[quote]Pete wrote:
When I checked in with letsrun to join in the celebrations and congratulations, I instead discovered petty jealousy, loud accusations, and weaselly innuendo. What a pathetic bunch of losers we are on this board if all we can do is mumble and gripe and throw stones after such a monumental achievement.
quote]
Pete, and how was this different from any other day?
Mary Poppins doesn't live here anymore. Get over it.
OK BDG,
not only are you on drugs, but they're affecting your reading ability. Please go back and reread my post which precedes your last post, the one where I declare I'm a skeptical person. I will not be drawn into a discussion of what does or doesn't constitute a "clean" athlete, particularly with someone who's publicly lobbed accusations.
You've called me hypocritical for "mentioning that simply the lack of a positive test makes a runner clean." Could you kindly point me to the post where I made this claim? Don't put words in my mouth. The position I've taken in this overall debate has nothing to with whether or not anybody is "clean." I am railing against the petty bullshit you and others are insinuating about an athlete who has achieved something more remarkable than any of the rest of us have any hope of matching.
Get off the drugs. They're starting to affect your cognitive functioning.
good day and god bless
Pete-
Vipam's original post asked if we were SKEPTICAL, Pro-Paula, or Anti-Paula.
I and many others have stated that we are SKEPTICAL. We did not say we were Anti-Paula. We have not said that she "is" dirty, or that she should be busted.
"I am railing against the petty bullshit you and others are insinuating about an athlete who has achieved something more remarkable than any of the rest of us have any hope of matching."
If I feel that there MAY (you'll hopefully note my repeated use of the word MAY) be a chance that this record is tainted, I reserve the opportunity to voice my opinion that things MAY not be as they seem at face value. And again, I have said before that she has now run faster than anyone else has ever run - clean or dirty. That is remarkable, I agree!
As to me putting words into your mouth, I apologize. The quote I was referencing was "If you throw out a claim of drug use (whether against Paula, Regina or anyone else who hasn't tested positive)..."
Looking at it now, I see that you didn't mention "that simply the lack of a positive test makes a runner clean." So again, I'm sorry.
But you state that you are "probably the biggest skeptic I've ever met." Where I'm from, it's acceptable as a skeptic to voice one's true opinion. So as a skeptic, you stated that ""If you throw out a claim of drug use (whether against Paula, Regina or anyone else who hasn't tested positive)..." I see that as being hypocritical.
As to putting words in other people's mouth, I would love for YOU to show me where I've made an accusation against Paula. Not a skeptical statement, but an actual accusation. Happy hunting!
Bless yourself.
BDG
greg ward wrote:
you start with certain myosin light chain proteins--they help dictate the optimal contractility of muscle. these are then changed via differential transcription within the nuclei of your muscle fibers due to multipace and distance training, leading you to a greater "potential" race pace if you also develop the cardiovascular system to back it up. i can send you some work on this topic if you're interested, but it does lend credence to the idea that you CAN change your "potential" with training.
i realize that the above paragraph could be read as "maximizing potential not initially manifested in your genes," but the fact that without training, those genes would never be turned on, i tend to think that training takes you beyond your initial genetic endowment.
Greg:
I don?t have reason to think you would, and will of course give you the benefit of the doubt, so please take no offense, but I do hope you aren?t rattling off nonsense by the above (smile).
I'm not a biology major, and have only casual, but hopefully accurate, knowledge of the fundamentals of biology, so forgive my simple terms, but as I understand it, genes are a code analogous to an instruction manuals for one?s body?
?proteins?. are then changed via differential transcription
so by this you?re saying that, by endurance training, this instruction manual (our genes) can be altered somewhat? I do know that proteins cannot be altered directly by transcription; transcription is only the synthesis of RNA from a strand of DNA. To make different proteins, different DNA must be present. The RNA transcribed from the DNA is then, via the process of translation, used to build proteins of certain specification? So how is it that these proteins are ?changed? by ?differential? transcription?
?without training, those genes would never be turned on, i tend to think that training takes you beyond your initial genetic endowment.
So is it that the genes/proteins have been changed as you first stated, or that they are present and are just ?turned on? by athletic training. Both sound unlikely to me, but of course I?ve been wrong plenty of times before.
Thanks in advance for any clarification you can provide?
tara,
you have it down pretty well, as far as understanding transcription/translation.
one thing from the outset: we do not express all forms of all the genes we have, and there is post-transcriptional AND post-translational changes that cells make that are NOT dictated solely by our genes, but by the conditions present in that cell.
to put it simply, since you clearly get this when i don't blabber science-speak:
muscles have optimal contraction speeds, both for generating power, and for using less energy to generate power. as you work muscles at speeds of contraction outside of optimum, that serves as the stimulus to adapt.
adaptation occurs by "changing out" part of your myosin (the thick filament of a muscle fiber). your muscle can basically mix-and-match different myosin heads as your principle training speeds/racing speeds change (this is why running slow ALL the time makes you slower, incidentally, at least in part). what it seeks to do, if you train at many paces as most of us do (including same pace uphill, that counts as different pace as far as muscles are concerned), is create a RANGE of speeds at which it, the muscle, is comfortable.
we all have, as far as i know, most of the different myosin head genes. the change comes from training "turning on" different ones.
to answer succintly: we have many more genes than we ever use. we have different forms of many proteins. multitudes of stimuli in your lifetime, not just from running, will affect which are used, and in what proportion.
feel free to ask, and i'll do my best to answer. i, like you, am just learning this stuff, and there is a TON i don't know.
cheers,
greg
I understand exactly what you are saying Greg. But what does it have to do with extraordinary performances or the price of coffee in China?
