I once said that it was a not well kept secret that a few people on my midmajor D1 team were doping, and I was ripped for it and called a liar, and that I was a poor sport who simply didn’t want it enough for speculating a lot more of my competition was also doping.
Why do people not think collegiates are doping? It used to be a big deal when even a collegiate athlete broke four in the mile, and now every good program has at least one sub four guy and it just about takes sub four to make the best teams. I promise you it ain’t just the spikes.
People attacked me over 25 years ago for saying the same about East and North Africans. Now we know it’s literally the most important and essential element of ‘training’ for their top performers.
People attacked me over 25 years ago for saying the same about East and North Africans. Now we know it’s literally the most important and essential element of ‘training’ for their top performers.
I was attacked ruthlessly 2500 years ago when I said the earth had a spherical nature. Get over it.
Not doubting your claim, but HOW would collegiates dope? Walk us through how it might typically happen. Is it injections, pills, other? How would they go about getting access and the medical oversight not to screw it up? Feels..............complicated. Super interested.
Do they even test in college ? How is it that Saruni competed in the NCAA for 4 years and was never popped for doping. Yet as soon as he landed in Kenya he was popped and damn near arrested ?
People attacked me over 25 years ago for saying the same about East and North Africans. Now we know it’s literally the most important and essential element of ‘training’ for their top performers.
I was attacked ruthlessly 2500 years ago when I said the earth had a spherical nature. Get over it.
I was attacked ruthlessly here on letsrun for saying shorts over tights was just a silly fad.
Not doubting your claim, but HOW would collegiates dope? Walk us through how it might typically happen. Is it injections, pills, other? How would they go about getting access and the medical oversight not to screw it up? Feels..............complicated. Super interested.
The NCAA alleges that it tests throughout the entire academic year for its athletes.
However, that is only partially the truth. Only 1-2 athletes per team are tested by the NCAA if at all and out of competition tests are exceedingly rare. At the NCAA championships, athletes seem to be tested at random but they allege that testing can happen based on placement at the championships. It is common for a college to drug test their athletes but they are usually testing for narcotics. I have not heard of a college testing their athletes for doping but I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I can't say that this is a verifiable fact, but it seems like from what I have heard from an individual who competed in the NCAA that coaches can "select" 1-2 athletes from their team to be tested, and they will of course choose athletes who are not doping and are a non-factor at meets.
Many top distance runners in the NCAA are doping and some are going as far as to take EPO.
Not doubting your claim, but HOW would collegiates dope? Walk us through how it might typically happen. Is it injections, pills, other? How would they go about getting access and the medical oversight not to screw it up? Feels..............complicated. Super interested.
I may need to make it clear that I never participated in the doping, and I’ve been working to find an answer myself because it originally baffled me as to how people were getting away with it.
Some of this is direct knowledge, some of this is speculative, but here is what i’ve pieced together:
First and foremost, the question is not whether or not there’s large scale doping in college running, it’s HOW are they getting away with it?
- Testing: It doesn’t happen a lot. I never looked into it but my teammates clearly had a way of knowing a time window where they could be randomly tested. The preliminary tests to screen for potential doping look for high blood/urine chemistry markers for potential substance use. They set the standards a good bit higher than what an average humans could sit at, so you could have an unusually high red blood cell count, testosterone, and other doping markers and as long as you don’t hit that threshold you aren’t flagged for extensive testing. You can also dilute urine samples and blame the lack of specific gravity on running and a weird hydration schedule (which will check out, I had to take a secondary test at work because my urine was marked as suspicious due to my potassium/electrolyte levels and I explained to the administrator and he believed me and said that it’s a very normal false flag for runners)
- The drugs: EPO sticks in your system for a while, but if you dose it right and don’t get too greedy you won’t get flagged for a secondary test. Other drugs like Nandrolone are out of your system in 3-4 days, or 1-2 days if you flush your system thoroughly. From what I understand, if you too test high in testosterone or any other marker and no drug presence shows up on your secondary test, you are good. If you run EPO (even if microdosed) and a testosterone based drug with a short half life, you have a massive advantage over those who are not using those substances, and you probably won’t get caught.
