RE: If you believe in the concept of Performance Enhancing Drugs......

He's dirty.

Everyone's dirty except Radcliffe, Wejo, me, and our friends.

You MUST be using drugs to run well, unless you're one of us.

'PEDs' is a concept, not a fact. It's a fantasy that people have. The only performance enhancer that really matters for this discussion is produced naturally, it's adrenaline. I have shown caculations that elite runners use less energy in a race than slower runners. This is exactly the opposite of what people believe. It's not me who needs to learn basic physiology.

The Drug'jos hard at work wrote:

This thread is just like the rest of the forum, central to the Brojos' obsession that people need drugs to run fast, yet their friend Radcliffe is clean, and Wejo ran 28 minutes by jogging around slowly.

They're obsessed with the idea that drugs give special aide to all performances, but their own, and you're swimming upstream to try and prove otherwise. As soon as you do, the specially commissioned LR trolls will go into their hypocritical frenzy.

I don't think they believe that. But as journalists, they do know the value of the drug stories. Yes this is hypocrisy. But as a journalist, with regard to what to publish and what not to report, you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't.

Now that I am at a full-size computer, instead of a phone, I see that you are right and I was mistaken in my interpretation of the chart. I apologize to you and to Jon Orange as well, for any confusion I have caused.

I hope that "accused" is too strong a word--it certainly is wrong for my intent. I think we both agree that VDOT is correlated to VO2Max and is a rough estimate. I am just more wary of using it to "backdoor" your way into a VO2Max number for any one individual because the individual variance can be quite wide. The only way to know what a VO2Max is for any one individual is to measure it. I am also suspicious of using any one particular individual to prove a point, as the individual variance means that you can find at least one plausible example to support just about any group you would want to. It's not that the use is improper, it is just that it is so inaccurate as to be very misleading to take one person's measurement and then apply to a larger group.I am more comfortable talking about "population as a whole". Which, when we look at the population as a whole, it shows a positive correlation between running speed and VO2Max. Of course, when you pick a single example who has an average running economy and an average VO2Max for their speed (which is what you do when you pick somebody on the generic economy curve, then for all essential purposes you are talking about the population as a whole...so I think we end up in the same place...

rekrunner wrote:

(BTW, I note here the phrase "which is also a rough estimate of the V02max" -- a purpose I used it for, and I think you accused me of using VDOT wrongly for that purpose.)

Jon Orange wrote:

'PEDs' is a concept, not a fact. It's a fantasy that people have. The only performance enhancer that really matters for this discussion is produced naturally, it's adrenaline. I have shown caculations that elite runners use less energy in a race than slower runners. This is exactly the opposite of what people believe. It's not me who needs to learn basic physiology.

Your equations don't show that.

Your equations show that, if you control for absolute VO2Max, the more economical runner is faster. The faster runner and the slower runner use the exact same amount of oxygen for any max effort of the same duration.

Apology accepted. Now, about those figures I presented. It's a completey mind boggling idea that people can't accept, that eliter runners are using less energy to race. But it's actually an old concept that I learned back in the 70's, so to me it's easy to understand. For people brought up on the usual 'bigger engine' dogma, it's something they can't accept.

Therein lies the problem I face convincing people that 'PEDs' is a philosophical concept rather than fact.

Jon Orange wrote:

Apology accepted. Now, about those figures I presented. It's a completey mind boggling idea that people can't accept, that eliter runners are using less energy to race. But it's actually an old concept that I learned back in the 70's, so to me it's easy to understand. For people brought up on the usual 'bigger engine' dogma, it's something they can't accept.

Therein lies the problem I face convincing people that 'PEDs' is a philosophical concept rather than fact.

Do you believe that a larger VO2Max (bigger engine) has any correlation to performance?

Mr. Obvious wrote:

Jon Orange wrote:

'PEDs' is a concept, not a fact. It's a fantasy that people have. The only performance enhancer that really matters for this discussion is produced naturally, it's adrenaline. I have shown caculations that elite runners use less energy in a race than slower runners. This is exactly the opposite of what people believe. It's not me who needs to learn basic physiology.

Your equations don't show that.

Your equations show that, if you control for absolute VO2Max, the more economical runner is faster. The faster runner and the slower runner use the exact same amount of oxygen for any max effort of the same duration.

My equations do show that. I showed different numbers for different types of runner, because you have to compare like with like. You can't compare a runner with an absolute VO2 max of 7 liters to one with 4 liters. Or a runner with short heel bones (very economical) to one with long heel bones (very poor economy) you have to compare a weak technician with a strong technician when both have otherwise the same physical attributes.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

Jon Orange wrote:

Apology accepted. Now, about those figures I presented. It's a completey mind boggling idea that people can't accept, that eliter runners are using less energy to race. But it's actually an old concept that I learned back in the 70's, so to me it's easy to understand. For people brought up on the usual 'bigger engine' dogma, it's something they can't accept.

