LRC Male Stars "Clean" or "Dirty" Doping Poll Results

Joe Mama wrote:

It's a universal truth in sports right now, that as long as you know when the tests are coming, you can beat them. If you train in the off-season, in a reclusive area, you are going to know hours, if not days in advance before a tester is coming... and that's if its completely unannounced... for example, if you are micro dosing EPO, all you need is a hand full of hours, and maybe a jug of water, and you'll beat the test every time....

Compared to doping in cycling this is child's play. In cycling they were able to pull off doping during competitions that lasted weeks, and had athletes tested throughout the competition... if all Mr. Trackstar needs to do is run one race a few seconds to a few minutes long, it would be significantly less complicated to time your usage...

I'm certainly no expert on micro-dosing EPO, but considering that all of the testers do know where these athletes are at all times, why would the athletes know days or even hours in advance? The folks I know who sponsored Olympic / World Championship level atheletes didn't get that much notice. That would be the dumbest testing system ever.

Again, I'm not saying with certainty that none of these guys are doping, however I do doubt they are. What I am saying is that it seems crazy that a guy like Rupp is so highly accused of it, when guys like Jager, Teg, True, Mead, Derrick, Solinsky are not when from the high school level up to their current respective levels or peaks, Rupp has been consistently just that much better.

They are all very good, they always have been. They have all gotten better and better and better and eventually ran under 13:00 or are poised to do so. I mean if you were to look at a graph of where they started from in high school and are at now (or at their peak) the should line up very nicely, with Rupp consistently being a little better.

As far as the "he suddenly got fast" claim. That is just silly. Anyone following the last 10 years knows that he started out as a 5K-10K guy, with emphasis on the 10K. He ran 29:09 as a high schooler, ran 28:15 as a college frosh, going sub 14:00 on the second half all alone, and 27:32 as a college junior. He was working on strength the entire time.

Isn't it the brojos who said strength equals speed? Well 5-7 years of working on monster strength in a way that no other recent high schooler ever had should produce the most finishing speed then right? This was a guy who before he could legally drink beer would follow up a 5000 or 10000 race with a work out. How many were doing that kind of work? If you do that year after year, slowly increasing your volume along with it, you are going to build your strength but continue to run right at the redline. Eventually when you are in your mid twenties start to get on top of it.

Then you make a coaching philosophical change and put emphasis on speed work and implement 800 and 1500 races, start working out with wheating, centro, mcnamara, acosta and which every else 3:36-3:39 guy Oregon had at the time and guess what, you get faster.

It's almost like people are saying, if you go from working out strictly as a 5K-10K guy doing long sessions, and begin working out with some of the best milers in the US, you should NOT get faster! That is just not logical.

And you'd still ignore the fact that he closed out his 27:32 in about 2:00 and won the race in 2007, and ran 4:01 in high school while having the strength to run 29:09.

Most high schoolers race 800, 1600, 3200 or 800, 1500, 3000 so when they are racing the mile, they are damn well tuned for it. Rupp raced a mile to tune for 5000.

I see that you were 25th at the 2000 trials, nice job. Eddy Hellebuyck was fifth. He has some interesting things to say about American distance runners.

the point, Bob, which you are bending around backwards to miss, is that because Madoff was a crook doesn't mean that the manager of the Fidelity ContraFund is also a crook.

That the GM ignition switch was defective doesn't make my Toyota ignition switch defective.

You take great satisfaction to nail your declaration of faith to the MBs when you damn 'all of them' while the evidence is pretty clearly the opposite.

Sorry you believe the world is so corrupt - it really isn't what you think. You must have a difficult time thinking the world is so unlawful and full of lies.

I suppose that is why you chose your handle.

now we are probably done.

I agree that there may be a reasonable explanation. Sure, maybe he wasn't running as much in college as most pros, maybe he wasn't training as hard.

But for whatever reason, his progression has not been similar to any other athlete at his level aside from Mo Farah. I don't think this statement is up for debate.

cuban bluegrass wrote:

the point, Bob, which you are bending around backwards to miss, is that because Madoff was a crook doesn't mean that the manager of the Fidelity ContraFund is also a crook.

That the GM ignition switch was defective doesn't make my Toyota ignition switch defective.

You take great satisfaction to nail your declaration of faith to the MBs when you damn 'all of them' while the evidence is pretty clearly the opposite.