Shelby Houlihan was probably using nandrolone LONG before she got caught, even though she’s been getting tested often, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s using it again, but just being extra careful.
Its also fully possible that there are new PEDs hitting the market that we can’t detect yet.
As for buying PEDs, I wanted to figure out where people are getting them too. My teammate showed me some slavic pharmacological website that ships them very discreetly. I did my own research (as I encourage you to do too, you’ll be shocked at how easy it is) and was able to find plenty of websites that have good reputations in bodybuilding forums that sell just about every PED on the market. My dad is battling crohns and needed steroids, his prescribing doctor wasn’t available for over a month so he flew to mexico and bought a month supply at a pharmacy without needing to identify himself let alone get a prescription.
Stories like the ISU men team potentially doping need to be kept alive until we know everything. Who "broke the rules" and was potentially caught doping...who was implicated-where/who did they get it from, etc...who are the specific athletes suspended....all of that needs to come out. Lack of transparency fuels speculation. FERPA needs to be revisited...on things like this. Also-was a Furman athlete involved in this and getting them started...does it go farther...the east coast connection and potentially Villenova athlete...details need to be made public to restore trust in the process and what's happening....otherwise it's just a coverup and cast suspicion on anyone remotely close to the situation
Maybe they need to test every single athlete at the conference meets, regional meets, and national level in addition to elite HS meets, regional and state meets...surely the process could be somewhat streamlined-make them at least beat the testing process instead of never having to be tested....
You mean American Colleges. Nothing to say Colleges elsewhere are doing it - what would be their incentive, since there are only athletic scholarships available in America. But yes (and HS as well) if the gyms are populated with roided up body-builders or football players, then EPO infused runners should not be a stretch.
Not doubting your claim, but HOW would collegiates dope? Walk us through how it might typically happen. Is it injections, pills, other? How would they go about getting access and the medical oversight not to screw it up? Feels..............complicated. Super interested.
I may need to make it clear that I never participated in the doping, and I’ve been working to find an answer myself because it originally baffled me as to how people were getting away with it.
Some of this is direct knowledge, some of this is speculative, but here is what i’ve pieced together:
First and foremost, the question is not whether or not there’s large scale doping in college running, it’s HOW are they getting away with it?
- Testing: It doesn’t happen a lot. I never looked into it but my teammates clearly had a way of knowing a time window where they could be randomly tested. The preliminary tests to screen for potential doping look for high blood/urine chemistry markers for potential substance use. They set the standards a good bit higher than what an average humans could sit at, so you could have an unusually high red blood cell count, testosterone, and other doping markers and as long as you don’t hit that threshold you aren’t flagged for extensive testing. You can also dilute urine samples and blame the lack of specific gravity on running and a weird hydration schedule (which will check out, I had to take a secondary test at work because my urine was marked as suspicious due to my potassium/electrolyte levels and I explained to the administrator and he believed me and said that it’s a very normal false flag for runners)
- The drugs: EPO sticks in your system for a while, but if you dose it right and don’t get too greedy you won’t get flagged for a secondary test. Other drugs like Nandrolone are out of your system in 3-4 days, or 1-2 days if you flush your system thoroughly. From what I understand, if you too test high in testosterone or any other marker and no drug presence shows up on your secondary test, you are good. If you run EPO (even if microdosed) and a testosterone based drug with a short half life, you have a massive advantage over those who are not using those substances, and you probably won’t get caught.
Shelby Houlihan was probably using nandrolone LONG before she got caught, even though she’s been getting tested often, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s using it again, but just being extra careful.
Its also fully possible that there are new PEDs hitting the market that we can’t detect yet.
