Doping for the rest of us

Bruce Adelsman (webmeister of skinnyski.com) sends out a great little
newsletter in the off season. The one that I just received had a link
to an upcoming article in Outside Magazine about performance enhancing
drugs from a Masters perspective. It is written by Stuart Stevens who
is a 48 year old biker and cross country skier. Many on this newsgroup
will remember him as the guy who in the early years of the World
Loppet completed all ten marathons in a single year.

This is a great article. Not possessing a science background I have
found many of the discussions about the short and long term effect of
performance enhancing drugs to be a bit difficult to follow. In this
article he describes his experiment of "one" with a number of
different drugs and the subsequent effect on his body and performance
in some long distance biking events.

Contact Bruce at skinnyski.com to be included on the mailing list for
his newsletter....in the meantime I hope he won't mind me passing on
the link to the article. Very interesting stuff

http://outside.away.com/outside/body...ug_test_1.html

John OC

Entertaining article by an amateur bicyclist and cross country skier with
lots of stories about how he tried using different drugs for training and
events.

My response: If I found myself wanting to try using an altitude tent or
drugs to move up in my finish-order placement in races, I'd take it as proof
that I was taking my masters amateur racing much too seriously -- that I
needed to back off and find a new lifestyle.

Aging:
What's more interesting is the question of what I'd do to fight against the
_loss_ of performance capability due to aging (or disease?). Like if there
was a favorite mountain ski tour that I couldn't do any more, even with
reasonable training preparation. So far that's not happening -- my speed
and endurance are still on an upward path (thanks to following suggestions
from this newsgroup). But if I started to feel major loss in my backcountry
touring achievements, I'm pretty sure then I'd be ready to figure out how to
use an altitude tent or drugs, if I had the money available.

So thanks for sharing that, John -- I'm interested to hear about more
articles and stories about using drugs and altitude tents and other new
approaches for fighting the losses due to aging or disease.

Ken
_______________________________________
Summary:
Here's a quick summary of what I understood from a quick read of the
article:

Stevens found out about a new marketing approach being used by medical
doctors in the US who want to sell drug-based
athletic-performance-enhancement services. Seemed like once he had like
$5,000-10,000 available to spend for a season, he didn't find it very
difficult to connect with those doctors.

Seemed like he didn't feel much risk of problems with US federal or state
law enforcement agencies in doing this, nor did his doctor. Except for the
anabolic steroid he tried, didn't seem like he was all that worried about
adverse effects from taking the drugs for one season under the supervision
of an experienced medical doctor.

Stevens found out that the drugs worked for him, and delivered major
performance-gain results. (in case anybody hadn't guessed that from Soldier
Hollow 2002 and news reports from other sports). Seems like he also
_enjoyed_ the feeling and experience _during_ his big ultra-distance events
with the support of drugs.

He said he liked the HGH, but it was so expensive. But he didn't like the
EPO experience, even if it became cheaper. And never again anabolic
steroids.

Testosterone? Something about how endurance athletes might experience a
decline in testosterone levels which might lead to osteoporosis. Did he
also mention the possibility that taking supplementary testosterone could
increase the risk of prostate cancer?

But that's from just a quick read -- better to check the details out
yourself:
http://outside.away.com/outside/body...ug_test_1.html

Ken