Four Americans, one 38 years old, just ran sub 13:09. And you still think thyroid and TUEs are not being abused?

"Bruce Bickford"??? With Eric Jenkins, that makes 2 Northeastern references in the same day. What ever happend to Jeff Cullinane?

If you accuse every American that breaks 13:10 of cheating, we will never close the gap on the East Africans. The perception that Americans shouldn't be running that fast and therefore must be on drugs is part of the problem.

If there is legit evidence then by all means we need to keep the sport clean. But just remember that running fast is the goal so we shouldn't be surprised when it works for people not from Kenya!

rekrunner wrote:

13:10 is not a world class time.

That's a really stupid thing to say.

clownshoes wrote:

Jordan Guenther wrote:

No way, athletes are training much harder than ever before. I'm really good friends with most of them. Kenyans too.

Yeah those old guys from the past like Todd Williams, Joe Falcon, Bruce Bickford, and Craig Virgin would have ran a lot faster if they weren't so darn lazy and trained harder.

Virgin was actually one of the best in the world for his time, but Rupp (Jager, Derrick, etc., too) is massively more talented than, say, Williams. When Rupp runs faster than Williams's PR, LetsRun retards call it a boring tactical championship race. (See: 27:30 in London; 27:23 or so in Moscow.)

i agree. 13:10 is great -no sarcasm. but what a depth in the us scene.

I have actually seen how effective using T4 in conjunction with GH is, first hand. An athlete I was working with was dieting for a show using GH and T3 (along with many other anabolic compounds), but was seeing no change in his fat to muscle ratio. Even with changes in his diet, such as lowering carbs, increasing cardio and even lowering calories, there were minimal changes, at best. T4 was introduced and within 1 week a change of 2.5% body fat and an increase of 1kg of muscle was measured! This is a pretty drastic change in any book.

The way I see it, growth hormone costs a lot, and, if it were me, I would want to maximise it as much as possible to get a better ‘bang for my buck’, T4 seems to be the catalyst here and without it, GH is a waste of money.

As others have said on this thread, the Internet has raised expectations for high school kids, which has translated in more mileage earlier and much more depth (sub 4:10 and sub 9:00) at the high school level, which helps down the line. The other thing that started this resurgence on the collegiate level was Stanford about 1996. Once Vin started setting up the time trial meets, and everyone flocked there, times in the 5 and 10 were dramatically faster (again raising expectations). Before Stanford you had Penn and Mt. Sac - a lot different and in the case of Penn, a lot more unpredictable in terms of weather.

As it relates to the guys you named, I'm sure Williams and Virgin didn't have close to the foot speed of Jager and Rupp.

Falcon ran 3:49 to win the Dream Mile, and won NCAA X-C. Both Falcon and Trautmann had low 13:00 ability. Injuries retired them both early.

The "time trial" 5ks and 10ks in ideal conditions with great competition helps these athletes to produce their best times.

Let's also remember, though, that the record is 12:37 and a time like 13:00 is over 7 seconds per mile slower pacing than that. Doing some low brow math, that would be a 1:43 800, or a 3:50 mile, or 27:04 for 10k sort of equivalencies - which, in practical terms, isn't even all that far off.

I'm surprised no one's wondering why the times aren't faster. Alamirew ran 12:48 in Paris last year, and the WL time was 12:46. Rupp's mile and 3000 times indoors convert to low 12:40s. I felt Derrick was under raced going into WC, and hoped to see a breakthrough from him significantly better than just shaving his PR slightly. Both he and Rupp may have had some potential injury issues they had to adjust training to avoid, but are keeping it to themselves, who knows. Hopefully both will get a chance to set some big PRs next year.

How about a US XC dream team in Spain next March with Rupp, Ritz, Derrick, Jager and True, plus whoever else is healthy of these - Teg, Solinsky, Hill, Vail, Bumbalough?

Fastnbulbous wrote:

How about a US XC dream team in Spain next March with Rupp, Ritz, Derrick, Jager and True, plus whoever else is healthy of these - Teg, Solinsky, Hill, Vail, Bumbalough?

What would they do in Spain in March?

to holy to dope wrote:

The coincidence is still solid: rumors of rampant thyroid med abuse and sub 13:10 by Americans, particularly in the northwest, becoming common place.

"Rumors" from where? This message board?

I saw a page for 2014 XC in Spain, but that was wrong, forgot it was switched to bi-annual in 2012. That sucks.

Agreed. I so wish the level of training information available on the internet had been around in late 80's. Having years of Bill Rodgers daily training at your finger tips shows you the blue print in way we never had. (At least I never had).

Why do people assume PED use when runners are 25-30 seconds from the world record? It seems weird to me.

Elite Americans are running times that Dave Moorcroft ran ages ago (+/- 5 seconds). Is it really that hard to believe that we have come that far?

Sure, anyone could use PEDs. But they are not suspect just because they run under 13:10. It could be because the competition has driven them to this level. Today, you are no longer guaranteed to make a team with a 13:20 so you push that much harder to gain fitness. Lagat's presence alone as makes it that much harder to make teams.

I had hoped this day would come long ago. I would like to see 4-5 Americans running 2:07-2:09 marathons soon. That is long overdue.

Jeff Wigand wrote:

I think the internet is a big reason for the improvement the US has seen in the last 10+ years.

The internet? I'm pretty sure it's the competition. If he can do it, I can do it rivalry.