Less Drug Use in the Marathon?

It doesn't make much sense to me either and I'm not sure why Ritz was so quick to agree. Aren't the standards for drug testing just as great if not greater at major track races than they are at road marathons?

Testing for EPO? It's a joke, or it was a joke. Do they still bother with tests for EPO?

What a bs, some marathons don't even test at all, many "nonames" flying under the radar of the WADA.

Truth is that there is less talent in the Marathon and the top runners are spread over 4-5 top Marathons in spring and autumn as well.Plus a lot of runners simply burn themselfs going out with the best and DNF while on track many east-africans even after fading can finish in a solid time, gettin glycogen depleted and "feeling" the lactate are two completely different things.

Except may be the London Marathon every Marathon is weaker than your average golden league distance race.

I agree with Wejo, if anything drug use would be used more in the marathon for two reasons. It helps more because the distance is longer and there is more money to be made per apperance (less chance of getting caught).

In Ritz's defense, maybe he really wasn't sure what the guy was asking. I had to actually read it twice to clearly understand where the guy was going with the question. That's one option. Another possibility is that Ritz is feeling the pressure of being the "next American great" and is just simply trying to please any and all reporters that throw a question out to him. So when in doubt, just say yes and keep the interview rolling smoothly. The pressure this kid has on him is crazy and some things I read on this message board about him and others (Webb, Cabada, Goucher, Rupp etc.)when they have a bad race is just down right depressing. For those who jump on the bandwagon when he has a great race and are never heard of during the droughts (aka bad races) please stay off. I hate to get off-topic but this had to be said in defense of this young man.

I agree with Wejo, if anything drug use would be used more in the marathon for two reasons. It helps more because the distance is longer and there is more money to be made per apperance (less chance of getting caught).

I think it was a lame response by Ritz.

By agreeing with the statement, he's basically implying that foreigners are all dirty and Americans are all clean.

How does he know the foreigners are dirty? How does he know our top marathoners are clean?

For that matter, how do we know Ritz is clean? Running 27:45 and getting your ass kicked by a bunch of Africans isn't evidence of anything other than that he got his ass kicked. After all the hype over the years, Ritz is less than 30 seconds faster than Wejo (no disrespect to Wejo intended).

Ritz needs to stop making excuses for himself and just be patient and keep training and racing. And maybe get as serious as the Africans about running (I guarantee that no African would get a lame injury from playing soccer with a dog). In a couple years he could be at the front of those track 10000m races.

If anything, I think we are less competitive in the marathon than we are at 10k. So what if some guys did okay at Boston? Can anyone in the US, other than Meb and KK run 2:06? The top marathoners are running Chicago, Berlin, Tokyo, Rotterdam, etc. A few guys in the top 5 at Boston doesn't mean any more than our showing in the Prefontaine 2 mile. Yeah Goucher, Lincoln, and Tegenkamp kicked ass but if the field were loaded with the Golden League 5k stars, they would have all been back in 10th - 15th place...

Makes sense to me that people would use it at least as much. I think Americans tend to compete better because whatever talents the Africans have seem to make them better suited at handling anaerobic stresses, but since a marathon is so aerobic, training can make more of a difference in competing with someone with better genes.

John Meyer emailed me back on this. One theory out there is that in extreme heat (ie Athens Olympic Marathon, and perhaps Beijing) that the dirty docs are afraid to give out EPO because an athlete can die under such circumstances (the dehydration reduces their blood volume and their blood becomes too thick with the extra red blood cells and they die is my layman's explanation).

I've heard this as well and agree that it might make a difference. My question is how hot does it have to be?

Does it effect just EPO or would the same theory hold for other blood boosters and blood transfusions?

And does the time of competition make a difference? Ie if you compete for 2 hours you're more likely to die than if you compete for 30 minutes. I guess so because you get more dehydrated. This would have to hold true for there to be less marathon dopers than 10k dopers.

