It’s the end of May, and we are less than three weeks before the Dipsea, the 7.4 mile trail race about to celebrate its Centennial this year. It’s the second oldest race in the United States and, quite frankly, with its up and down course and oddly spaced handicaps, it’s a hoot.
A hoot that is incredibly difficult to get into. Space is limited. Randomly people will get lucky and get in and cancer survivors looking to restore their place after years away will be stymied. It’s important enough for Runners World to feature it in this month’s edition with a number of full color photos, including the table to contents.
And none of this knowledge availed me of any sort while I was struggling up the hill appropriately named Dynamite yesterday. A season of fairly heavy rains, rains that continued to erode the trails deep into May (which is extremely unusual) have left the trails quite a bit rockier in places and the narrow wooden steps on the downhills very slick.
With no one to chase in front of me, the training run left me plenty of time to contemplate just how humid it was, and how poor the footing was in places, and how much larger some of the hills had grown over the last year. There were no distractions. And, in this case, that was a bad thing.
It left me thinking that one of the best parts of the race were the races within the race. Last year I found myself dueling back and forth with a man who was clearly better at the uphills than I, but I was a better downhiller than him, and so back and forth we went from the starting line til, literally, the last 5 feet before the line. Neither of us are in line for any prizes or black shirts, but it mattered not a whit. Neither of us gave a single quarter on any inch of the course. Unlike a flat course, the undulating nature of the course and of the footing was bound to favor different runners for different sections, and make it all the more interesting.
Back to yesterday. I found myself very quickly gauging the level of fatigue and how much that contributes to the missteps that happen along the way. The heart, all mammalian and red-blooded, is powered by dreams of split times and light legs and the fantasy of having that perfect run on race day. It has all the desire. But there is, on the other side, the cold reptilian side that on the back half of the course starts to calculate the amount of energy left in the body and how much it will take to get down to the finish without doing a face plant. Run to fatigue too early on and you’ll go down on a rock or tree root before your legs give out. It’s a delicate balance, and more than a few runners have miscalculated, sometimes by less than 200 meters.
My prediction is that, even with good sunshine out there, that three distinct areas of the course will remain wet, and that we’ll have more people than usual going down this year. Dynamite, the rain forest section of the Hogsback and Steep Ravine will be extra dangerous this year. Keep your eyes open and your feet planted!
Friday, May 28, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Floyd Landis: PEDs and the Myth of the Victimless Crime
It was certainly a big bit of news when Charlie Francis, the coach of the disgraced Ben Johnson died last week, and Floyd Landis, former disgraced winner of the Tour De France, came out to not only reveal that he did, in fact, use performance enhancing drugs, but also implicated a number of who’s who in the cycling pantheon.
The reaction in cycling has essentially been the same that it’s always been, especially since it implicates Lance Armstrong: one side believes that you are innocent until proven guilty, especially since the allegations come from a rider who has spent years lying with a straight face already, and the other believes that all top level cyclists are dirty, especially one who spent years hammering other riders who has since admitted that they were doping.
Coming from the sport of running, we have seen essentially the same parallels in both the track and field world as the world of cycling. The same denials, the same “trying to same my name” defenses in the press, the same disbelief in the wake of yet another positive to a sport hero that NBC shoved down our faces. And we’re tired of it.
So why would Landis come out now and should we believe him? There are plenty of theories, one is that he’s out of money and this will be a great way to generate some headlines and a new book deal. Another is that the statute of limitations is running out and he wants to take advantage of getting some leniency from the anti-doping brigade by bringing others in. And lastly, my personal favorite, is that he’s decided to bring the others down to his level. Create a hellfire that burns down the current pantheon of cyclists from the last 10 years: Armstrong, Hincapie and Levi Leipheimer.
Chances are you’re going to sit on one side of the debate or the other here and very little that is said is going to convince you either way. What is sad is that we’ve moved into the phase where we cease to be surprised by the use of PEDs, and we’ve become so cynical that it seems like the height of idiocy to idolize any of the sport starts since they will invariably disappoint us.
