Jim Ryun was clean, why is it so hard to believe that others are?

Well Ryun could only run 3:33 and 1:44. People are WAY faster now.

I picked up his autobiography at the library today.

Something to think about. This is from Gary Cohen's interview with Bob Schul:

SMJO wrote:

Well Ryun could only run 3:33 and 1:44. People are WAY faster now.

Yes, way faster on PEDs. Get your head out of your azz. Ryun is the fastest clean runner we've ever seen.

Billy Mills too PEDs and won a gold at Tokyo Olympics. Ryun, Seb Coe, Zatopek,etc took PEDs. So why knock what Rupp and Symonds take?

SMJO wrote:

Well Ryun could only run 3:33 and 1:44. People are WAY faster now.

You do know that 3:33.1 was run on a dirt track in 90F degree heat right?

Middel Distance Coach wrote:

SMJO wrote:

Well Ryun could only run 3:33 and 1:44. People are WAY faster now.

Yes, way faster on PEDs. Get your head out of your azz. Ryun is the fastest clean runner we've ever seen.

Is this your first attempt at reading comprehension?

Clarke is convinced his heart troubles were the result of his collapse after the 10,000 at Mexico City. Below is his response to Schul's comments.

“I had never seen those quotes from Schul before now. I have to say I was not surprised he made such unsubstantiated claims as he always felt he was unappreciated with his Gold Medal when Billy Mills received so much acclaim and he went virtually unnoticed. Seb Coe, Steve Ovett, Steve Cram, Henry Rono all had periods of continuous record breaking runs within a limited number of days… Whereas Schul talks about how much these runs extracted from him forcing him to take “weeks to recover”, I always thought the opposite way back to my junior days. That is, if you are in good enough form to break a WR you will also be able to recover more quickly than when, with the same effort, you can only manage a much slower time. I believe top physical shape can be measured in two ways: firstly how quickly you can run from point A to point B, and secondly, how quickly your body recovers from sustained maximum effort. So the fitter you are, the quicker you recover and vice versa.

Incidentally I was tested at various physiological laboratories throughout Europe during that period (including Astrand’s and Rodahl’s in Sweden and Norway), as the physiologists sought to discover “my secrets” in bodily functions including my blood pathology. If I had been taking some sort of magic pills than I’m sure the word would have spread very quickly. It was typical of the arrogance of the man that he thought nobody could run as fast as he did without resorting to some sort of artificial aids.”

So? My PB was set on a rutted asphalt track in 95 degree heat. I've a had the opportunity to run on the best modern tracks as well. What is your point?

I agree with Clarke. Schul took so long to recover because it was the only time he actually ran hard continuously. All his other training was full of rests. You get accustomed to what you practice.

SMJO wrote:

So? My PB was set on a rutted asphalt track in 95 degree heat. I've a had the opportunity to run on the best modern tracks as well. What is your point?

You think El G could run 3:26 on a dirt (not asphalt) track in 90 degree heat?

No, but he could have done 3:30. Heat is pretty irrelevant in a 4 minute race.

I specifically did not make any personal comments to what Bob Schul said because I am not trying to point at any one in particular. I am challenging the assertion by the OP that because Ryun (or somebody else from back then) was "clean" that certain people now can be or have to be. I personally don't believe Bekele or El Guerrouj (or Lagat) were cheating. But there's a leap of faith that guys in the 1950's and 1960's were clean and innocent. Steroids came from the bobybuilder community in the late 1950's.

Assuming that the athletes in the 1960's were clean when steroids were available and legal is a leap of faith that should not be jumped to.

As far as the comment that Coe, Cram, and Ovett "had periods of continuous record breaking runs within a limited number of days", the WR history says otherwise. I see the 800 and 1500 records being broken 8 times between 1979 and 1985 and the period between successful efforts by a single individual was not less than 1 month. But keep in mind that the string of amazing performances overlapped Ben Johnson's amazing performances and not long before Ben tested positive. And just before this amazing string, Wikipedia carries this quote attributed to Mary Peters:

"A medical research team in the United States attempted to set up extensive research into the effects of steroids on weightlifters and throwers, only to discover that there were so few who weren't taking them that they couldn't establish any worthwhile comparisons."

