El Guerrouj 2k WR - Incredible 3:49 Mile pace

1. "It is is just a question about incentives and expected benefits, and -- from your unwillingness to answer -- surprisingly low and uncertain predicted benefits can lead many athletes to dope". (Quote)

That doesn't follow from my response. As I said, your question is irrelevant. However, what is the evidence for your next assertion that "surprisingly low and uncertain predicted benefits can lead many athletes to dope"? It could be more validly be argued that the converse is true, which is that easily predicted benefits are what lead many to dope.

2. "The athletes have many reasons to believe that doping will improve their performance. It is a non sequitur to think that it will improve the performance of most of them". (Quote)

That is an apparent contradiction. If there are many reasons for athletes to believe doping will improve their performance then it follows that improved performance will be one of them, as that is the main reason they will dope (I can't think of any other that matters). If their performance does not improve then they have no reason for that belief.

3. In your tortuous paragraph on training, if you see no difference between a belief in the efficacy of doping and the same of training then it is as sound a decision to dope as it is to train.

how does that work? wrote:

I wonder if Armstronglivs gets paid per troll post or per ad hominem?

My services are offered for free but if you feel they are worthy of remuneration then by all means I am happy to accept your donations.

rekrunner wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

As I indicated, a belief in the effectiveness of doping is as much a "belief" as is yours in the efficacy of Lydiard training. You failure to provide evidence that shows there is nothing more to doping than mere belief has gone on for the last 50 pages.

OK -- a belief in the effectiveness of doping is as much a "belief" as the efficacy of Lydiard training. I'm OK with that.

We were not talking about the athletes' belief in doping for 50 pages, so I didn't realize evidence was required.

It is if you claim that the decision to dope isn't rational. As you do.

rekrunner wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

In your ineffable stupidity, the point I made previously that you fail to comprehend is that you have no personal acquaintance with any doped athletes on which to base your claims that they are only guessing that doping will help them - and it won't really. Neither do your esteemed researchers.

Maybe you need to hash that out with Tom Cochrane, who "knows" Ramzi.

Do you "know" any doped distance running athletes in El G's league?

Even a word as simple as "know" is beyond your semantic skills.

No one is claiming to know Ramzi personally, but we do know he is a convicted doper. A difficult distinction for you apparently.

But if you are going to dismiss what EPO and any other form of doping can do then that is a bold and indeed unsubstantiated claim, given that you and you experts do not know any athletes who are doping or using EPO in particular. That is especially so when the vast majority of dopers go undetected. You think you know what is on the dark side of the moon when you have never been there.

What was you answer again to the 80%/20% question? Would you dope with those odds? Because the question is whether people dope based on actual or predicted benefits, you are likely the only one here who sees the question as irrelevant.

Your unwillingness to answer is my good prima facie evidence that you think that "surprisingly low and uncertain predicted benefits can lead many athletes to dope", because you could answer in negative and make your case "converse is true" stronger.

It it isn't that you don't want. But that you can't.

About training vs. doping, the incentive and belief mechanism is the same, but the amount of how much athletes put resources into training is a good evidence that they have more expectation about benefits of training than they do have in doping. I never claimed there was "no difference" in the magnitude of the expected outcome, therefore it isn't irrational to train but not to dope.

I wouldn't train for 1000 hours/y with the odds of the 80 % / 20 % example, but it had to be like close to a expected 100 % possibility of a performance boost vs. not training.

Armstronglivs wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

You just gave us data from the sports scientists about altitude training, that corroborated the data I gave on altitude training, that is more than the gain from the Scottish/Kenyan study.

If altitude can provide 1 minute benefit for 5K, who would also rationally choose to take EPO?

Since you have no data on EPO you have nothing to base your comparison on. But athletes who dope do. I realise the perceptions of those who aren't you are beyond your ability to comprehend.

As you can see by what you quoted, I do have data for comparison:

- the Scottish/Kenyan trials give us data on EPO of 5.6% and 4.7% respectively

- the sports scientists that hi-lo training data of 1 minute per 5km, courtesy of you

We don't have data from athletes, so nothing to base your comparison on.

If we did, athletes who dope are not blinded, nor do they control their measurements, so their data would have to be interpreted with caution (*).

In any case, we are not talking about athletes' perceptions, but yours.

You are not an athlete, and you don't seem to possess any particularly special knowledge on these topics.

You argue, irrationally and illogically, that all athletes are rational, and therefore prevalence is proof of benefit.

(*) This is also the case with the Scottish/Kenyan data on EPO, and the altitude data is likely not blinded either -- as they are not blinded, and not controlled, all of the data from EPO, altitude, and athletes, could be over-estimated).

Armstronglivs wrote:

how does that work? wrote:

I wonder if Armstronglivs gets paid per troll post or per ad hominem?

My services are offered for free but if you feel they are worthy of remuneration then by all means I am happy to accept your donations.

Do you think you know more about oxygen kinetics than Jack Daniels?

Armstronglivs wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

Are you making my argument for me?

1 minute for 5km is 6.25% for the 16-minute runner. That's more than the Scots and the Kenyans on 4 weeks of EPO.

