5% , were can that be got back?

[Tyler'sTwin]

I remember an interview with an ex-biathlete who participated in an EPO study a couple of years after retiring in the early 90's. He said he ran 10 km in 36.XX pre-EPO and 32.XX post 6 weeks of EPO injections. That is obviously totally unrealistic for an elite runner since guys were running 28.XX in the 50's.

 

[Cloxxki]

I remember an interview with an ex-biathlete who participated in an EPO study a couple of years after retiring in the early 90's. He said he ran 10 km in 36.XX pre-EPO and 32.XX post 6 weeks of EPO injections. That is obviously totally unrealistic for an elite runner since guys were running 28.XX in the 50's.

You mean that world class specialist runners are deeper into the diminishing returns level, and hence will have fewer percents to shed with doping?

Having been working on my running form for the past years, I now wonder whether a certain type of runner is more suspect to run into diminishing returns than the other, due to running style. When I used to be a heel lander, my speed would top out, when aerobically and even anaerobically I wanted faster. Now that I am a mid foot lander, I don't have that barrier. I am actually not a bad sprinter, for someone who does track distance training.
When I came back from a weeek of XC skiing at 1200m to run at sea level, the aerobic boost was just baffling. I was breathing as in an easy endurance run, but was in fact close to personal best times on 600m and 1000m reps. I can't possibly have put on 4 points of Hct there, can I?
To be honest, for that amount of blood (15-20% of body's volume?) I was expecting greater returns. Then, it may be the fact that the runners were near their peak form already, running into biomechanical speed barriers.

 

[JPM London]

... When I used to be a heel lander, my speed would top out, when aerobically and even anaerobically I wanted faster. Now that I am a mid foot lander, I don't have that barrier. I am actually not a bad sprinter, for someone who does track distance training.

Hmm... I wonder if you could do something similar in cycling - say change cadence or something. It could probably turn a one-day rider into GT contender or even winner.

Jokes aside, really interesting story you have there - just goes to show that there can easily be other, legal areas where improvements can be found and it's not all about the dope...

 

[Cloxxki]

Hmm... I wonder if you could do something similar in cycling - say change cadence or something. It could probably turn a one-day rider into GT contender or even winner.

Jokes aside, really interesting story you have there - just goes to show that there can easily be other, legal areas where improvements can be found and it's not all about the dope...

To be honest, I was all-believing LA even more because of the cadance thing. And I believed Jan Ullrich was throwing away sure TdF titles with the way he chose to ride. I have a 39.2" inseam, my natural cadance before focussing a season's training to is, was around 101rpm at lactate threshold. At the end (training rides alsways one gear lower than I preferred), it was 113rpm. Over the same time, due to the smarter training (cadance aside), I went from 315W to 340W. I survived an hour's MTB racing better and better, and cadance seemed to play a sure role. Despite being the tallest and heaviest national racer, I was doing quite fine on the uphills, it's where I ended up making the difference. In fact, I tended to lose out on the flats.

One good thing about legal PE technique adjustments and supplements, is that when you feel the boost, you are confident that you're doing "all you can'. A lazy doper will know they are losing out, even if they train as hard as can be. But in stead of investigating supplements properly, and staying informed, they skip the legal PEDs and run into better advertised ones, with proven success (races won and then stripped). And active pro's will know of usage by others that has gone undetected as well, which temps them even more.

 

[Race Radio]

No, they took out 2 units (450 ml) of blood, separated the RBC's and reinfused those packed cells 11 weeks later.

Average Hct increased from 41.6% to >47%.



This isn't prior to the bio-passport though and we know that Floyd "only" had 1 litre of blood administred in two or three separate transfusions for the Tour. So a transfusion of packed cells from 900 ml of blood is a lot.



I don't know how effective "recovery therapy" is and while it shouldn't be underrated, it is by all acounts considerably less effective than competing with a considerably elevated O2 carrying capacity in an endurance sport. I imagine it depends a lot on the riders natural recovery though.



I suppose it's possible that mr 2.1% had a very good day pre-infusion while mr. 4.0% had a bad day, but large differences in response from person-person seems to be in line with EPO studies. It should be noted that the worst responder and the best responder were only separated by a mere 15s in the pre-infusion race and 1 point in natural Hct.



You are comparing apples (reduction in time) to oranges (increase in power) unless you actually think an elite rider can improve by 6-9 minutes in a ~1h TT.

Thanks. I must have missed where they talked about transfusing 2 units. After spining that should be about 600ml, 300 each unit.

My point about recovery therepy and using EPO in training is it allows you to train at a much higher level.

I think that the record shows that during the "Top Fuel' days (95-04) output was increase by 10-15% as Ulrich and Armstrong were holding 495 watts for over 30 minutes and climbing times dropped. Droping 10% on a TT would be tough but it does appear that there was a drop of 10% on some of the more important climbs

 

[JPM London]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/tondo-tips-off-police-in-girona-doping-investigation

I don't know about 5% or anything, but it seems Tondo was not only able to say no to drugs, but actually go to the police when offered them and finish high in the Vuelta at the same time - so unless it's possible to counter any actual doping percentage with proper means OR that doping is generally less OR that Tondo is himself the meanest blighter around OR he's found something other illegal that he keeps for himself, then I don't know what... I know which of the above I believe to be most realistic though