better this training cycle.

If you drug tested everyone in the race, I bet you'd see positive tests around sub-3, Boston qualifying times, etc. Probably not a lot. But the cases from Marathon Investigations and here suggest it's definitely not zero.

A long time ago, I was into one of these addictive games that I don't remember the name of anymore, and I decided to look up high scores and found out about all these controversies regarding cheating for this silly game. It was nuts to me that there seemed to be plenty of people out there who would do it. I can imagine there are a lot who would gain whatever edge they can get away with. Sigh.

As for me, I'm in my mid 40's and still trying to break 5 for the mile for the 1st time ever, and I refuse to use new fancy shoe technology (or even spikes for that matter at this point) despite the fact that I've been in the 5:0X's. It's the principle.

Steroids? A couple of decades ago, I mentioned to a coworker that I was looking to get healthier and take supplements/a multivitamin, and he told me to look out for DHEA on the labels because it caused his abnormally and strangely thinning hair (otherwise, his hair looked really cool). It was in one of his multis (? - don't remember details) and was found to be the culprit. For years, I flinched whenever I saw even DHA (omega3). Even stopped taking corticosteroids for my eczema, as I didn't want that risk. Plus I wanted to find the root cause. Heck even when I tried to get buff, I refused to do even supplemental Creatine as I didn't want to get an artificial looking pump.

Growth Hormone? Looking at my late Mom's chemo meds and how they work will forever scare me away from them. Even though there isn't officially a link - would never take that chance.

EPO? I was out of shape and my Hct was in mid to low 40s. That's not going to explain why I'm not good at running.

Other stuff? What's the point?

65 and sub-20 5k? He's juicing :) That's an age-adjusted sub 13. Not quite the hobby-jogger.

At 62, and mostly tri-guy, from what I've heard a lot of 50+ tri folks are juicing one way or another. I never figured out why, except personal vanity. I want to be faster, yes, yes. But if I can't get there through training and nutrition, then I might as well hide a small motor on my bike and shorten the bike segment. That'll get me to the top of my age group.

Oral prednisone doesn't work that way. It actually hinders recovery - you can't sleep on it, and your cortisol levels are jacked. Go on it for more than a few days, and you'll start to gain weight, lose bone mass, all sorts of stuff.

In the very short term (i.e. taken for the day or two before competition) it is unquestionably a performance enhancer - like rocket fuel. It totally makes sense for prednisone to be banned in competition.

But in the longer term, it makes no sense to take it for training gains while out of competition - there's no long term training benefit and a significant physical cost. And coming off of prednisone is about 100x worse than stopping coffee. Which is likely why oral prednisone is legal outside of competition.

In my days running as a locally competitive master, every now and then someone would come out of nowhere and run a very fast time at a larger race. Some googling and results searches would show that they have very little experience racing and maybe ran a 27 min 5k years ago. But now they just dropped a 35:30 10k at age 44. And these guys were never stringy little runner types. They were almost always pretty built and looked like they spent a fair amount of time in the gym. Then, I ran across a guy through work who was big into power lifting. He went to the low T clinic when he hit 45 because he kept getting hurt in the gym and had to have both knees replaced. He said that after a year of going to the low T clinic and getting pumped up with HGH and testosterone, he was lifting as much as he did when he was in college when he played football and did not have to spend nearly as much time as he used to in the gym to get results. So, I am pretty sure I have seen some runners who were going to the low T clinic. They will give just about anyone over 40 the full treatment and get them pretty pumped up.

I suppose I can understand someone taking it to feel better during and after a marathon or any race, but without being judgmental about that reason, I’d say that wouldn’t motivate me to put synthetic drugs in my body because, from my hobbyjogger perspective, there is practically infinite room for improvement for me both on times and “feel”, so getting even a 10% boost, humongous as that may at the sub-elite+ level, still won’t get me to near elite times, so I’m happy getting a kick out of trying to better my natural self.

But if you are a 2:20 male sub-elite marathoner and are just curious where you can get with PEDs or just want to experience the smooth running feel of the elites (without taking prize money away), I wouldn’t judge those folks.

This is always wild to me. Either a performer/performance is elite or it isn't. This "sub-elite" stuff is pure fiction invented by weaklings to rationalize being so obsessively into their own running while not generating a return in proportion to their investment.

No, it's about 15:30 age-adjusted.

I've heard a lot of competitive master runners talk openly about their use of TRT. Doctors pretty much hand it out like candy to guys over 40.