This thread was started before the race. We changed the title and merged it with a 2nd thread that was started with the title of "Ethan MF Shuley 2:07:13 Marathon at 2026 Osaka Marathon". We have an article up oon the race here: https://www.letsrun.com/news/2...
Bronze Age Mindset wrote: Video: Great video. Lots of guys have the false idea that if they're a blue-eyed American in Japan, dating would be easy. I would say this guy is slightly above average in looks and apparently he can't get a single date.
Forgive my ignorance and I’m not trying to suggest anything, but at the level he is running has he been tested? And if he wants to be eligible for anything in the future, does he need to start being tested? How does that work?
I’m absolutely fascinated by how well he speaks Japanese. Moving, being fluent, but navigating corporate life in Japan is very contradictory to how the US culturally functions. Besides having a good job and passion, he will undoubtedly go pro.
I hope he stays in Japan. Gets on a corporate team. Guys like that could not only get further with a team there but could really build relationships for the US and Japan.
Japan has an extreme anti-drug and anti-doping culture, as the dingus from Sweat Elite found out the hard way. Japan has zero history of athletes getting popped for anything. The idea that a Mormon moved to Japan to begin a doping program is absurd. What the Japanese do have is a very long history of high mileage athletes who perform very well at half marathon and the marathon. Go look at Shuley’s Strava.
2:07 might be big news here, but in Japan, it makes you just another guy.
That's right. 6 (six) Japanese guys ran faster than him in the Osaka Marathon.
I’m absolutely fascinated by how well he speaks Japanese. Moving, being fluent, but navigating corporate life in Japan is very contradictory to how the US culturally functions. Besides having a good job and passion, he will undoubtedly go pro.
I hope he stays in Japan. Gets on a corporate team. Guys like that could not only get further with a team there but could really build relationships for the US and Japan.
I've studied the language for 5 years and can tell you, the kid speaks unreal Japanese. It's an incredibly difficult language to master.
Forgive my ignorance and I’m not trying to suggest anything, but at the level he is running has he been tested? And if he wants to be eligible for anything in the future, does he need to start being tested? How does that work?
Thx.
Good luck getting an answer. I posted numerous posts just asking that same question in this very thread and all my posts were deleted by the mods. The fact is except in the most obvious brazen cases like with Ruth C’s juiced 2:09 or burrito queen, the owners of this site and their bald henchman do not want us asking questions if someone could be doped or not. They want us to all fall in line and believe what they want us to believe; the lunacy that the sport is fair and that few of the pros cheat. They don’t like it when we ask those kinds of questions despite it being completely reasonable and Socratic to do so. So they would rather suppress our free speech on a running related topic so that they can continue their imaginary charade that the sport is not widely tainted so that they don’t lose business from this site. They do this in spite of allowing hundreds of political threads. Controversy sells, but only the controversy they approve of.
My friend, do not apologize for suggesting that Shuley could be doping. There is absolutely nothing wrong with asking the question. This man basically just came out of nowhere after a decade of not racing. Of course it could be suspicious. The idea that you should be ashamed simply for asking questions that go against the Letsrun Dreams Become Reality narrative is sheer nonsense. Never apologize if you haven’t done anything wrong. It’s the Letsrun moderators who should be apologizing for not having the balls to let their guests ask questions, and for not allowing innocent free speech, even if they don’t agree with it.
Forgive my ignorance and I’m not trying to suggest anything, but at the level he is running has he been tested? And if he wants to be eligible for anything in the future, does he need to start being tested? How does that work?
Thx.
Good luck getting an answer. I posted numerous posts just asking that same question in this very thread and all my posts were deleted by the mods. The fact is except in the most obvious brazen cases like with Ruth C’s juiced 2:09 or burrito queen, the owners of this site and their bald henchman do not want us asking questions if someone could be doped or not. They want us to all fall in line and believe what they want us to believe; the lunacy that the sport is fair and that few of the pros cheat. They don’t like it when we ask those kinds of questions despite it being completely reasonable and Socratic to do so. So they would rather suppress our free speech on a running related topic so that they can continue their imaginary charade that the sport is not widely tainted so that they don’t lose business from this site. They do this in spite of allowing hundreds of political threads. Controversy sells, but only the controversy they approve of.
