Was Paula Radcliffe the biggest genetic outlier in running history? Underappreciated on Letsrun

2.2%, or nearly 3 minutes, is a large difference for second fastest all time, after nearly three decades of EPO availability. Just compare that to the men -- in 2017, 3 minutes would include about 70 runners.

We were not trying to prove or disprove doping, nor determine the question of doping, nor determine if the record was doped.

You keep falling back to "use" in a discussion about performance effect. "Use" is irrelevant until you have established that "effect" is not negligible -- which no one has ever done for the marathon, not even the alleged experts.

We were talking about whether it is likely that doping can be widespread, and have a big effect in the marathon, when apparently there was only one talented high responding doping female marathoner ever in history, assuming she even doped.

This seems to me like an obvious contradiction. How can we assume that a big doping effect is widespread, while at the same time ignore that it is also very rare among the highly talented -- only ever happening at most once.

dadsfadsfdasfdsafdas wrote:

No I don't think Lombard could run sub 14 without doping. He tried for a half dozen years and didn't come close. Then in 12 months of EP he takes 60s off his 5k time. Why do you think he had such a break through after years of stagnation? Just coincidence?

Cathal Lombard changed his coach, and drastically changed his training, reducing overall volume, and increasing intensity.

dadsfadsfdasfdsafdas wrote:

So you are saying EPO doesn't result in any performance improvements? How to you square that believe with reality of ever study ever down on the topic? When a theory doesn't match reality, it is the theory that is wrong not reality.

There have been a couple of recent meta-studies that took a critical look at "every study done on the topic", reviewing the best of the blinded EPO studies, concluding that EPO effects were over-valued.

Most EPO studies take non-elite athletes in an unknown state of fitness, and show short term gains after a few weeks of intervention, for distances ranging from 3000m to 10000m. Projecting these results from non-elites to elite athletes, or from athletes in an unknown and uncontrolled state of fitness to athletes with a high level of fitness, or from shorter distances to longer distances, or from the short term of a few weeks of intervention to the long term of many years of training, is something that must be done with care.

heelstriker wrote:

English Woman, poor running form with the awkward head nodding and uneven arm carriage, yet still managed to create a record that stood for 15 years and only fell upon the introduction of the CheaterFly. Before you say she was obviously doping so were the Africans including ones who even got caught trying to beat her record for 15 years. She deserves more credit than she gets on this forum, truly 1 in a million running genetic outlier/talent given she was a Nordic not an east African. You can dislike her as a person but you can't deny her work ethic and genetic talent regardless of wether you think she was doping or not because they all are at that level.

Paula Radcliffe was either doping or she wasn't.

If she was doping, the most obvious conclusion to make would be that she was an outlier in the sense that she was a Brit doping, and that what she showed is that East African dominance in distance running is entirely due to near universal doping in East Africa for the last 30 years. This would be a much simpler and more plausible explanation than East Africans being on a different genetic level to Europeans, but somehow a white British girl with terrible running form was able to be on a different level to them. That would be a 1 in a trillion outlier, not a 1 in a million outlier.

If she wasn't doping, the most obvious conclusion to make (given we know that doping is rampant in East African distance running) would be that the talent in Britain and other non-African countries has been vastly under identified and insufficiently channeled into running over the last 30 years. Something which is obvious to everyone from fans to coaches, and the most obvious cause being dope induced East African dominance relegating athletics from the front pages of the papers in GB in the 80's to having as much relevance as table tennis today, as well as killing the aspirations of young athletes who are brainwashed into believing the lie (vigorously maintained at LetsDope) that East Africans enjoy an unsurmountable genetic advantage (rather than a lack of drug testing).

rekrunner wrote:

dadsfadsfdasfdsafdas wrote:

No I don't think Lombard could run sub 14 without doping. He tried for a half dozen years and didn't come close. Then in 12 months of EP he takes 60s off his 5k time. Why do you think he had such a break through after years of stagnation? Just coincidence?

Cathal Lombard changed his coach, and drastically changed his training, reducing overall volume, and increasing intensity.

Sure he did rekrunner - you're not providing accurate information again. ? Lombard said he took EPO to "have an equal chance." If he could have improved enough just from modifications to his training to have an "equal chance" then he wouldn't have needed to use EPO. Runners don't waste their time & money on EPO if it's not going to help them. His statement also implies others were doping with EPO during that time (who would have thought. Lol).