Sorry you believe the world is so corrupt - it really isn't what you think. You must have a difficult time thinking the world is so unlawful and full of lies.

I suppose that is why you chose your handle.

now we are probably done.

Not all of them. I believe that there are athletes that are competing without using performance enhancing drugs. I just don't believe they are winning.

Look, in 2000 many folks argued for the integrity of Armstrong, Jones, and maybe everyone else that was later determined to have used illegal drugs. It's simply ridiculous now, after all that has come before, to believe that these athletes are clean.

dafwejfdsjf wrote:

I agree that there may be a reasonable explanation. Sure, maybe he wasn't running as much in college as most pros, maybe he wasn't training as hard.

But for whatever reason, his progression has not been similar to any other athlete at his level aside from Mo Farah. I don't think this statement is up for debate.

There IS a reasonable explanation and you're willfully ignoring it.

cuban bluegrass wrote:

the point, Bob, which you are bending around backwards to miss, is that because Madoff was a crook doesn't mean that the manager of the Fidelity ContraFund is also a crook.

That the GM ignition switch was defective doesn't make my Toyota ignition switch defective.

You take great satisfaction to nail your declaration of faith to the MBs when you damn 'all of them' while the evidence is pretty clearly the opposite.

Sorry you believe the world is so corrupt - it really isn't what you think. You must have a difficult time thinking the world is so unlawful and full of lies.

I suppose that is why you chose your handle.

now we are probably done.

The country owes a debt to Robert E Lee if you knew what he did at Appomattox you would understand that.

Additionally, yeah the world is a tough place. Generally the ingredient for success (above all others) is ambition. Ambitious people (most of them) will go to great lengths to succeed.

Hey, I find your position quaint, you believe that athletes compete devoid of any ambition, oblivious to what they need to do to actually WIN THE EVENT rather then simply compete.

I believe that the truly great athlete, in this day and age, in order to be THE BEST and not simply compete, has to use drugs.

So you just want to compete, no harm in that ;)

Actually I think it is up for debate.

Rupp ran 4:01 in high school and 3:50 as a pro. I think a 10-11 second improvement lines up with other US runners.

5k - 13:37 in high school and 12:50 as a pro...a 47 second improvement seems pretty much the same as Derrick, no? derrick ran 13:55 in hs and now is probably a 13:05 guy and still improving. I suspect most of the current US 13:20 crew could have run 14:10 in high school.

10k: the event is run so little among high schoolers that it is hard to get much from it.

Even if you load up on PEDs you still need to put in work. PEDs are supplements to training. I'm sure most of us take multi vitamins to supplement our diet. That's all PEDs are.

Train hard, recover, race. PEDs allow athletes to truly reach their potential. They're all running the same distance. Rupp didn't run 25 laps around a 398m track.

Study sports history. Being a paid athlete was illegal, yet many were paid under the table.

Legalize PEDs and allow sports to get to the next level. I believe we will see PED use legalized in the next 10-20 years.

dafwejfdsjf wrote:

I agree that there may be a reasonable explanation. Sure, maybe he wasn't running as much in college as most pros, maybe he wasn't training as hard.

But for whatever reason, his progression has not been similar to any other athlete at his level aside from Mo Farah. I don't think this statement is up for debate.

Please read my post above regarding the progression and current status of guys like Derrick, Jager, True, Teg, Solinsky, Mead etc. On a simple level, they all went to being consistently a hair or two behind where Rupp was along their respective careers to being sub 13:00 or right at 13:00-13:05 currently.

This is actually why I've advocated that Rupp is easily ready for 12:50 or under. That would be inline with their progressions and his.

One factor you have not addressed is the injury part. They've all made it this far with injuries, Rupp has been almost injury free. That would actually make their progress more impressive (or suspect for skeptics). If you are sitting out while Rupp is, for example, racing a 2 mile and then doing 5 x mile afterwards, you are theoritically losing ground not gaining it.

PEDS are Supplements wrote:

Even if you load up on PEDs you still need to put in work. PEDs are supplements to training. I'm sure most of us take multi vitamins to supplement our diet. That's all PEDs are.

Train hard, recover, race. PEDs allow athletes to truly reach their potential. They're all running the same distance. Rupp didn't run 25 laps around a 398m track.

