"They all cheat."

October 26, 2006 2:54 PM

What is it like to take performance enhancing drugs? Writer/cyclist takes dope, tells story.
posted by fixedgear (34 comments total)

He rode some of the same rides as I have (Princeton (NJ) Brevet Series) and he did Paris-Brest-Paris the same year as several good friends of mine. Not a pro racer, but an avid recreational cyclist who wanted to see what it was like.
posted by fixedgear at 2:56 PM on October 26, 2006

Thanks for the link, that was a very good read.
posted by Diskeater at 3:12 PM on October 26, 2006

wild guess, fixedgear. Lurker on the randon topica list? ;)
posted by bl1nk at 3:19 PM on October 26, 2006

This is an old story, but a goodie. I find HGH especially interesting.
posted by Mach5 at 3:19 PM on October 26, 2006

wild guess, fixedgear. Lurker on the randon topica list? ;)

Of course.
posted by fixedgear at 3:24 PM on October 26, 2006

Jeez, I posted about this as a comment, while it still could've become my first post in the blue?
posted by ijsbrand at 3:31 PM on October 26, 2006

Very interesting—thanks!
posted by languagehat at 3:35 PM on October 26, 2006

dupe
posted by delmoi at 3:49 PM on October 26, 2006

I could have sworn I posted the last time this was on metafilter, but it turns out I didn't. Weird.

Anyway, I remember thinking that some of the drugs seemed to actually be good for him, and that banning the drugs just meant the professional cyclists were the ones who won the genetic lottery, which is rather boring...
posted by delmoi at 3:52 PM on October 26, 2006

Major League Baseball doesn't drug-test at all

Seriously? How is that even possible?

Don't people care if the players cheat?
posted by prost at 4:08 PM on October 26, 2006

No, we care if players win.
posted by boo_radley at 4:10 PM on October 26, 2006

Viagra probably ought to be on the list of banned performance enhancers.
posted by jamjam at 4:13 PM on October 26, 2006

Sorry delmoi. It didn't turn up in a link search and was posted to the blue in 2003 before I became a member. I'll flag it. Mea culpa.
posted by fixedgear at 4:16 PM on October 26, 2006

Interesting read. I had no idea that there was such a variety to the ways you could dope yourself.
posted by quin at 4:22 PM on October 26, 2006

I missed it first time around, so thanks for the link to a very interesting article.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 4:37 PM on October 26, 2006

Actually I think I might have commented on another dupe, I think I read this way later then 2003. It seems like it's being posted all over the web...
posted by delmoi at 4:42 PM on October 26, 2006

It's actually the same article, just on a differet web site. No worries, a few folks who hadn't seen it on the first go-round (including me) had a good read. ijsbrand, you've got to lose your cherry sometime.
posted by fixedgear at 4:46 PM on October 26, 2006

Major League Baseball doesn't drug-test at all

Seriously? How is that even possible?

Don't people care if the players cheat?

As already noted, the article is three years old. Rest assured that Major League Baseball does now drug-test, even if it's drug tests are not as stringent as International standards. Several players have been caught and/or suspended since the tests have been initiated.
posted by davros42 at 4:56 PM on October 26, 2006

Major League Baseball doesn't drug-test at all.

Seriously? How is that even possible?

In pro-sports, it comes down to what spectators care about. And it's quite obvious that hockey, baseball and football fans don't care. Perhaps the thinking is that doping helps you less in sports where skill and team strategy are greater factors for success than pure individual athleticism, therefore it's not worth pursuing a witchhunt.

There is some truth to this -- it's almost guaranteed that an endurance athlete (whether cycling, running or cross-country skiing) doping with EPO will blow away clean competitors of similar calibre. As the Outside article illustrated, the difference is dramatic.

What's unfortunate is that cycling's reputation as a doper's sport is rather unfair. It's arguable that cycling today is much cleaner than most other sports -- the spotlight is on cycling precisely because the controls are so stringent.
posted by randomstriker at 5:00 PM on October 26, 2006

I'm intrigued by the anti-aging potential more that the sports enhancement.
posted by BrotherCaine at 5:10 PM on October 26, 2006

what I found interesting with the article was taking the author's experience with their first exposure to EPO and comparing it to my first use of liquid fuel supplements for my own endurance cycling. I started doing ultradistance endurance rides this year, and a lot of my peers swear by the Hammer Nutrition family of diet supplements (Perpetuem, Hammer Gel, Sustained Energy, etc.)