This is the classic case of a super-responder who goes from a 30:33 10k best to a 27:33 in less than 2 yrs (~10% improvement! ?). At least he's willing to admit that he took it to level the playing field for himself. So many of these dopers hide behind crazy excuses they expect us to believe. Some try to even convince us that they could have achieved their accomplishments clean and really didn't need to dope...Lol.

And speaking of Lombard, here's an old thread on him that didn't age well. Posters stating that he's the cleanest runner out there and the ones that are beating him are using drugs...comedy gold!

I provided accurate information that you failed to contradict.

The changes in training are a massive confounder that needs to be addressed, not dismissed.

Lombard said what he believed.

He didn't need to use EPO. He just needed to change his training and his mentality.

Look at site co-founder Weldon -- he made similar Lombard-esque improvements by adapting his training to something better suited to him.

Runners do waste their time and money on EPO because they believe they need to.

Like Weldon, Lombard was a super-responder to the changes in his training and coach.

Coevett wrote:

If she wasn't doping, the most obvious conclusion to make (given we know that doping is rampant in East African distance running) would be that the talent in Britain and other non-African countries has been vastly under identified and insufficiently channeled into running over the last 30 years. Something which is obvious to everyone from fans to coaches, and the most obvious cause being dope induced East African dominance relegating athletics from the front pages of the papers in GB in the 80's to having as much relevance as table tennis today, as well as killing the aspirations of young athletes who are brainwashed into believing the lie (vigorously maintained at LetsDope) that East Africans enjoy an unsurmountable genetic advantage (rather than a lack of drug testing).

It's an accepted scientific fact that East Africans on average do have better genetics for long distance running. Put it this way, In Europe Paula Radcliffe level genetic talent is 1 in a million, in Kenya genetics like that are 1 in 10,000.

So it's not impossible that a European comes along that can compete with the best Africans just highly unlikely.

Before 2017:

- only Paula, Liliya Shobukhova, and Mary Keitany ran faster than previous record holder Ndereba

- 21 women ran sub-2:20: 7 Kenyans, 5 Ethiopians, 3 Japanese, 2 Chinese, and 1 Brit, Russian, German, and American

Since 2017, after the AIU cracked down on doping in Kenya, leading to predictions of Kenyan times going backwards:

- a dozen women have run faster than Ndereba: 5 Kenyans, 1 Kenyan-Israeli, 6 Ethiopians, and ZERO non-East Africans

- 19 women have run sub-2:20: 7 Kenyans, 1 Kenyan-Israeli, and 11 Ethiopians, and ZERO non-East Africans

What are some obvious conclusions from that?

- Cracking down on doping in Kenya only makes Kenyans and Ethiopians faster, while at the same time making non-East Africans slower?

- Only Kenyans and Ethiopians are high responders to Nike shoes?

- Non-Africans (occidental and oriental), while obviously genetically superior, are just adverse responders to increases in Kenyan anti-doping, and non-responders to new shoes?

yeah, but no, but yeah wrote:

Look at the Tour de France. Power outputs haven't gone down since Lance's time. Do you think they must still be blood boosting?

These beliefs about blood values are very naive. V02max is V02max. It is limited genetically, homeostatically, thermodynamically. There are other sources of power that your body produces that most of you dont know about. The general ignorance of basic physiology is staggering.

Whlie these limits may or may not exist, what is missing from your 15+ years of discussion is a showing when athletes are hitting these limits, if at all.

You accuse others of being reductionist, but it seems to me that you essentially push a view that argues the existence of efficiency and economy somehow proves that oxygen and lactate simply don't exist, or are immutable.

Basic physiology argues that they all exist, and provides a complex performance model that shows for endurance athletes:

- VO2max exists and is trainable

- Lactate threshold (and various other similar thresholds) are somewhat more fuzzily defined but also clearly trainable

- Other non-oxygen related factors (e.g. psychological and neural) exist and are trainable

I'm afraid that you have gotten yourself so lost in the minutia of physiology and biology inside the cells, that you have become unable to view training and performance holistically, or link your arguments back to the real world of training and related performance improvements.

rekrunner wrote:

I provided accurate information that you failed to contradict.

The changes in training are a massive confounder that needs to be addressed, not dismissed.