My friend, do not apologize for suggesting that Shuley could be doping. There is absolutely nothing wrong with asking the question. This man basically just came out of nowhere after a decade of not racing. Of course it could be suspicious. The idea that you should be ashamed simply for asking questions that go against the Letsrun Dreams Become Reality narrative is sheer nonsense. Never apologize if you haven’t done anything wrong. It’s the Letsrun moderators who should be apologizing for not having the balls to let their guests ask questions, and for not allowing innocent free speech, even if they don’t agree with it.
Sure, but it sort of goes without saying that he could be doping. So let’s say that 30% of elite runners are doping, and let us say that 30% of men have cheated on their wives, would we have a thread where we have numerous posters saying that I bet so and so is cheating on his wife because his relationship looks a bit shaky. Yeah we know that he could be doping.
Thanks Jon, why did he not run senior year? I'm surprised. Usually that's a good year to prep film/tape for colleges, etc. Unless I'm missing something. GREAT RUN!
He was injured his senior year of high school after XC finished.
See @Ackley's post #82 on the previous page:
> His story is that he won his first Kentucky state track championship as a sophomore. He won a couple more but got injured after his senior cross country season so he missed his senior track season.
Appreciate you! Did see that later on but could not edit my post past the window. Hope Ethan does well, he seems humble and kind.
I’m absolutely fascinated by how well he speaks Japanese. Moving, being fluent, but navigating corporate life in Japan is very contradictory to how the US culturally functions. Besides having a good job and passion, he will undoubtedly go pro.
I hope he stays in Japan. Gets on a corporate team. Guys like that could not only get further with a team there but could really build relationships for the US and Japan.
Good to see you here! I remember you had a background in Japanese culture.
Good luck getting an answer. I posted numerous posts just asking that same question in this very thread and all my posts were deleted by the mods. The fact is except in the most obvious brazen cases like with Ruth C’s juiced 2:09 or burrito queen, the owners of this site and their bald henchman do not want us asking questions if someone could be doped or not. They want us to all fall in line and believe what they want us to believe; the lunacy that the sport is fair and that few of the pros cheat. They don’t like it when we ask those kinds of questions despite it being completely reasonable and Socratic to do so. So they would rather suppress our free speech on a running related topic so that they can continue their imaginary charade that the sport is not widely tainted so that they don’t lose business from this site. They do this in spite of allowing hundreds of political threads. Controversy sells, but only the controversy they approve of.
My friend, do not apologize for suggesting that Shuley could be doping. There is absolutely nothing wrong with asking the question. This man basically just came out of nowhere after a decade of not racing. Of course it could be suspicious. The idea that you should be ashamed simply for asking questions that go against the Letsrun Dreams Become Reality narrative is sheer nonsense. Never apologize if you haven’t done anything wrong. It’s the Letsrun moderators who should be apologizing for not having the balls to let their guests ask questions, and for not allowing innocent free speech, even if they don’t agree with it.
Sure, but it sort of goes without saying that he could be doping. So let’s say that 30% of elite runners are doping, and let us say that 30% of men have cheated on their wives, would we have a thread where we have numerous posters saying that I bet so and so is cheating on his wife because his relationship looks a bit shaky. Yeah we know that he could be doping.
Very poor analogy. And what I have found is that the more people are told to just shut up, the more the doping cheaters tend to get away with doping. That makes their enablers complicit in their cheating by not allowing anyone to say anything. There’s numerous examples of foul play (doping or fraud); Katir, Johnson and Merber and GST, the Indian guy who ran at Florida, the Robertson twins, Houlihan, AlSal, and others. In every case people called foul and were told to shut up and they would have their posts deleted. Not saying anything is worse than saying something and potentially being wrong. Look at how many people got screwed by Michael Johnson and Kyle Merber? Me and at least twenty other posters on here tried to say that something looked fishy and didn’t seem right. We were all called paranoid and had our posts deleted for simply suggesting that Grand Slam seemed like a Grand Scam and for questioning where the transparency in funding was. Ruth C is the one case Letsrun is on the right side of history of, mostly because it was so obvious.