NoIllTakeTea
the question arose as to whether genetic freaks existed (they do) and how far training such as radcliffe's, clearly some of the toughest known and with the most attention paid to recovery, could have vaulted her from international/world class runner to record smasher.
since we're also debating if she is/might be/is not on drugs (performance enhancement she's all about: massage, altitude tent, etc.), this is relevant when inquiring: could she have done this naturally?
my short answer is YES, paula radcliffe could have done what she did naturally.
am i sold that she did? no. i personally believe time will tell, as it seems it is in carl lewis' case.
cheers,
greg
Actually the quote reads, "Indeed the day after her victory in Central Park Paula ran nearly 17-miles in 1-hr 31-minutes! Former U.S. Steeplechase Champion, and New York resident, Tom Nohilly said, "I had problems keeping the pace, I joined the run for a couple of miles and she was flying."
So make that more like 16.75 miles at 5.25m/m in New York.
Actually the quote reads, "Indeed the day after her victory in Central Park Paula ran nearly 17-miles in 1-hr 31-minutes! Former U.S. Steeplechase Champion, and New York resident, Tom Nohilly said, "I had problems keeping the pace, I joined the run for a couple of miles and she was flying."
So make that more like 16.75 miles at 5.25m/m in New York.
Nit-picker
I have been studying and working a great deal and haven't had time to keep up with any track and field since London Marathon. What article and date did you read that Paula did such an AWESOME training run shortly after her marathon?
Vipam
Think this is refering to the New York Mini Marathon ( 10k ) from 2001........
I'm ANTI. After all, there's no woman on this planet who should be able to out run a guy who trains at 10,000 feet in various places in Asia and screws around(increasing testosterone).
It's PREPOSTEROUS!!!!
What she's doing should be ILLEGAL!!!!
UNFAIR!!!!
No woman who can beat me is clean. NO WAY!!!!
She MUST be dirty!!!!
Does anyone know of an article that listed Paula's resting pulse rate AND her Vo2Max?
Vipam
Why are the performances in the womens marathon getting better every year.
This is not intended to be about Paula Radcliffes recent performance.
The following were the best time and tenth best time each year for the last 8 years as far as I can tell.
Year Best time 10 th best time
1996 2:26:04 2:27:41
1997 2:22:07 2:26:39
1998 2:20:47r 2:25:48
1999 2:20:43r 2:24:34
2000 2:21:33 2:23:14
2001 2:18:47r 2:24:15
2002 2:17:18r 2:21:49
2003 2:15:25r ?
Never mind the half dozen records (by four diffent people). The chasing pack is getting faster by almost one minute a year.
Why is this?
I do not see this improvement in other events.
Is it that the marathon is not as well developed as an event?
Is competition reaching a critical level where people have to run faster to win?
Has training improved for this event?
(I hope it does not relate to drugs. If it does why is it only affecting the marathon? There were supposedly a lot of drugs around in the 1980s and early 1990s.)
[quote]deuch wrote:
Why are the performances in the womens marathon getting better every year?
quote]
A.Radcliffe factor ten.
Sig Edith
Are you going live or die when Paula leads and runs 29:40 and gets outkicked by one of the Africans? Paula is untouchable in the marathon and should run that instead of the World Championship 10000m.
Paulacantwin
Good call titel.
So-called "skeptics" have shut up for a bit...
Hey Vipam, who is going to smoke Paula in Paris?
We want to know.
Edith
Slg Edith wrote:
[quote]deuch wrote:
Why are the performances in the womens marathon getting better every year?
quote]
A.Radcliffe factor ten.
I looked at the top 100 or so womens marathon times.
About 67% have been run scince the start of 2000.
16% from 1996-1999
and 17% before this.
Last time I looked Radcliffe had run 3 marathons, who ran the other 64? Were they all on drugs?
For comparison only 10% of the best 100m times have been run scince 2000.
Maybe Paula has finally just found her perfect event. Think about this -
What if way back when Tim Montgomery was a high schooler, he had an idiot for a coach. He saw Tim run and thought, man, this kid would be a great 400 meter runner. And so he trained Tim to be a 400 meter runner, and sometimes threw him in longer events to work on his strength.
What would have happened? I'm willing to bet that he'd be a damn fine 400 runner - you know, running around 45 seconds, definitely national caliber, but not quite in the top 5 in the world.
I mean, the man is a genetic freak. He could train his ass off in the wrong event for him and still be "just on the cusp" of being the best in the world.
Now, what if all of a sudden he decided to try the 100 meters, and after some hard hard work, he busted out his 9.78, setting a world record? It would have been the result of a talented, hard working runner finally running his ideal event, right?
Hey, the 100 is 4 times as short as the 400, and the marathon is 4 times as long as the 10,000. If our hypothetical Tim Montgomery can change events and set world records, why can't Paula?
Maybe the marathon is simply the right event for Paula, and her years of being on the cusp of greatness in the shorter events was a result of those events being too short for her...
On that note, KK must also be on drugs, because he wasn't winning any 5k/10k championships on the track. So for him to hold a pace so close to his 10k pace for a marathon, he must be on drugs as well.