You should not make any assertions about prior generations taking or not taking performance enhancing drugs, because the opportunity most certainly was there and it was being taken advantage of by 1965-65 at least. Drugs like anabolic steroids were not banned because nobody was using them.

yesstiles wrote:You do know that 3:33.1 was run on a dirt track in 90F degree heat right?

he says 95F

with a jog for initial 300m of 46.5 - 62s pace, then followed by a wide run in lane 2 next bend culminating in a 2'46.6 finish, where he only really blasted it in the last 300m - low-3'28 pace for last 1200 & that's with extra-distance & only really hard in last 300

And what makes you think Jim Ryun was clean? You don't think they did PED's back then? There's no question Ryun cheated by taking money under the table which shows a less than honest disposition to begin with. Steroid use was widespread during the 60's.

[quote]Diana Bawl wrote:

And what makes you think Jim Ryun was clean? You don't think they did PED's back then? There's no question Ryun cheated by taking money under the table which shows a less than honest disposition to begin with. Steroid use was widespread during the 60's.[/quote

Yes, it often amazes me how everyone harks on about Ryun as some paragon of honest, clean running, a symbol of a period when drugs were not used. Those same people then say how polluted the 70's, 80's, 90's etc were.

Of course athletes were aware of the benefits and were using steroids in the 60's, at a time when they were legal. At least by the late 70's they were banned and championship medalists and anyone breaking a world record had to be tested. And some federations were testing their athletes out of competition from the early 80's, a long time before the IAAF introduced it across the board ( whether or not they were actually able to test all nationality athletes is another question!).

I have no personal reason to believe that Ryun was taking anything, but to presume he was "undoubtedly clean" and those that followed 'dirty' is ridiculous. Ryun ran in a time when steroids existed, when it was known what benefits they created and were totally legal. A bit like the EPO era of the mid 90's to early 00's. If you are happy to accuse anyone running decent times in the latter, then you have to be prepared to consider the performances in the former were equally tarnished.

El g... Testosterone hgh cortisone epo

Mo Farah.. Likely peds

Geb Bekele.. Epo cera through hermens doping network

Coe.. Suspected steroids and blood doping

Cram.. Clean

coach d wrote:

I specifically did not make any personal comments to what Bob Schul said because I am not trying to point at any one in particular. I am challenging the assertion by the OP that because Ryun (or somebody else from back then) was "clean" that certain people now can be or have to be. I personally don't believe Bekele or El Guerrouj (or Lagat) were cheating. But there's a leap of faith that guys in the 1950's and 1960's were clean and innocent. Steroids came from the bobybuilder community in the late 1950's.

Even this timeline is almost certainly too late. Steroids came into use in sports as soon as international sporting events resumed following WW2. By 1952 at the latest there were track and field athletes using (probably weight men earliest among them) Of course even this is a little misleading, as athletes were using strychnine, cocaine, and other concoctions as soon as the modern Olympic games began. Of course the ancient Greek Games were suspended due to drug use, believed to be opium.

It is a myth that there is a time when sport was pure and without drugs. Only the nature of the drugs have changed.

Personal correspondence from November. I'd mentioned to him that if he'd dropped 35 seconds from the 10,000 WR today there would have been tons of drug accusations. He said there had been back then as well and then I forwarded Schul's comments to him figuring that if Schul can pull those claims out of nowhere then Clarke should get to respond.

As to the original question, there have, as others have said, drugs available in Ryun's time and before. But the lay of the land was different. There was no EPO or anything like it. There were steroids but we almost universally believed they hurt rather than helped distance runners so not a lot of guys were interested in using them. There have been stories that Kuts was using them and that would make sense because the Soviets did study sports science formally and may have known otherwise and that information may have leaked to a handful of westerners but no one I knew then would have used steroids if we could have even if we weren't ethical enough to avoid them because it was wrong.

Steroids weren't free or even cheap. Most runners back then were on fairly thin financial ice. You could believe that a guy with a wealthy club could have gotten funds from the club but few were in that sort of situation. Finances were a real problem for Ryun after college. And with very little money to be made in the sport, and none of it to be made legally, there was much less reason to use stuff than there is now.

But in the end, no one can say for sure what anyone used or didn't. I'd be stunned if Clarke had taken anything that's now illegal. You really have to spend some time discussing his approach to the sport to get a sense of how closely his outlook was to that of a "hobby jogger." It was purely fun for him and it's hard to believe that a guy who won't take an aspirin to get over a headache would take steroids to run faster.