As for buying PEDs, I wanted to figure out where people are getting them too. My teammate showed me some slavic pharmacological website that ships them very discreetly. I did my own research (as I encourage you to do too, you’ll be shocked at how easy it is) and was able to find plenty of websites that have good reputations in bodybuilding forums that sell just about every PED on the market. My dad is battling crohns and needed steroids, his prescribing doctor wasn’t available for over a month so he flew to mexico and bought a month supply at a pharmacy without needing to identify himself let alone get a prescription.
I can't verify some of what is being said here, but the part about PED acquisition is spot on. Most SARMS/peptides are purchased through now shut-down research laboratories in China (largely due to US-China tariffs, wild enough) but these are still able to be purchased albeit at a higher price from foreign or even USA sourced laboratories.
You can order these SARMS/peptides under the guise of research chemicals that are labeled not for human consumption directly to your door (or dorm/apartment) with no issues. However, if you want my non-professional personal opinion, SARMS/peptides effectiveness isn't that huge. The main performance booster is going to be EPO and I don't know how they are sourcing that. Testosterone can also help, but I am skeptical that a 20-something who is micro-dosing to fly under the radar is really getting that substantial of a benefit.
Not to geek-out too much, but... You are taking a risk: Your natural testosterone production will go down when you introduce exogenous hormones. That includes SARMs and testosterone-based PEDs. When you are micro-dosing as a 20-something year old, you can't take too much or you'll get flagged. We are looking at TRT levels and likely a lot less. Just 100-200 mg test/week. Just 200mg/week is enough to take your levels from the healthy range (400-700 nanograms/deciliter) to well over (1200+). I don't know the NCAA's biomarkers but above 1000 would definitely be suspicious. At this point, a dose around ~100mg/week is likely ideal, but at that level you risk shutting down your natural production for just a small benefit.
Here's an example scenario: You are a 50+ year old male and go to a endocrine clinic and get prescribed TRT for the health benefits they will dose you at around 100-200mg/week. Just that dose is enough to put you towards the levels of a healthy 20-something male (800-1000 nanograms/deciliter) it will be towards the upper limit. Obviously in that scenario you will go from feeling old and brittle to superhuman. But someone that is already in a healthy range as a 20-something year old male? It is definitely a gamble.
I once said that it was a not well kept secret that a few people on my midmajor D1 team were doping, and I was ripped for it and called a liar, and that I was a poor sport who simply didn’t want it enough for speculating a lot more of my competition was also doping.
Why do people not think collegiates are doping? It used to be a big deal when even a collegiate athlete broke four in the mile, and now every good program has at least one sub four guy and it just about takes sub four to make the best teams. I promise you it ain’t just the spikes.
What is particularly revealing to me is that this scandal is further evidence that everything we consume in society is fake. This news and the sports gambling in the NBA is just the tip of the iceberg.
Think about the following:
Sports are fake. The athletes all dope and the games are all rigged because of gambling.
Music is fake. AI replaced real instrument playing and singing.
Movies are fake. Bad actors reading terrible scripts in front of a green screen producing cheap animated CGI backgrounds. AI will likely replace human actors.
Politics is fake. Nothing new here. A bunch of liars that don’t fulfill a single promise.
Big 12 entries are out....they enter 10...Seth Clevenger is absent from the entries and should be a top 10 runner for ISU. Seth is from NJ-same state as Marco Langdon the Villenova question mark. Other ISU athletes not running that should be top 10 for them-Hanibal Haile...otherwise top 10 looks unscathed at the moment.
Big 12 entries are out....they enter 10...Seth Clevenger is absent from the entries and should be a top 10 runner for ISU. Seth is from NJ-same state as Marco Langdon the Villenova question mark. Other ISU athletes not running that should be top 10 for them-Hanibal Haile...otherwise top 10 looks unscathed at the moment.
Haile is out? He was no. 8 in Missouri, and Coach said the top 7 there were clean...
An extremely small percentage of the college population is interested in sticking needles or taking pills or rubbing cream for the sole purpose of running faster.