The one part that should make us sit up and take notice is the International Cycling Union (UCI) president Pat McQuaid’s comment: "These guys coming out now with things like this from the past is only damaging the sport." Really? I would think that ANYTHING that cleans up the sport is going to help things. This bury your head in the sand and pretend that you’re not dirty as hell mentality is what brought you to this place. And it might, by the time all is said and done, bring down more than you think.
In the running world, there is plenty acedotal evidence that the rise of EPO in the 1990’s led to a plethora or world records on the track that would never have happened otherwise. But none of those runners have ever tested positive for EPO: the tests didn’t come early enough. And, as we’ve learned from Marion Jones, even then it is too little too late.
Ben Johnson and Marion Jones are the poster children for drugs in sport. One was caught red handed for drugs, but not the drugs he and his coach used, leading to a world of conspiracy theorists allegations of what really went on during the 1988 Olympic 100m final. The other never tested positive once. Marion, the queen of denial, never did anything wrong if you talk to her, and all it did was cost everyone their medals from the Sydney Games.
Landis’ emails, made public, have a wealth of information, names and dates and places, and, generally, far more data than almost anyone could ever manufacture is a falsehood. Armstrong’s people say, “Bring us the proof,” but they many not want to start to have to bear the burden of denying the avalanche of details that Landis provides. Stay tuned.
The reaction in cycling has essentially been the same that it’s always been, especially since it implicates Lance Armstrong: one side believes that you are innocent until proven guilty, especially since the allegations come from a rider who has spent years lying with a straight face already, and the other believes that all top level cyclists are dirty, especially one who spent years hammering other riders who has since admitted that they were doping.
Coming from the sport of running, we have seen essentially the same parallels in both the track and field world as the world of cycling. The same denials, the same “trying to same my name” defenses in the press, the same disbelief in the wake of yet another positive to a sport hero that NBC shoved down our faces. And we’re tired of it.
So why would Landis come out now and should we believe him? There are plenty of theories, one is that he’s out of money and this will be a great way to generate some headlines and a new book deal. Another is that the statute of limitations is running out and he wants to take advantage of getting some leniency from the anti-doping brigade by bringing others in. And lastly, my personal favorite, is that he’s decided to bring the others down to his level. Create a hellfire that burns down the current pantheon of cyclists from the last 10 years: Armstrong, Hincapie and Levi Leipheimer.
Chances are you’re going to sit on one side of the debate or the other here and very little that is said is going to convince you either way. What is sad is that we’ve moved into the phase where we cease to be surprised by the use of PEDs, and we’ve become so cynical that it seems like the height of idiocy to idolize any of the sport starts since they will invariably disappoint us.
The one part that should make us sit up and take notice is the International Cycling Union (UCI) president Pat McQuaid’s comment: "These guys coming out now with things like this from the past is only damaging the sport." Really? I would think that ANYTHING that cleans up the sport is going to help things. This bury your head in the sand and pretend that you’re not dirty as hell mentality is what brought you to this place. And it might, by the time all is said and done, bring down more than you think.
In the running world, there is plenty acedotal evidence that the rise of EPO in the 1990’s led to a plethora or world records on the track that would never have happened otherwise. But none of those runners have ever tested positive for EPO: the tests didn’t come early enough. And, as we’ve learned from Marion Jones, even then it is too little too late.
Ben Johnson and Marion Jones are the poster children for drugs in sport. One was caught red handed for drugs, but not the drugs he and his coach used, leading to a world of conspiracy theorists allegations of what really went on during the 1988 Olympic 100m final. The other never tested positive once. Marion, the queen of denial, never did anything wrong if you talk to her, and all it did was cost everyone their medals from the Sydney Games.
Landis’ emails, made public, have a wealth of information, names and dates and places, and, generally, far more data than almost anyone could ever manufacture is a falsehood. Armstrong’s people say, “Bring us the proof,” but they many not want to start to have to bear the burden of denying the avalanche of details that Landis provides. Stay tuned.
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