Study sports history. Being a paid athlete was illegal, yet many were paid under the table.

Legalize PEDs and allow sports to get to the next level. I believe we will see PED use legalized in the next 10-20 years.

"PED'S allow athletes to truly reach their potential."

oh.

I think we we part is the definition and consequences of 'ambition'

Like Xenonscreams, I believe being ambitious doesn't mean you are willing to cheat. Honorable people succeed all over the place. I'd argue that honorable people will succeed at much higher rates than dishonorable people.

And I work in finance, in New York City and do pretty well.

So I fully believe that Jenny Simpson, Mary Cain, Ritz, Hall and many others are fully ambitious, want to win and have won...but doesn't mean they will break the rules to do it.

cuban bluegrass wrote:

it is clear that Salazar did not push rupp to his maximum at age 22 b/c salazar felt a slower path would yield better results down the road.

Yup, he told him to lose every single championship race that got down to a kick for the first four years of college. He told him to enter time trial mile races but to purposely not break 4 minutes. Salazar is a genius.

cantseeit wrote:

Is it that easy for all these elites to get away with doping?

Yes. Particularly if you have the support and funds American groups have. How many positives did US Postal produce during the period that they obliterating the competition? Zero. Meanwhile, the competition they left in their wake was getting busted left and right. Did that mean they were clean? And neither bio passport, nor any other test is going to eradicate cheating. It's simply gonna stifle the less innovative, less funded groups.

Congratulations on your success.

I believe that people can operate in a bubble and convince themselves of almost anything.

I recall the Tyler Hamilton interview where he recounted the moment he decided to cheat. It was simple: He had the desire to try to be the very best and he had to cheat to do it.

You have named some extraordinarily accomplished athletes. It is not reasonable to believe that they all have achieved their goals without the use of performance enhancing drugs.

C'mon, this thyroid thing is a complete dodge and one day those that believed this nonsense are going to wonder how they could have been such dupes.

fan site wrote:

cantseeit wrote:

Is it that easy for all these elites to get away with doping?

Yes. Particularly if you have the support and funds American groups have. How many positives did US Postal produce during the period that they obliterating the competition? Zero. Meanwhile, the competition they left in their wake was getting busted left and right. Did that mean they were clean? And neither bio passport, nor any other test is going to eradicate cheating. It's simply gonna stifle the less innovative, less funded groups.

and american sprinters DON'T have the support and funds that American distance runners have?

Well, since Gay was probably making $500k and was a pretty big star and still he couldn't afford to fool the testers...

that must mean the distance runners are getting $600-$700k and can therefore fool the testers! Awesome! Maybe this sport isn't as troubled as I thought. $600k is pretty good money.

yes, bob, it is reasonable to believe mary cain is not a PED user.

and there you go again - citing one guy (hamilton) and then expanding that one example to everyone. it's like yuo search for a problem so you can damn the whole world.

I'll give you a point for the thyroid thing - that is probably going to be considered cheating at some point.

And I read somewhere that 15% of people can take steroids and never test positive for them - some genetic quirk. That is a scary thing.

I've got to agree with those saying this is silly, pointless and ultimately bad for the sport. Brojos, I usually agree with you, but there is actually something insidious about this "poll". You should scrub the poll reports from the site.I always thought that one of the things this community believed was that anyone could be a doper, and the only argument that should be made is a positive test. The best evidence outside of this is unreasonable improvement (i.e. Ramzi), but even that is not closely correlated with positive PED test results.Look at Tyler Hamilton and Tyson Gay. Public personality has absolutely nothing to do with whether someone is a doper. I agree the Brojos have been too forgiving of convicted doper Tyson Gay precisely because of his nice guy personality. The data in the polls mean absolutely nothing, and the site looks all the more like a tabloid than a real source of news for having them.

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Obnoxious, move on Let's Run. Stick with proof not suspicions and rumors.

cuban bluegrass wrote:

and american sprinters DON'T have the support and funds that American distance runners have?

Sprinters get busted for roids. Much, much easier to detect than blood enhancers. And you can enhance blood using methods that are as of now legal. Again, dirty is not neccesarily illegal. And yes, sprinters get paid alot of money, but I doubt their is a research based sprinter group equivalant to NOP, or a sprinting coach that has admitted it is more than just about training.