So people say the Olympics is a more level playing field because it is hot. Perhaps so. Another major factor is there are only 3 Kenyans and 3 Ethiopians allowed to run each race at the Olympics.

When reporters ask you a question, you should tell them what you think. Why does he feel the need to please reporters? If it was someone like Mottram, who has a sack when talking to reporters, he would have told it like he saw it.

And I hope to God Ritz doesn't pay attention to the complaints from this website. We're all just a bunch of nobodies with nothing better to do than talk track. If he cares about my opinion than he's lost for sure.

I think the best response Ritz could have for the press is to just tell them he's working hard to be a contender and that he has to pay his dues first. Leave it at that. Speculating about medals at any time in the future is completely premature for any American other than Lagat or Meb. One day, if all goes well, Ritz will be like Mottram, a guy with PRs that are competitive with the very best in his event. That's the time to start talking about medals and big marathon wins...

RITZENHEIN: Absolutely. I think that's one thing we've learned. It's a fine line for me. It's hard for me to recover from that stuff, and that's where my injuries have always come, in that part of the season where I'm starting to really crank it up - either short, fast races or short, fast workouts.

Didn't he seem to get injured when Wetmore was emphasizing long fast runs? I also remember reading how Hudson was never letting him do any thing near a 60 second quarter and he still picked up a couple injuries. I don't think he answered that question well, based off his history with injuries.

The whole quote makes his response sound better. You should have put it all there. Journalistic integrity and all. Taking just that small part of it does not give his entire point of view. Definitely. I LIKE TO THINK not as many people are doing things illegally, but there's a lot of scientific reasons, too. I think the training has been figured out a little better for non-Africans to get up there. A European won the Olympics (marathon). It's a race where you can out-fox some people if you run smart and you train smart.

Wejo, maybe a place to look for answers in the Tour De France. Aren't a lot of those guys juiced up on EPO? Don't they compete for very long amounts of time in the hot sun? Are they keeping well hydrated in a way that a marathoner couldn't? Is there something different about biking than running that makes it safer on a bike?

Answer those questions and you will be close to the truth...

There was a bid ad so I stopped Ritz's quote there. I've now removed it from the post above and just left Meyer's question. You can read Ritz's response in the article. I was mainly just trying to get Meyer's quote in there.

>>"And does the time of competition make a difference? Ie if you compete for 2 hours you're more likely to die than if you compete for 30 minutes. I guess so because you get more dehydrated. This would have to hold true for there to be less marathon dopers than 10k dopers."<<

If this were true no cyclist would be on the dope. Most races/stages in the summer are 5+ hours in very hot conditions.

Wejo,

Didn't you read Canova's comments on that. Elite runners are not helped by EPO at the marathon distance, or the Tour de France. It was one of the funniest thing I have ever read in my life. 2nd only to the pople defending the statements.

disenchanted wrote:

Wejo,

Didn't you read Canova's comments on that. Elite runners are not helped by EPO at the marathon distance, or the Tour de France. It was one of the funniest thing I have ever read in my life. 2nd only to the pople defending the statements.

Kind of like when baseball players say that steroids don't help you hit homeruns because its all about hand eye coordination.

wejo wrote:

John Meyer throws this out there:

Among the theories out there is that foreign competitors are less likely to use illegal performance-enhancing drugs in the marathon, making it easier for Americans to compete. Do you agree?

Some Americans don't cheat? I think we can extrapolate from the American sprinters who have been caught and assume that at least some American mid and long distance runners are cheating. Hopefully not many, but likely are. As for the "East Africans are harder to test because of where they live" argument, well there may be some validity to this, I'm sure some American distance runners are clever enough to get awasy with it as well.

disenchanted wrote:

Wejo,

Didn't you read Canova's comments on that. Elite runners are not helped by EPO at the marathon distance, or the Tour de France. It was one of the funniest thing I have ever read in my life. 2nd only to the pople defending the statements.

Renato's comments on drugs aren't funny, they are sad. I agree with him that a lot of Africans don't need drugs to be world class, but he does talk a lot of BS about EPO.