Arne Gabius German Record 2:08:32

He publishes all of his training and his blood test results online, that is a pretty good sign that he isn't doping.

He hasn't made any unbelieveable jumps forward, rather he is slowly improving over time. His 2:08:30 or so was very good, but not 2:04. I am very inclined to believe he is clean.

You don't need to understand the text too much, he just talks about that others have published their off-score so he wants to show his too to prove he is clean. He explains the results after showing his results.

Renato Canova wrote:

If we can have a difference of about 4 points of Hct (for example, 44 - 48 depending on the system doctors took blood and on the tourniquet), the margin of error is about 10%.

That is the scattering range, not the error. That's often misunderstood, but can of course be quite important.

I don't agree. We speak about blood of the same person, at the same time, so, if we want to give PRECISE and SCIENTIFIC SIGNIFICANCE to the data (how was, for example, years ago, when, if skiers or cyclists were OVER 50 HCT could'nt continue the competition with the excuse to look at their health), THIS BECOMES AN IMPORTANT ERROR.

What I want to say is that people speaking of doping normally looks at two values only : hematocrit and hemoglobin. So, you understand that, if there are 4 points of Hct less or more, in the mind of commom people the athlete MUST be doped.

Instead, there are a lot of other values, very much more important, to consider.

Hct, for itself, doesn't mean anything. We have athletes that, after long period of training in altitude, DON'T CHANGE their values of Hgb and Hct, but when go sea level can improve their performances very consistently (we call them "responders"). At the same time, we have athletes increasing a lot the values of Hgb and Hct, that don't improve their performances ("not responders").

People born and living in altitude in Colombia, Perù, Bolivia and Ecuador (Andean Population) have naturally Hct near 60 (sometimes higher), but when go sea level are not able to improve their performances.

And also, taking blood samples is something influenced by the last activity athletes did. To take samples the day after a session of 40 km fast, or a very intensive lactic session, is not the same than taking samples after 3 days of easy run. However, NEVER "experts" of antidoping consider these differences, provoked by training.

I repeat again : there is a great connection between training and the change of physiological values for top athletes, and the real problem is that at the moment doesn't exist any scientific attempt to connect the effects of training with the effects of doping (who studies the effects of doping is expert in pharmacology, and doesn't know anything about training methodology).

This provokes a wide but wrong information about the effects of doping, because normal people doesn't give the proper importance to training, which is the reason because athletes of endurance can improve their best.

NUFCrichard wrote:

He publishes all of his training and his blood test results online, that is a pretty good sign that he isn't doping.

While I personally believe that he is clean, I had a look at his published blood tests and am a bit disappointed in the lack of data:

Has he really only been tested 6 times since 2010? Why does he only publish the off score and not all other data? Also, some context would be helpful, e.g. was that 2012 value (over 100 off score) after altitude training?

Anyway, great runner. Keep in mind he is 34 though so I don't expect much improvement anymore, considering next year will be reserved for the Rio Games.

If I conrinue to explain because I don't believe in doping (speaking about the possibility to enhance performances) when we speak about endurance, is because I have data and experiences that the most part of "scientists" and, of course, Letsrun posters, don't have.

Do you think I (now I'm 71) am crazy, or stupid ? Do you think I can have some personal advantage to come here for explaining something that the most part of posters consider an idiocy ? Do you think that, after being for more than 30 years coach in the Italian Federation (my last role was Technical Scientific Director), head coach of Qatar for middle and long distances for 7 years, now head coach of middle and long distances in China, lecturer of IAAF from 1990, and after having coached athletes able winning 12 World Championships and 42 medals in WCh, and 8 medals in Olympics, and able to better 9 WR, I can have some reason to come here for speaking with a lot of people who are in the complete ignorance of any training methodology, if not the will to CLEAN the brain of Young people, looking at the possibility to achieve top performances without any external aid ?

So, before speaking, try to switch on your brain, asking yourself some question, instead to think that TOP PERFORMANCES = DOPING, or also DOPING = INCREASE OF PERFORMANCES, is a dogma.

The facts we need to consider are the following :

1) In sprint events, a very high percentage of top athletes had problems of doping. This is not what happened in middle and long distances, where very few top athletes were officially banned (and many, in the last years, using the Biological Passport, system not still working for the other events).

2) The most talented athletes, with proper training, can increase their total volume of blood of 25%, having about 1 and half liter of blood more.

3) The velocity of blood circulation is higher if the viscosity is lower

4) Using EPO or similar you increase the viscosity, reducing the velocity of circulation, so we have to reduce the velocity of elimination of lactate from the muscle fibers

5) Many athletes improve their performances after periods in altitude without changing their values of Hct and Hgb. The question is : WHY ?

6) Many athletes DON'T IMPROVE their performances after periods in altitude CHANGING their values of Hct and Hgb, higher when they go sea levelk again. The question is : WHY ?

