Sage Canaday calling out running influencers for doping

Lol. That's a lot of words to say that you won't accept anything other than Nick bare himself admitting to being on the gear.

It's funny that you single out the doctors who dole out the fake diagnosis with the accompanying PEDs but nary a word about the athletes and/or coaches who seek them out for that single purpose.

You can justify all the shenanigans you want but the subtext of your words show you acknowledge the BS that goes on (even when there is no admission or proof.). But yeah... Keep pretending like you don't see it and won't unless Nick tells you himself.

I just listened to the latest 2 Bears 1 Cave podcast (#217) by comedians Bert Kreischer and Tom Segura. The whole episode about them making (new year's) goals to get into shape and creating a 2 Bears 5K race in May. So they were calling up all their out-of-shape comedian friends to get them to commit to doing the race. Obviously, they want their audience to get into shape and do the race too. So, as influencers, they are arguably doing a good thing, encouraging people who ordinarily are not athletes to get into shape. That's as opposed to normal races where the runners are runners already, so they really aren't getting many people off the couch.

The catch here it that I think both those guys have talked about taking low dose T for quality-of-life reasons. Not to bulk up, mainly to just feel better. I think they are doing a net positive to the world by promoting their own 5K to get their audience and comedian friends to get into good enough shape to run/jog a 5K. I'm guessing it won't be USATF race rules. They have time goals (sub-26), but they aren't trying to "cheat".

It's just people operating a running race on presumably a different set of rules than "serious runners" and pro runners follow. And that's a good thing for the general public. They would be open to all, while the running races we are familiar with would technically call a lot of ordinary American "cheaters" because they buy things from GNC or whatever with no intention of that stuff affecting their running times which they don't really care about anyway.

Testosterone IS a natural supplement. What are you smoking? Testosterone is found everywhere in nature. Are you that gullible that you would believe Ryan Hall?

I think a masters runner not to be named but obvious enough is attempting to be famous or build a brand is guilty of lieing to themselves and their followers. Pretending it’s just your hardcore attitude and amazing work ethic is frankly fraud to some degree.

Three names that haven't been mentioned, that would probably arouse suspicion here :

Alex Viada - more a general health and fitness influencer, but he has received a lot of flak here for claiming he ran a 4:15 mile or something. Not sure he has ever said he 100% natural though, and he has stated that that mile was run when he was a young man and was partly downhill.

Patrick Cutter - Not obviously roided, but an impressive physique for a marathoner. Also suffered a serious health problem that left him hospitalized. Then again, you could say that about Sage.

Mark King - A sub 5 minute mile for a 100KG 50+year old casual runner is impressive. Does admit to being on TRT.

To be clear - I'm NOT saying any of these guys are doping, but many here would be suspicous just because of their impressive physiques and times.

You don't know much about the legendary Jackalopes. According to the wise philosopher Bud Luckey, the jackalope is the sage of the sage, that rare hare of hope.

My purpose is to try and make sense of a seemingly senseless and hateful and wholly unnecessary tweet, looking for the added positive value, if any.

Is he calling for influencers to be drug tested, when they are already subject to drug tests? Um, OK. Is he trying to convince everyone that dopers are also cheaters and liars? Doesn't everyone already believe that? Did we really need one more person to stand up and say something that is already being done and everyone already believes? OK. More power to him. Fight the good fight.

What is the consequence of such a senseless and hateful tweet? Without any real reason, his posted "opinon" effectively casts blanket aspersions on a whole category of people as PED drug cheats, by virtue of not naming names, while providing no evidence of any drug cheating. If you want to hate on influencers for profiting from selling snake oil, that is one thing, but with his vagueness, he is essentially calling all of them dopers and liars and cheats and telling all of his followers to hate influencers because they are lying, cheating dopers. It is a post that generates hatred towards a whole specific class of people for crimes they didn't commit.

Why does he feel compelled to tweet such undirected hatred? Jealousy? Envy? Virtue signalling?

"What is the consequence of such a senseless and hateful tweet?"

Someone posts a message how they don't like drug using frauds without naming names and you believe that to be a senseless and hateful tweet.

Yeah... I think the thousands of words you typed up shows the depth of your internal struggle. You know it's wrong but need to attack someone whose only message was drugs are bad and that people shouldn't fake performances. You take that to be a hateful attack. The fact that he didn't name anyone but you've written essays protecting your acquaintance (from long ago or now) shows you know what's up. Just like we all know what's up. Justify it all you want but we can see through you just like we see through your PED fuelled buddy

If there are too many words, you must not have the IQ of the wise jackalope.

I'm only struggling to understand who he hates, or whether the target is real or hypothetical. It's fine to say he hates drug using frauds, but he didn't single out drug using frauds. He attacked non-elite influencers, attempting to equate them with drug using frauds and liars and cheaters. Why? Without naming names, or any other context, this effectively casts a shadow over all non-elite influencers, and not just the drug using frauds he fails to single out.

