would Bekele break 26:00 for 10k if he was on EPO?

How do you explain why the whities don't run faster now that EPO is around? It's not like their doctors and managers are any different from the Africans.

I am not saying that Kenyans are not faster than whites, but I am saying there are Kenyans and Eithipions, just like whites who are using PEDs.

Now to your question:

Because they represent more of a threat to dubious managers. They are far more likely to get caught in the countries they operate in, drugs are far less easily obtained and they are far more likely to get investigated by the press and probably more likely to settle disputes in the public eye.

There are those who have tried and been caught despite these risks Dieter Bauman / Cathal Lombard being two of them. I would not discount the possibilty that some of them are still using drugs and spending time training in remote locations.

Why is there such a high rate of doping in cycling an endurance sport but distance running on track is somehow immune to this?

The amount of training western runners do is less today than it once was. The amount of training Africans do today is greater than it was in the 70s and early 80s. We used to marvel at Africans in the 70s not so much for how fast many of them ran but for how fast they ran on noticbly less training than we did.

I think the Charleston Distance Run in 1974 may have been the first major US road race, certainly one of the first, won by an African, Philip Ndoo who was at school at Eastern New Mexico. In his talk at the post-race banquet he said he'd been training eight miles a day when he got the invitation to Charleston. That prompted him to up his training to twelve miles a day. But, he said, the weather turned rainy and he hates running in the rain so he dropped back to eight miles a day. There were a lot of us for whom eight to twelve miles was the morning run with another to follow and many heads were shaking. I know that we used to say that if the Africans ever really started training they'd be unbelieveable. We were right. They did and they have been. And if you dump some EPO like thing into the mix you'll get times that are even more unbelieveable than we could have anticiapted thirty years ago.

On the other hand, if western runners reduced the amount of training they did relative to their predecessors their overall performances would slow. If you add some EPO like thing to their mix you'll likely get back towards what their predecessors were doing without the EPO like subatances, but they won't be as fast as East Africans who are now doing tons of training and taking stuff.

I think you are correct on all accounts, except if you believe that the current white elites are doing much less than their predecessors, you would be incorrect.

Mottram , Cragg , Teg , Hall etc are doing just as much work as the top guys were doing before and they are (Assuming they are clean) running similar , maybe slightly faster than their predessors. I would suspect if you look at the clean 100m records (if that could be determined) you would see a similar story.

Dont forget brother Colm has been working with Kenyan athletes for 20 years and has not changed the volumes or methods significantly over that time but the standards have increased dramatically. Why do we not see the same phenomenon with Coach Mac, for example who is also working with talented Kenyans, Americans and Irish.

While I have no doubt that Africans on average have naturally higher talent levels than whites, it is not exclusive to East Africans - There are a few white guys, some of whom are still elite who could also comfortably win 10km road races in sub 30 minutes by doing 8 miles a day.

Well, I think we're beginning to see the volume of western runners going back up. I know Mottram says he does 100-110 mpw. I've seen samples of Andrew Leatherby's training and he's probably in the 110-115 range. I know the Hanson's guys and Ryan Hall seem to get to 120 and beyond. But that's all just in the US and Oz.

I don't see any Kiwis, for example, putting in the sorts of miles that Richard Tayler and Dick Quax did or Brits doing the miles Brendan Foster or Dave Bedford did. And here in the US we don't have nearly as many people doing the high side of 120 as we did. Is anyone doing the 160-180 that Shorter, Bacheler, and Galloway were doing before the '72 Olympic Trials or that guys like Doug Schmenk or Tom Fleming were doing. Yes, the volume is coming back and so are the performance. But most of my response was looking at very recent history when western volume dropped and African volume increased.

I also think that as far as PEDs go, they come later in an athlete's game. I doubt that the kids training with Colm O'Brien or John McDonnell are on anything. But when they've reached a certain level and get hooked up with a big time agent I suspect it's different story.

You are talking out of your ass!

Nah, actually what HRE is saying is almost right on.

or you made yourself look like an ass

He should not speak for runners he does not know, or is not aware of.

I promise you there are many young runners training appropriately hard and with triple digit distance totals, and there have been for years. To state that there are only a few is just BS.