I’m sorry, but if it looks, quacks, and swims like a duck, it’s a freaking duck. Shuley ran a Ritz level marathon after having a promising prep career but nothing over a decade that would suggest he could run this fast on his fourth try after supposedly just wanting to trail run. Fauble never ran that fast. It’s a difficult pill to swallow. I very well could be wrong. It’s about a 2:10 if you factor the shoes, maybe the mega mileage approach worked for him, I don’t know. I’m not saying for sure that he is doping, just that it’s okay to ask questions is all. Richtman ran under 2:08 a year ago and has no recent race results and he’s supposedly hurt. That doesn’t sound like someone is trying to compete under the radar as much as possible? It all just doesn’t sit right.
You say very poor analogy and then you are impotent in explaining why. You seem like a kid who wants to yell doping as if this would be a big story. You are no Bob Woodward kid.
Japan has an extreme anti-drug and anti-doping culture, as the dingus from Sweat Elite found out the hard way. Japan has zero history of athletes getting popped for anything. The idea that a Mormon moved to Japan to begin a doping program is absurd. What the Japanese do have is a very long history of high mileage athletes who perform very well at half marathon and the marathon. Go look at Shuley’s Strava.
2:07 might be big news here, but in Japan, it makes you just another guy.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Look at the history of nations covering up doping; the former Soviet Union, Germany, modern Russia, Kenya. Of course Japan would give the intentional impression that there are strictly anti doping. The best way to hide is to hide in plain sight. And I’m sorry but what is the evidence that high mileage, most of it slow, is all of the sudden so successful at producing world class marathoners all of the sudden? They tried that for decades in the west and it failed so athletes had to try a more qualitative training approach where the mileage volume and intensity were as high as they could personally tolerate. The evidence was that Lydiard’s method only worked up to a certain point and then the athlete stopped improving. You ask me and the high mileage Japanese approach sounds like a cover up for a state tolerated doping program.
You say very poor analogy and then you are impotent in explaining why. You seem like a kid who wants to yell doping as if this would be a big story. You are no Bob Woodward kid.
The real question is why do you have such a dog in the fight? If you cared about truth you would be impartial and contend with the questions themselves instead of being evasive. Why don’t you just come out and say what you believe. Do you think that Shuley is clean, not, or you don’t know?
Why are Ritz and Fauble held up as some kind of supposed gold standard? They were good, not great, for their time. Fauble was certainly no better than Sell.
You say very poor analogy and then you are impotent in explaining why. You seem like a kid who wants to yell doping as if this would be a big story. You are no Bob Woodward kid.
The real question is why do you have such a dog in the fight? If you cared about truth you would be impartial and contend with the questions themselves instead of being evasive. Why don’t you just come out and say what you believe. Do you think that Shuley is clean, not, or you don’t know?
I have no dog in the fight. Is there even a fight? You are fighting? You think he is doping. I don’t know why your posts were deleted but so what if you think he is doping? So what? What difference does it make?
The real question is why do you have such a dog in the fight? If you cared about truth you would be impartial and contend with the questions themselves instead of being evasive. Why don’t you just come out and say what you believe. Do you think that Shuley is clean, not, or you don’t know?
I have no dog in the fight. Is there even a fight? You are fighting? You think he is doping. I don’t know why your posts were deleted but so what if you think he is doping? So what? What difference does it make?
Why are Ritz and Fauble held up as some kind of supposed gold standard? They were good, not great, for their time. Fauble was certainly no better than Sell.
Because I’m just comparing Americans, not the whole world. Leonard Korir who has been at it for years holds a 27:20 10k PR. Clayton Young who was on Mantz’s heels and was runner up at the trials has run 2:07 . Shuley and Richtman are in these guys’ ballpark? Do you know how many marathons meb and abdi ran? They never ran under 2:08 once even on a flat course. Rupp an Olympic medalist is only a minute faster than Shuley. Even when you factor the shoes these guys were pretty good. So we are supposed to believe this ridiculous Rocky story that these two no names Richtman and Shuley with no pedigree simply willed their way to two 2:07 marathons? Which we agree is a historically exceptional time for an American.