Their products are basically gel or powedered cocktails of maltodextrine, amino acids and other OTC substances that you can shoot into a hydration pack and mix with water. Tastes ranges from 'blah' to 'enh' but it fuels you for 12+ hours and it is unreal and unsettling how quickly your body metabolizes the stuff. The first time I tried Hammer Gel -- 20 miles on a 100 mile training ride, I felt like I had just benefitted from a full day of rest and a steak and potato dinner. It was bizarre and my first instinct was that this couldn't be right. Yet, I kept on using it, because, hey everyone else was doing it, too.

Nonetheless, the posting of this article to the randoneering mailing list was part of a general discussion about the use of pharmaceutical substances on endurance rides (specifically using amphetamines to stave off sleep deprivation and buy one an extra 4 hours that they might otherwise spend on a 40 hour 600km ride) People played devil's advocate and said, well, everyone uses caffeine, isn't that an artificial stimulant? What if someone made a version of speed that had minimized physical side effects? Would that be legal and acceptable? What's cheating and what's handicapping yourself unnecessarily?
posted by bl1nk at 5:11 PM on October 26, 2006

what I want on my rides or jogs is one of those oxygen tanks to float alongside me. That'd be a hype, though those hammer things sound interesting. I discovered how to avoid the bonk rather late in my cycling career -- 25 years ago I took off on a Salinas -> Monterey -> Salinas ride with nothing but $3 for slurpees from the 7-11s along the way...

confusion: isn't 'doping' attempting to conceal performance-boosting drugs, not the drugs themselves?
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 5:24 PM on October 26, 2006

I remember posting this! I also remember I kinda wanted to try HGH out. It doesn't sound like it has much of a downside. The other stuff sounds awful though.
posted by mathowie at 5:24 PM on October 26, 2006

Heywood, I think they say 'masking agent' for drugs that hide the effects of others. Matt/Brother Caine - I can't find it but I read a NYT Magazine article not too long ago about HGH and anti-aging. As the boomers age, I'm sure we'll see lot's more of this. Rich man's high, though.
posted by fixedgear at 5:37 PM on October 26, 2006

It doesn't sound like it has much of a downside.

'roid gut is a bit of a downside. So is having your pituitary gland shut down when it decides you don't need it any more.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:58 PM on October 26, 2006

I knew a guy who knew a guy who took part in a double-blind study to test a method of detecting EPO. It ran for a while and sometimes he got EPO and sometimes he got the placebo. He says it was obvious which one he got because the EPO was _just so good.
posted by markr at 7:54 PM on October 26, 2006

Great link! Very interesting (and tempting).
posted by jason's_planet at 8:01 PM on October 26, 2006

The risks of HGH are really really not known-- there's virtually no data and what there is about the benefits is clearly overhyped. Some studies suggest possible increased risk of colon cancer; some suggest diabetes risk may increase (and that's dire if true) but most of these are on kids treated for being extremely short, not older adults.

See http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/348/9/779

Generally, however, if you are increasing growth of any cells, you better seriously check for increased cancer risk-- esp. in old people who have increased risk for it anyway.
posted by Maias at 8:39 PM on October 26, 2006

stuart stevens is the morgan spurlock of ultra distance cycling.
posted by RockyChrysler at 8:41 PM on October 26, 2006

Fascinating - great post. This para was particularly evocative I thought:

What have I done? I wondered. I had a life once, and now I'm standing in the Easton WaWa in the middle of the night, looking like a cyborg, with thousands of dollars of drugs coursing through my veins. I started looking forward to the moment when the whole thing would be over.
posted by dmt at 2:57 AM on October 27, 2006

Here goes a NPR interview with Stevens.
posted by fixedgear at 4:23 AM on October 27, 2006

Very interesting read. Thanks, fixedgear.
posted by sveskemus at 5:54 AM on October 27, 2006

Does this seem like a ridiculous breach of medical ethics (by the doctor, obviously) to anyone else?
posted by myeviltwin at 8:29 AM on October 27, 2006

Does this seem like a ridiculous breach of medical ethics (by the doctor, obviously) to anyone else?

Why? It's not a doctors job to make sure people don't cheat at games. I doubt he would have given the guy stuff that he thought would hurt him.
posted by delmoi at 11:53 PM on October 28, 2006