Trees?

I think doping is RIFE in the club/competitive amateur scene too in all honesty.

Some of the nonsense you see club runners - especially veterans - do beggars belief - back-to-back PRs days apart from people well trained and apparently not suffering from the effects of fatigue. Wildly inconsistent training, or absolutely burying themselves multiple times a week, whilst working and with kids - but they rarely get ill (and if they do they're fine after 2 days and running a PR with a big caption on IG about their resolve to dig deep) or injured or burnt out. Just keep on trucking and burying themselves week after week, with the PRs never stopping.

I work in an organisation that has people from a vast array of different sports and doping seems to be rife at an amateur level in many sports, so there's no reason to think it isnt in running too!

I understand that context and reading comprehension are rare these days but I'll attempt to clarify. You wrote:

He attacked non-elite influencers, attempting to equate them with drug using frauds and liars and cheaters.

That is where you are putting up a straw man argument. He attacked running influencers WHO USE PEDs. You seem to equate that subset with the entire group of running influencers and then you use that as the basis of your attack i.e. his post is hateful. But really all you're doing is changing his argument and then attacking him. Lame, lame, lame. You need some PEDs for your arguments.

This is the problem: using vague language like "around" and "likely" and "significantly faster". Those terms are used to smear a whole bunch of people that may or may not be using PEDs. Much like what Sage is doing.

I've seen it argued that he's only talking about influencers that use PEDs. Well, how do we know who that is? Does he really know who that is? Or is it based only on what the thinks should be possible?

How do we know Sage is not using? Maybe he's using PEDs to achieve mediocre times. Maybe he'd be really terrible without them. He is, after all, in that influencer realm. Oh, he doesn't seem like he would? He says he's against doping? Ryan Hall has said the same thing, and some are arguing that we're being fooled by Ryan Hall. Maybe we're being fooled by Sage, too.

As far as Hall goes, people are arguing he must be on PEDs because his body has changed so much. That's not a good argument. He was a marathoner before. He was running incredible miles, not eating enough as he has pointed out many times, and got down to an unhealthy weight, even for a distance runner. That doesn't mean he is stuck with that body. He now specifically trains his body to get big, much like he trained his body to get small as a marathoner. Based on his work ethic and obsession with running marathons, I'm going to assume he puts that same effort and dedication into his training now. Changing your body shape without PEDs can be done. I've seen it firsthand.

Sage's post was milquetoast. Wow, he thinks people that use PEDs are bad. What a take! In the end, Sage's post was just meh, but it sure gave posters a chance to justify their cynicism.

Agree. He quit running because his T was in the tank. He gave everything he could (probably cleanly) to the sport and did some damage in the process. He's the last dude I'd criticize for getting "help".

Indeed. Is he talking about a real person, or is it just hypothetical posturing? Does this alleged running influencer WHO USES PEDs and broke the rules even exist?

It is not me struggling to understand the original context, but just look at what happened in this thread.

You say "context", but by not providing the context of who he meant, and for that matter, which rules were broken and how he knows, it is left to the imagination of the reader to fill in the missing context. Because of the vagueness, people will ignore the stated narrow context and bend it to mean whatever and whoever they want, effectively smearing innocent influencers along the way, and maybe a few non-influencers, unintended by Sage within his stated context.

We can see the effect in this thread, as everyone attempts to guess who he means: Ryan Hall, Nick Bare, Allie O, Shelburrito, Seth James DeMoor, "Lots of people", Kofuzi, Aleksandr Sorokin, Cal Calamia, David Goggins, Matt Choi, Mitch Ammons, Ashley Paulson, Alex Viada, Patrick Cutter, and Mark King.

Do you think in context that Sage meant all of these people? Or any of them? Because effectively they have now all been smeared on letsrun as a direct result of Sage's vague and senseless tweet. I didn't look on Twitter, but there is surely a similar group of names that were unjustly smeared.

It just seems highly irresponsible, if not petty and insecure, for an athlete in his position to lob these unfounded allegations at no one in particular without evidence.

not sure why you're getting downvoted, Nick bare is a walking talking advertisement for exo test.

Served with two soldiers (1-325 AIR) that were in his platoon in Korea (I overlapped with them in 2015). From what I have been told, he was startlingly evangelistic in regards to steroids and performance enhancing drugs. A lot of soldiers are - weighing the long term repercussions of steroids against winning a fight and coming home alive? It's easy math. The fact that his specific brand of "hybrid" fitness is based around the same crossfit-esque recovery-gaming that modern steroids are built around. Putting yourself in a position to not have to recover from the running or the lifting - while remaining visibly lean and increasing both performance and lean muscle mass? Get real, it's plain as day against the speculative standards LRC would apply to anyone else. ADD to that the supplement import company and his professional relationship with bodybuilders in the Austin, TX area: I really have never needed to see doping tests from him.