Therein lies the problem I face convincing people that 'PEDs' is a philosophical concept rather than fact.

Do you believe that a larger VO2Max (bigger engine) has any correlation to performance?

No, not in absolute terms.

You could ask me if having a very high economy (small engine) has any correlation to performance? Again the answer is no.

You have to realise that these are extreme parameters and of themselves do not denote an athletic ability.

Jon Orange wrote:

My equations do show that. I showed different numbers for different types of runner, because you have to compare like with like. You can't compare a runner with an absolute VO2 max of 7 liters to one with 4 liters.

Why couldn't you compare them?

Don't both of these runners occur in the dataset of "All Runners"?

Yes they should be compared on performance. But I took a figure in between the extremes, to show two genetically identical twins, one an elite runner and the other a beginner to show how much difference in performance is realistic given their different specific fitness. Even though the beginner could have been an elite cyclist.

The point being that speed endurance in running is related to the ability to produce lots of power through the feet/ankles/achilles and that requires a lot of spefific work, regardless of what may be considered as 'aerobic conditioning'.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

Jon Orange wrote:

My equations do show that. I showed different numbers for different types of runner, because you have to compare like with like. You can't compare a runner with an absolute VO2 max of 7 liters to one with 4 liters.

Why couldn't you compare them?

Don't both of these runners occur in the dataset of "All Runners"?

So, just for fun:

Runner A has an absolute VO2Max of 7 liters and a marathon PR of 2:05

Runner B has an absolute VO2Max of 4 liters and a marathon PR of 2:15.

Runner A uses 7*.8*125=700 liters of oxygen.

Runner B uses 4*.795*135=429.3 liters of oxygen.

Of course I have just assumed the larger VO2Max runner is faster. We could switch that assumption around:

Runner B runs a 2:04 marathon and Runner A runs a 2:15 (at PR pace)

B uses 4*.8.125=400 liters of oxygen

A uses 7*.795*135=751.275 liters of oxygen.

I mean, in this sense all we are doing is figuring the math for the relevant givens. Because, of course, in a purely mathematical way, we certainly can compare them.

I assume you mean we can't compare them for some philosophical reason, but I am not sure what that reason is? Can you explain?

Jon Orange wrote:

Mr. Obvious wrote:

Do you believe that a larger VO2Max (bigger engine) has any correlation to performance?

No, not in absolute terms.

You could ask me if having a very high economy (small engine) has any correlation to performance? Again the answer is no.

You have to realise that these are extreme parameters and of themselves do not denote an athletic ability.

I'm not sure I understand your answer.

Do you believe a larger VO2Max only has relevance for performance when it is controlled for economy?

I am not even talking about any sort of "extreme parameters," or am not trying to, so I am not sure why you are puting that term in there?

Let's try a simple example: If you took a runner with a VO2max of 4.5 and another runner with a VO2Max of 5 (so this is only a 10% difference), which one is likely to be faster? Of again, since I prefer to talk about populations instead of individuals...If you took a group of 20 runners with a VO2max of 4.5 and a group of 20 runners with a VO2max of 5 and had all of them run a 3k time trial, which group would have the fastest average time?

Yes, the philosophy is quite simple. A runner with an oxygen uptake of 7 liters still has to do the training, and this will make him more economical. He still has to improve his economy. To go from, young hopeful to elite in his 20s he has to learn to run the same pace using less energy and to run faster using the same amount of energy.

Jon Orange wrote:

Yes they should be compared on performance. But I took a figure in between the extremes, to show two genetically identical twins, one an elite runner and the other a beginner to show how much difference in performance is realistic given their different specific fitness. Even though the beginner could have been an elite cyclist.

The point being that speed endurance in running is related to the ability to produce lots of power through the feet/ankles/achilles and that requires a lot of spefific work, regardless of what may be considered as 'aerobic conditioning'.

Wrong. The point is that in order to run faster ANY runner has to gain the ability to burn oxygen at a faster rate. That's why drugs work.

Your ankle theory is a poor one. Two runners can be travelling the same speed and using completely different sources of power to do so. All that matters is generating that power somehow.

For some it bouncing along like Komen and Geb and for others it's flat footed slapping like Treacy, Mourhit and Boutayeb.

Extreme parameters means runners at either end of the VO2max/economy spectrum.

Please read that posts more carefully, otherwise this could just go round and round with you asking me the same questions over and over expecting a different answer.

You have to put some work into this, and understand my points. If you don't consider what I am saying and post another question without understanding a simple answer, then we are back to square one.

You're doing it again. Missing the point. Of course runners have different attributes. Read carefully, and stop arguing for the sake of it.