7) With EPO and similar we can improve the ability to transport Oxygen, but there is no connection with the possibility to have MORE OXYGEN from the air. Which is, in this case, the limiting factor ?

I can continue with other 50 factors that, at the moment, is not possible to explain in "scientific" way, and we can see in top athletes, when well trained. You must understand that TRAINING is Always ahead physiology, since physiology is a "deductive science", so can only investigate phenomen already existing (but, in the case of top athletes, nobody had the opportunity to investigate their full training, and the physiological variations inducted by the training itself).

I think I gave you, if you are really interested and are not a stupid troll, some material for making, at least, you think a little bit more about the interaction doping - endurance results.

There was a 13:16 5000m runner from the United States, who later ran 59:43, then 2:08, then 2:06:17 and finally a wind-aided 2:04:58. Salazar ran around 13:11 and 2:08:xx. It looks like Gabius went for it and paid a bit but still got the fine time, and in fact from looking at his first pdf of the two on his training, it looked to me as if he was doing the vast, vast proportion of his training at far slower than marathon pace (high 3 km pace in training). Maybe he ran faster in the second portion. But it is also obvious that guys who go train with Kenyans improve a lot. We do ourselves a huge disservice by not training in large groups of the most talented runners. Thanks to Renato once again for his perspective and knowledge, which we can get nowhere else, even if he is wrong about whether EPO is effective.

According to some recent (past 15-25 years) studies, nitric oxide has an important role in our life. As important is oxygen for living.

Nitric oxide is synthased at the level of paranasal sinus.

This nitric oxide is an excellent vasodilator, bronchodilator and relaxes the smooth muscles.

Mouth breathers have a disadvantage from this point of view, because the nitric oxide can be found at the nose level only.

I believe that nasal breathing is an element which divides elite runners from the rest.

Many people are misled by the fact that they see an elite runner with his mouth opened when running.

The nasal passages are widening enough, after some time (in reaction to carbon dioxide levels), that even if you run with the mouth opened, the air will go through nose mainly.

For runners who are used to breath through mouth is hard to believe that is possible to breath through nose only.

When switching from mouth to nasal breathing, the performance lowers drastically in the first phase. It can take a month or two until the same performance can be achieved with both breathing ways.

A lot of runners who go to Kenya have to be suspected of doping. The fact that Arne went to Kenya and had a substantial leap in performance 1330 to 1310 after years of stagnation is a huge red flag. The fact that he is buddies with Canova is another huge red flag. These Italian agents have a reputation for encouraging cheating amongst their athletes. Remember that canova originally was saying that Kenyans don't dope period. Now he says that doping does not help them. All pure BS and you have to be pretty naive to believe this clown.

you folks are too harsh on Renato. Maybe his view is skewed, even biased, but there is a lot of truth in what he says.

letsrun posters do have a mentality of improvement = doping. take that aside for a minute. forget about it. here you have a coach that has changed the way marathons are run these days, and he is willing to share with you his knowledge. appreciate that. and behave less like ***holes. that's all.

Is he publishing all the data or just the off-scores?

Has any of Conovi's runners been caught? Not as far as I know.

So they are not doping. Benefit of the doubt both for Canova and his

proteges!

There was one, I thought.

Name is on the tip of my tongue.

Ok, I wasn't aware of it.

I'm curious to know the name of the athlete, coached by myself, who was caught for doping. Can you remove the name from the tip of your tongue, and write it in one post ?

Thank you for your important collaboration.

Rita Jeptoo.

Not while she was being coached by you, to be fair. But she was one of your athletes.

Of course, it does beg the question as to why she felt convinced that she needed to dope. Shouldn't she have realized (more than anyone else) that it wouldn't help her, and she just needed to have the right attitude? Weird.

Why would anyone need training partners to run lots of miles at a pace far slower than MP? You only need partners to do some quality workout. And judging from the posted schedule, Gabius did very little of that.

Since almost all of the fastest marathon times are by Africans, I was wondering if there is a list, say, for the top thirty times by those not born in Africa. (By asking for this, I'm not suggesting, for example, that Meb is anything but an American.) Thanks in advance if anyone has such a list.

I wish we could talk about marathon training and not doping. I'm much more interested in the training than this same old doping speculation.

How does a 13:12 guy become a 2:08 marathoner? Oh, and "drugs" isn't the answer.

Yes! I'd be interested in reading about some of the training Renato has been doing with the Hahner twins. Arne has a great blog, it's great to read. His attitude is just what is needed in running scene in Europe. He wasn't the only doctor in Frankfurt, Andrea Mayr hit the Austrian standard for the Marathon (2:32:xx), and is a 6x world champ in mountain running, also good at cycling and duathlon. She works full-time as a medical doctor in Austria.