I personally think Sagey-boy is talking about that Amglaze fella. He smells wrong from a mile away, especially the way he's urging his wife into the same influencer pipeline he's on - but that's far more speculative than the nick bare stuff

I will do a masters race on occasion. I’d love an asterisk next to runners with an exemption, especially for stuff like TRT because the argument that you need it once you get over a certain age is BS. It’s just skirting the rules for a lot of people to get something into themselves that will give them a leg up.

Okay I'll bite. This will be my one and only post on this thread (I've got some work to do today!), but let me address a few things with a long post:

1. First off I'm 100% clean. Always have been. I follow and know WADA rules quite well and am all for more testing at all levels (but especially for those making a lot of money off the sport that I love and live and breathe).

If you don't think a guy that ran countless 100-mile weeks in college to run 29:47 for 10km (and then ran 120-140 miles a weeks for years at Hansons) could naturally progress to eventually pop a 1:04:32 for the half and 2:16:52 for the marathon could do it clean (as well as 5 sub 2:20s and being top 20 at Boston, top 20 at Chicago ,as well as 8th at the USA marathon champs)...well then you don't understand the sport very well.

[For the record :I have only been really tested once in my life though and it was after winning the World Mountain Champs at the Pikes Peak Ascent. ]. There is barely any testing in ultra running. I've been very vocal about that issue as well for the last decade.

2. As far as "Influencers" go I don't think a lot of people have the same definition that I have here. First off anyone with a decent social media following has "Influence" in my mind. That can be earned by speed (an elite/pro/fast/sponsored athlete), but it can also be earned by relating to the common runner, being "inspirational" and "motivational", being a coach, being a comedian,being a shoe reviewer or "media/film person" etc.

So the line between an "elite sponsored athlete" and an "influencer" is often blurred nowadays in running. What does a brand give you based on your social media reach? Or is it more dependent on race results? Maybe it depends on your physique/look or personality? Often a mix of many things, but if an "influencer" is making considerable amount of money and getting brand deals and a lot of social media attention then they are impacting perceptions of the real elite pros and what is "physically possible" naturally.

So if they are using powerful and banned PEDs to run race performances to "brag about" and have a lot to gain from it....I see that as an issue in the sport. It's lying and cheating much like cutting a course or getting special aid. It's going against the spirit of the sport, and the rules that every runner in the race should be abiding by. It's feeding misinformation to the masses and advertising unrealistic expectations that I think are unhealthy and not in the best interests of most people. I'm simply calling out that BS. Obvious many...but also something many are apparently unaware of...

3. My whole "tweet" was a general commentary on bringing awareness to the idea that *some* active people (in general!) with big followings on social media are doing these unnatural/unrealistic things with their body (by using powerful PEDs) that are against the rules......and those rules apply to everyone in a race (not just those finishing on the podium and making open prize money). I'd love for there to be more testing at all events and for some of these people to get caught.

I didn't realize I was under any obligation to "name names"....[because I certainly would not single out an individual that I wasn't 100% sure was doping and that I could prove it with hard evidence.... but how would i do that unless i caught someone red-handed?]. I'm never surprised when people get caught though.

Again, I tweet #DopersSuck all the time and re-tweet news of elites/pros that get caught all the time. I've been pissed off at dopers and frauds from the day I started competitive running.

I also don't like it when people cut courses (cut switchbacks in ultra running when it's not allowed), or paint unrealistic expectations of reality in anything really. I don't like it when ultra race lottery systems are also not fair lotteries and have favoritism and bias too.....but I digress!

Doping is a big problem in distance running (track, road and ultra-trail). What I mainly wanted to highlight with my tweet is that it's not just the elites/pros stealing money from the sport and doing it...but that it happens at other levels too....and those people should be held accountable.

I'm glad sage finally came here to give more insight on his tweet.

And yes Sage, you are an influencer too. So when you tweet some cryptic post, it has sway on others. If that post was misinterpreted, it's up to you to give clarity on it.

As for your explanation about "general commentary", it lacks forethought on what could happen when a tweet is sent out into the world. Everyone starts attacking each other and innocent people are being indicted. Even you weren't immune from having the torch bearers.

I didn't think I needed to spell it out, but maybe I do. I was trying not to quote, verbatim, half a dozen articles that described the supplements Ryan Hall takes, which do not include testosterone. Of COURSE testosterone is a natural supplement, but its use was also ruled out by my explicit statement that Hall said he does not use "testosterone replacement therapy." And yes, I do believe him, because I have no reason to believe otherwise. I know other natural body builders (male and female) and they are ripped for the same reasons he professes to be.