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What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?

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Re: What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?

#111

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

Balgair wrote: post #100
outside1234 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically what drugs allow you to do is recover faster and better - which allows you to train far harder than your clean competition and build all of these superhuman stats you enumerated. A famous cycling reporter took drugs for a month to see just want the effect was and apparently it was like being superman. He would go out and ride 100 miles (something that normally leaves you in couch mode the next day) and be r…

Hmm, I wonder what the long term effects of these drugs are. Medicinal and therapeutic use may be very promising for average people just trying to stay in shape. If the long term effects aren't too terrible, say like that of coffee, then greater acceptance may be possible. Also, as toward the 2 hour marathon, drugs that are psychoactive may be of as great a benefit as the physical ones. Not just caffeine and other pl…

As I understand it the main problem with the androgen anabolic drugs is aromatization. The chemicals tend to wind up as estrogen. Professionals using the drugs pursue careful protocols to limit aromatization; amateurs not so much hence the shrunken dick and bitch tit rumors about 'roids. Contrary to the popular understanding of estrogen as "the female hormone," estrogen compounds are more usefully thought of as dangerous stress hormones. This is why xenoestrogens from plastics and so forth are so problematic. Estrogen replacement therapy in aging women turned out to be a horrifically bad idea that resulted in high rates of cancer and heart attacks.

HGH is also essentially a stress hormone that for the most part you want to keep as low as possible. It can speed healing and recovery but is tied to cancer and aging in general. Lowering growth hormone in lab animals makes them live longer. I think HGH supplementation is maybe a popular myth that in practice isn't much used. This is what the Balko guy has explained post prison release. He says it's pretty much all about the androgens and HGH isn't very useful.

I don't know anything about EPO dangers. Presumably it leads to thrombosis, strokes, and heart attacks.

Re: What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?

#114

Post by eru »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #98
amaks wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think there is no doping control for elite marathoners (and other runners)?

The tests don't really work. All the athletes are on cycles of daily microdosing protocols that to date are undetectable. It works for EPO as well as androgens. If you have any question whether an athlete, model, or actor is using drugs it is safe to assume the answer is yes.

Why actors?

Re: What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?

#115

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

eru wrote: post #114
a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tests don't really work. All the athletes are on cycles of daily microdosing protocols that to date are undetectable. It works for EPO as well as androgens. If you have any question whether an athlete, model, or actor is using drugs it is safe to assume the answer is yes.

Why actors?

Actors routinely sport lean muscle mass that is unrealistic without 'roids.

Presumably millions of people think Christian Bale, Daniel Craig, and Chris Pratt, and many, many others have been natty in recent roles. Laughably false. Look at models and actors from the 50s and 60s and note their ages to have an idea what is realistic.

Re: What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?

#116

Post by nl »

infinitone wrote: post #107
revelation wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the success of Kenyans and Ethiopians is probably down to the economics of running (which is to say, it is an easily accessible sport to even the poor) and the feedback loop of other successful Kenyans. Kimetto, the recently crowned world marathon record holder, was a subsistence farmer just years ago ( http://www.runnersworld.com/elite-runners/from-poverty-to-po... ). There are simply no western school kids…

You make it sound like the Africans are the only ones racing. There are plenty of Euro/Asian/American runners competing for it and probably had much better infrastructure and training counsel than their African counterparts. Yet still, the Africans dominate. By definition then, its definitely more than just 'economics' and certainly more to do genes/physique/etc.

Read "Running with the Kenyans"[1]. Euro/Asian/American runners might have nice tracks to train on, but they don't have things like training groups that include multiple Boston, NY and Berlin winners.

That book is pretty eye opening read. The running culture is like nothing else - guys who come 3rd in the world 10,000m championship are hardly worth mentioning, high school races have better fields than US or European championships etc etc.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Running-Kenyans-Discovering-Secrets-Fa...

Re: What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?

#118

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

nl wrote: post #116
infinitone wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it sound like the Africans are the only ones racing. There are plenty of Euro/Asian/American runners competing for it and probably had much better infrastructure and training counsel than their African counterparts. Yet still, the Africans dominate. By definition then, its definitely more than just 'economics' and certainly more to do genes/physique/etc.

Read "Running with the Kenyans"[1]. Euro/Asian/American runners might have nice tracks to train on, but they don't have things like training groups that include multiple Boston, NY and Berlin winners. That book is pretty eye opening read. The running culture is like nothing else - guys who come 3rd in the world 10,000m championship are hardly worth mentioning, high school races have better fields than US or European…

I read into your post the idea that it's training culture and not genetics that gets so many east africans into distance running success. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Seems unlikely to me. 100m and 200m is thoroughly dominated by New World West Africans.

Mid distance 400m to 1600m is pretty well split up between Africans, Whites, and East Asians. Whites actually seem to do well at 800m.

I don't really know, but it seems there's a ton of racial genetics at play in sport.

You see in olympic/power lifting it's dominated by nordics/baltics and persians. Considering global popularity it defies ideas about training culture.

Re: What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?

#119

Post by eru »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #115
eru wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why actors?

Actors routinely sport lean muscle mass that is unrealistic without 'roids. Presumably millions of people think Christian Bale, Daniel Craig, and Chris Pratt, and many, many others have been natty in recent roles. Laughably false. Look at models and actors from the 50s and 60s and note their ages to have an idea what is realistic.

Oh, thanks, I hadn't thought of those. I was thinking `Why'd Woody Allen take drugs for acting?'

Re: What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?

#120

Post by amaks »

Uhhrrr wrote: post #64

Geez - just run downhill. Problem solved. EDIT: OK, now that I actually read the article, it turns out the Boston Marathon is ineligible for records for just this reason - it's overall downhill. With that attitude, why not just require galoshes while you're at it?

Actually running marathon distance downhill is very hard on quads, so for Boston people specifically train running downhill. In fact, for any marathon event, training course usually closely resembles the event (e.g. hills, downhill, level sections).
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