I'd never thought about PED use in US distance running before coming to this site. But does anyone here think PEDs are used in significant numbers in the NCAA? Does anyone think there are teams where that's part of the culture? What about in high school? And if you do have suspicions, what are they based on?
Can it make a big difference in a HS senior's life if he runs 8:45 for 3200 as opposed to 9:00?
Guy O'Leighken wrote:
I'd never thought about PED use in US distance running before coming to this site. But does anyone here think PEDs are used in significant numbers in the NCAA? Does anyone think there are teams where that's part of the culture? What about in high school? And if you do have suspicions, what are they based on?
There was a fairly good guy who was busted for in in Texas in the mid 2000s. I can't remember his name off the top of my head, but I'm sure someone else will know. If my memory serves me, he was running for UT and then transferred to a lower level program after he was caught.
DistanceCoach1 wrote:
Guy O'Leighken wrote:I'd never thought about PED use in US distance running before coming to this site. But does anyone here think PEDs are used in significant numbers in the NCAA? Does anyone think there are teams where that's part of the culture? What about in high school? And if you do have suspicions, what are they based on?
There was a fairly good guy who was busted for in in Texas in the mid 2000s. I can't remember his name off the top of my head, but I'm sure someone else will know. If my memory serves me, he was running for UT and then transferred to a lower level program after he was caught.
Westly Keating.
Trollist wrote:
Westly Keating.
Is this true or what? I thought it was just the rumor mill spinning.
Now he is a high school chemistry teacher and still running some races.
I used epo when I was running D3 and went from 15:30/33:00 to sub 14:40/31:00 in my final year. My mother is a heme/onc physician and allowed me to use it in somewhat small doses. Now that I am in medical school and learning pharmacology, I wish I would have been more aggressive with PEDs. Not sure who else was using it, but pretty sure I would have been under 30 with another year of using it.
BTW, my mother is Eastern European (Romanian) and had no ethical issues with it, only health/medical. She did not want me to race if it was in the 80s or above and was always concerned about hydration.
I never felt like I was running any faster, but my times were obviously much better. Years later, no known side effects or guilt.
Coach d. Are you serious? That is a fascinating story but with the way the message board is I can't tell if your trolling or not.
If you are not can you explain have EPO impacted your training and hard efforts + recovery? Thanks.
He is trolling.
This is the official NCAA Banned Drug List and testing results:
I'm not aware of any NCAA EPO results, although there might be.
Rupp was on hormones(hyperthyroid treatment) and steroids (asthma treatment) when he ran for Oregon.
coach d. wrote:
I used epo when I was running D3 and went from 15:30/33:00 to sub 14:40/31:00 in my final year. My mother is a heme/onc physician and allowed me to use it in somewhat small doses. Now that I am in medical school and learning pharmacology, I wish I would have been more aggressive with PEDs. Not sure who else was using it, but pretty sure I would have been under 30 with another year of using it.
BTW, my mother is Eastern European (Romanian) and had no ethical issues with it, only health/medical. She did not want me to race if it was in the 80s or above and was always concerned about hydration.
I never felt like I was running any faster, but my times were obviously much better. Years later, no known side effects or guilt.
i wish you weren't trolling. i've always been curious about what would happen to a non-'elite' EPO user
I suspect high schoolers.
Westly Keating.
aka Weaselly Cheating.
interesting point. there would be a very strong incentive for 9:10 kids to use epo to get into dream schools.
Absolutely it's at the college level. Almost all of the top guys are clean, I suspect though, and there are no teams where it's the culture and openly discussed where it's admitted to if anyone is using. It's typically those who are naturally not fast enough to win anything of substance, and in fact even when using are at best good regional runners. Every once in a while we see that wreckless character who will use it to go from 13:40-50 for 5000 down to 13:15-25.
PED use in high school probably more often than not has the opposite effect desired, as they get slower and heavier, unless using EPO. Steroids are accessible to a fair amount of HS athletes, though, so it would be silly to think some aren't trying them. Again, highly doubt it's prevalent among the best HS runners, it's the hacks that want to run fast, but never will, who roll the dice at that early of an age.
Old Timers like me will remember the sad tale of Stijn Jaspers. He ran 1:50/3:40/5:05/7:47/13:24 ... the mile/1500 by the time he was 21 and the 3k/5k in his last year. He was Dutch and was National Champion for them.
He ran in the '84 Olympics just before his death. HE died in October just after the Games.
The story is here:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1119076/
Now this is NOT EPO, but this is nearly 30 years ago, and this guy was good, but he was not winning any NCAA Championships. SO I guess my point is that when we see runners running sub-3:42/8:00/13:30/28:00 we at least know that there have been coaches and athletes before them that using WAS WORTH IT to get to that level.
At least THREE coaches at two schools were in on this. Vanderbilt and Clemson. Clemson is not (and was not) a distance powerhouse.
and this from the 2nd page of the article:
"Several Clemson athletes confirmed to SI's Ivan Maisel that they had received bute from Colson. Tina Krebs, an 800-meter runner, explained how she had been given the drug while training for the 1983 NCAAs: "I came down to the weight room. I told Sam [about a twisted ankle], and he said, 'I have some pills to give you that you won't feel pain.' I wanted to go to the nationals. I wouldn't be able to go if he didn't give me the pills. He gave them to me in a white envelope. Sam told us if we felt weird in our stomach to stop taking them." She finished second in the NCAAs."
A bit of psychology: Obviously not on the same scale as epo, but my junior year of Xc, my mom got me a bunch of freeweights at a garage sale, and I started lifting a bit and taking creatine monohydrate everyday, and I went from 18:20 to 16:30. We weren't drug tested, and the supplement I was taking wasn't prohibited by the state athletic association, but I still felt guilty/ unethical. I knew all along that I didn't have the talent to even be in the top 100 in the state or get a scholarship, and I came from a pretty well-to-do family and was good at school, so I'd go to a decent college regardless. There was no extrinsic or material factor that made me take the stuff besides the prospects of running faster. My point is, obviously, if the stakes are high enough for some kids, they would take EPO I'd imagine.
Significant numbers overall? Probably not. But I would suspect a fair number of the top athletes.
I never encountered PED use in track/XC during college. I wouldn't have taken it and I don't suspect any teammates would have either. There were 1 or 2 with inhalers.
I think that PEDs are much easier to come by today then when I was in college. There's certainly incentive (especially for HS kids) to improve and some may see PEDs as their only way.
I'm 99% sure it was pretty prevalent among the football team. Not that everyone on the team did it, but there was a culture of PED use.
hahahaha. 0/10
Torque Lewith wrote:
A bit of psychology: Obviously not on the same scale as epo, but my junior year of Xc, my mom got me a bunch of freeweights at a garage sale, and I started lifting a bit and taking creatine monohydrate everyday, and I went from 18:20 to 16:30. We weren't drug tested, and the supplement I was taking wasn't prohibited by the state athletic association, but I still felt guilty/ unethical. I knew all along that I didn't have the talent to even be in the top 100 in the state or get a scholarship, and I came from a pretty well-to-do family and was good at school, so I'd go to a decent college regardless. There was no extrinsic or material factor that made me take the stuff besides the prospects of running faster. My point is, obviously, if the stakes are high enough for some kids, they would take EPO I'd imagine.