I was actually surprised about this as many had told me that there was PED (WADA protocol) drug testing at Western over the last 5 years or so.....but it wasn't even from USADA apparently! I've had a few post race "tests" that weren't under WADA/USADA and the difference is astounding.
I've tweeted about this (in general support of the policy), but it brings to question a few things:
1. Why aren't the rest of the UTMB series races adopting the same policy? When we entered UTMB this year we had a former EPO cheat being welcomed back with open arms (he ironically tripped his EPO positive on a race day test and was top 10 at UTMB that year)?
2. If they are going to even bother with "out of comp surprise testing" (which imo is the gold standard), then why make the period "90 days after the race"....instead of "90 days before the race"? Ultra runners will probably dope the most in the 3-12 weeks leading up to a big race imo.....that's when the benefits of "superhuman strength and recovery and superhuman training" happen.
Well yeah if someone is gearing up (pun intended kind of) for their next big race...but then let's also not forget the residual effects (long term) of being on PEDs.
But to actually catch people with the PEDs in their system we have to act faster. So the training cycle before the big championship race when people are putting in their hardest "superhuman" efforts and recovering very quickly is the real key imo. One would have to be an idiot to trip a race day positive as a simple "tapering off of the juice" before the race would clean their system out rather quickly.
Ultra runners dope the most in the 3-12 weeks leading up to a big race imo.....that's when the benefits of "superhuman strength and recovery and superhuman training" happen.
You would know best I guess
I've always been clean for the record. I follow WADA rules to a t. There aren't many things that piss me off more than doping in sport....I believe it is much like cutting the course or taking a car ride during a race (worst actually). Clean runners not only lose prize money, but also possible sponsorship and career changing opportunities to dopers. Dopers destroy dreams of clean, hard working athletes.
I just know a bit about bio chem, running coaching/training, elite level trail-mountain-ultrarunning and I have unfortunately had to toe the line against dopers over the years (some who were caught and it was never a surprise).