Lombard said what he believed.

He didn't need to use EPO. He just needed to change his training and his mentality.

You don't provide accurate information - you provide opinion and speculation. You try to pawn that off as fact but you fail to provide any proof of your hypothesises. How do you specifically know Lombard didn't need to use EPO? Where you there with him? Did you monitor his dosing schedule and blood values? Do you have data on him to share with us? How were you able to separate that his improvement had nothing to with the EPO usage? What did Lombard relate to you in terms of his training in relation to EPO use? In monitoring his training, how did you conclude that the EPO use had nothing to do with improvement in intensity, recovery and times?

☝️ Need I remind you Lombard said he took EPO to "have an equal chance." Transalation: He's stating that he couldn't compete at that level without doping. If he could have improved enough just from modifications to his training to have an "equal chance" then he wouldn't have needed to use EPO. Are you calling Lombard a liar?

"I didn't set out to try to win medals or to make money," Lombard told the Irish Examiner. "I just wanted to be as competitive as I could and have an equal chance with everyone else. I am not trying to justify what I did in any way. I am just saying this was the case; this is what I did; and, hands up, I did it. I know: nobody has ever admitted they're guilty. Nobody is ever guilty."

Let's get to the bottom of this wrote:

. Runners don't waste their time & money on EPO if it's not going to help them.

Competitive runners don't waste their time and money on EPO and keep on training the same way as before they started taking it. That would sort of defeat the object of using PEDs.

No rekrunner, the plain truth which I have been holding back from you all these years is that you have some kind of mental health problem.

You ask me the same questions over and over expecting me to agree with you. You lack basic knowledge of biology, physics and chemistry. You are constantly trying to force a square peg into a round hole and wondering why I'm telling you it doesn't fit.

Now you are telling me that my ideas are reductive. No, they are basic physiology which you refuse to acknowledge.

No Coevett, you are obsessed with drugs and have

No knowledge of basic physiology.

Explain how EPO can boost oxidative phosphorylation beyond normal maximal levels without disturbing homeostasis?

Give me your Thermodymaic Thesis.

Where have you been hiding for the past few years? There are lots of very fast young distance runners around these days who are not East African. The sub 13 potential is all around you.

Ethiopians are known to have 750 to 1500 generations of continuous residency at high elevation. Others near Mt. Kilimanjaro are believed to have 250 to 500 generations of continuous residency at high elevation. Generations at elevation mutate genes. Isolated genes demonstrate resistance to acute & chronic altitude sickness. As of today, it is not known exactly how that translates to 5000m to Marathon. Being born at higher elevation seems to be far more impactful than a sea level runner training at higher elevation. A sea level runner setting world record in events 5000m to Marathon is more doubtful than a White athlete setting world record in 100m. It may not take 1000 generations. Maybe parents at elevation for a few years and being carried in womb at elevation is the key. Note: Katie Ledecky's mother swam for University of New Mexico. Radcliffe was not born at elevation and I doubt Radcliffe was carried in womb at high elevation.

Why the altitude obsession? What metabolic chemical kinetics are you hoping to improve from hypoxia that bypasses thermodynamics?

We have adapions to different environments which are useful in that environment. Then you have to re- adapt to a new environment. So what do you think leads to fitness improvements that lowlanders cant achieve?

Covett believes all at or near Mt. Kilimanjaro are doing drugs together. What if they are not all doing drugs at high elevation? There is a correlation with being born at higher elevation and 5000m to Marathon performance. You must agree. I will leave it to others to discuss the biology. I am a social scientist.

rekrunner wrote:

2.2%, or nearly 3 minutes, is a large difference for second fastest all time, after nearly three decades of EPO availability. Just compare that to the men -- in 2017, 3 minutes would include about 70 runners.

We were not trying to prove or disprove doping, nor determine the question of doping, nor determine if the record was doped.

LOL.

What happened to

rekrunner wrote:

- London 2003 -- she was aided by 8 male pacers, and a tailwind for much of the course that benefited the women more than Boston 2011

- Lack of pacemaking for the women

- Lack of depth of top competition for the women

And:

rekrunner wrote:

I do not and have never argued that any performance is clean or dirty.

But:

rekrunner wrote:

Of course she's clean.

Really fun to watch your constantly changing stories...

How's the book coming along, Jon?