So where's your study of altitude-trained athletes who used EPO, necessary to support your claim? Crickets.

The exact study you propose as necessary, is not necessary, as my claim is supported by existing studies.

We have studies that shows benefits from altitude, and benefits from EPO, in the short term, often for "well trained" amateur subjects. All of these studies look at the same proposed primary mechanism of increased EPO leading to increased RBCs leading to improved oxygen delivery to the muscles leading to improved aerobic performance, relying less on "anaerobic" energy. These studies show similar magnitude of gains in performance for altitude, EPO, and blood transfusions.

The basis for my claim can be found in these studies, and the relevance of RBCs and VO2 and VO2max, and the fact that there is an upper limit to the benefits of blood doping: if altitude already increases RBCs, VO2max, and performance, then any additional benefit from EPO will be marginal, as there is a limit to benefit before the blood gets too thick to flow, as evidenced by altitude sickness and thrombosis.

Armstronglivs wrote:

how does that work? wrote:

I wonder if Armstronglivs gets paid per troll post or per ad hominem?

My services are offered for free but if you feel they are worthy of remuneration then by all means I am happy to accept your donations.

That is about what they are worth.

That's why we need to figure out Calorimetry, as JD alluded back in the early days of letsrun.com.

As I indicated above, this difference in meaning is something between you and Tom Cochrane - keep me out of it.

If you haven't been paying attention -- and I suspect you have not been:

- You asked me if I "knew" any doped athletes.

- I asked you if you "knew" any doped athletes.

- Crickets.

- Tom Cochrane answered me on your behalf, that he "knew" Ramzi.

I have the ability to comprehend that you are both using different definitions of "know", and by each of your respective definitions, you do not "know" any doped elite distance running athletes, and Tom Cochrane "knows" Ramzi.

You are incorrectly faulting me for not understanding the contradiction between you and Tom Cochrane.

This is a strawman hypothetical you keep rebuilding. These are goalposts of straw which are not mine.

I do not, and am not going to dismiss what EPO can do, and I rarely comment on other forms of doping or other sports or events besides distance running.

What I have said, and do say is:

- that blood doping's effect in all blood-doping studies to date is likely over-estimated (at least two peer-reviewed studies support that claim)

- that athlete's experiment of one is neither blinded nor controlled, and can include many confounders (self-evident claim)

- no one has yet shown or measured the effect blood doping has on the fastest elite performances (could be the same as amateurs, could be smaller, could be zero, could be negative) (falsifiable claim)

- anything EPO can do, altitude can do with similar magnitude (claim supported by studies)

This is nuanced, and takes much effort to understand, particularly when you view the world in false dichotomies, but none of these claims should be mis-construed as "EPO doesn't work".

These are not bold claims, and the limitations are not cured by knowing athletes, nor appealing to what is unknown..

In fact, your appeal to what is not known effectively restates "no one has yet shown".

Armstronglivs wrote:

It is if you claim that the decision to dope isn't rational. As you do.

"If I claim"? So you are saying I didn't claim it yet, but it's a hypothetical conditional? Did I claim it in these 50 pages? We weren't talking about rationality until the last few pages.

In this thread, you are the one who framed this argument with "rationality", and suggested I claimed "irrationality" and further that this claim was "baseless".

What did Tom Cochrane say earlier about these kinds of tangents?

I claimed "belief" which we both agreed could be rational or irrational. I also agreed that a belief based on placebo and/or confounders could still be "rational".

You need athletes' decision making to be rational to prop-up your illogical conclusion that prevalence and rationality proves effect.

Your argument fails logically, even when the decision making is rational -- so the distinction is actually not important.

But as we have seen the irrationality of athletes decision making is something experts take for granted, and is a major topic of study.

So the side of science says belief, irrationality, and not well-informed are all traits of athletes doping decision making.

While you stand alone in this imaginary world you've constructed for yourself.

Alone? I'm right there with him.

We are not at odds with the definition of know either.

In his imaginary world?

If you are not at odds, why would he criticize for not understanding his meaning when I go by your interpretation?

It's rhetorical, since I understood both of you, and the difference, and by any definition, neither of you bring knowledge.

Horses and water. You and logic and reason.

Tom Cochrane wrote:

Alone? I'm right there with him.

We are not at odds with the definition of know either.

So do you think you know more about oxygen kinetics than Jack Daniels?

"Not Everyone Responds. Even if you dismiss all these concerns, it’s still well-known that some people respond well to altitude training, while others don’t. In the 1997 study, they divided the results of their 39 subjects into 17 responders, who improved their 5,000-meter times by an average 36.6 seconds; 7 neutral responders, who didn’t see any significant change; and 15 non-responders, who actually got slower by an average of 24.0 seconds. As Siebenmann points out, that’s not a non-response, it’s a negative response. And if you’re an elite athlete, 17 out of 39 doesn’t seem like great odds."

Wait a minute - so altitude training isn't everything it's cracked up to be? But isn't that what rekrunner tries to say about EPO?

I dont really bother to read your posts now. English is beyond you. So is everything else.

Verbal diarrhea.