Human Limits

Brazil is slated to host the 2014 World Cup Soccer tournament and the 2016 Summer Olympics.  Currently the FIFA Confederations Cup soccer tournament is being held there as a sort of dry run for these big events and the festivities have been marked by massive public protests over “spending on stadiums” vs. basic public service.  The video below has gone viral and was posted a few weeks before the protests started.

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Mexico City 1968 and Denver 1976

The circumstances were different but there were large public protests including a massacre of about 40 protesters in early October of 1968 before the Mexico City Olympics.  Here is a link to BBC reporting from that time and also a more recent review of what happened in Mexico City.  In the early 1970s the people of Denver rejected public funding for the 1976 Winter Olympics, and the games were moved to Innsbruck, Austria. So, this is not the first time people have questioned the priorities associated with massive public spending on global sports extravaganzas.

Let Them Eat Stadiums?

Here is a link to an NYT op-ed piece entitled “Let Them Eat Soccer” with more on the situation in Brazil.  I have been to Brazil a couple of times.  It is a spectacular place poised to become a world power with world class people and capabilities in many areas.  However, it is marked by all sorts of problems related to corruption, extremely high levels of social inequality, and just plain growing pains.  In this context, is spending lavishly on stadiums a good idea?  Similar questions have been raised in the US about public subsidies for professional sports stadiums which seem a bit crazy since the owners of the big sports franchises are typically “billionaires”.  With people taking to the streets in Brazil and the ability of protests to go viral, I wonder what the long term effects will be on the ability of governments all over the world to subsidize stadiums.  The recent US Open Golf Tournament at Merion also shows that extravagant purpose built venues are not essential to great competition.  So, maybe there is a middle way.

In my last post I discussed the recent analysis of how physiologically “believable” key mountain climbs by noted riders in the Tour de France have been over the last 30 or so years.  The idea is doping likely contributed to some of the most unbelievable performances and that by analyzing power outputs, suspicious performances can be identified.    That having been said, it is interesting to note that the one hour record for cycling has hardly budged since 1972 when Eddie Merckx went just over 49.4 km at Mexico City.   People have gone much farther with exotic aero bikes, but the current record set in 2005 by Ondrej Sosenka is 49.7 km with a standard bike.  Sosenka had a number of doping violations that ultimately ended his career, so this record is suspect.  Merckx had issues with stimulants, but he rode in the pre-epo era and there is no evidence that I know of that he blood doped with traditional auto-transfusions.   So perhaps his one hour record sets the gold standard for what is physiologically possible in cycling without manipulating oxygen transport using epo or blood doping.

All of this led to some interesting e-mail traffic and a discussion about what is physiologically believable in running.  This is harder to guesstimate because unlike cycling, measuring the actual mechanical work done and power generated during running is very challenging.  It is also harder to link running performances to estimates of oxygen consumption.   However, one can ask what the best performance ever is in the pre blood-doping/EPO era was, use it as a baseline and then go from there.   This is reasonable at some level because by the 1960s people were training as hard as they do now, and lab data from that time suggests the record holders then were comparable to today’s top performers.  Additionally, the first real suspicions of blood doping emerged with Lasse Viren in 1972 and 1976.  Here is an example using men’s marathon and 10,000m performances:

• Derek Clayton ran 2:08:33 in 1969 and his best for 10k was relatively slow 28:45 (likely on dirt).   In that era the fast 5,000 and 10,000m runners did not move up to the marathon that often, and if they did it was at the end of their careers.  There was no real money to be made running and the races (except for Boston and the Olympics) were pretty low profile.  Clayton’s record lasted 12 years until shortly after the big city/big money marathons started and top track runners “moved up”.   So people with 10k PRs faster than Clayton started to run the marathon and they started to run more of them at the peak of their careers.

• The fastest 10k time on dirt is 27:39 by Ron Clarke in 1965.  If you figure a synthetic track is worth 2-3% then Clarke might have run ~27:00 on a synthetic track.  This time is equal to about a 2:04 for the marathon if you plug it into one of the better race conversion calculators.  Clarke ran his 27:39 alone and like Jim Ryun’s 3:51:1 mile on dirt there was not a pacer.  Both would have run faster in a real race with a pacer.

• There are about 50 people who have broken 27:00 for 10,000m, the fastest time since drug testing got “better” over the last 5 or so years is about 26:45.  Many of the rest of the best times are from the mid-90s to about 2005 when epo was endemic.  Bjarne Riis used epo in the 1993 Tour de France and it is hard to imagine that the runners were far behind.  There is also evidence that the East Africans are not as clean as widely believed, and throughout this period they had managers and trainers from the same parts of Europe noted for doping in cycling.

• So it looks like a human might be able to run 26:45 with limited suspicion of doping and that works out to about a 2:03:03 estimated marathon.   If 26:30 is possible without drugs you get 2:01:54.  26:20 gets you 2:01:08. The race conversion calculators are not perfect but they are pretty good and most of them (plus an old point table system from the early 70s that I have a hard copy of) give relatively convergent estimates.

• You can do a similar analysis (with a dirt track conversion factor) for the mile, 3000m and 5000m and the records from the middle 60s look very similar to those up to about 1990.  Also the best performances since about 2008-10 (when drug testing got better) are slower than the current records and perhaps closer to the pre-doping values.

Ultimately, who knows which runner has been doing what over the last 20 or so years?  Who ran what race clean, who doped, and who was clean all of the time and who doped all of the time.   However, like the hour ride for Merckx, there is no evidence that the current elite runners are physiologically better than people from an earlier era when techniques to manipulate oxygen transport for a competitive edge were not available.

With the Tour de France set to start at the end of June, Major League Baseball in mid-season and international track and field winding up it, seems like a good time to review a few developments in the world of doping.  Where to start?

Baseball

The big doping news in baseball center around reports (starting last winter) that a Miami “clinic” was providing performance enhancing drugs to a number of high profile players.   Major League Baseball has obtained the records from the clinic and is considering action including the suspension of a large number of players.  The take home messages from this story include:

• Drug testing, both the tests and the way they are administered, remain beatable.
• High profile cases are frequently more about paper and financial trails than testing.
• Baseball seems to be taking this more seriously than in the past.

Track & Field

In April there were reports that some high profile distance runners were being treated with thyroid hormone “replacement” therapy.  Here is a link to a thoughtful analysis by the Science of Sport blog.  It raises a number of questions about therapeutic exemptions for athletes with real medical conditions.  The other big issue here is that if heavy training and competition alters key hormone levels should the athletes be permitted to use supplemental doses to get their levels back to “normal”.   This is a slippery slope and could lead to a situation where upper limits of normal for hormone levels and hematocrit are established and “doping” up to that level is allowed.  Perhaps the biological playing field would be level but what about individual variation and the challenge of working with what you have?  At some level this might already be happening with the use of low dose doping programs designed to fly under the testing radar.  For those of you wanting a deeper dive on this topic the links above are excellent and cover a lot of ground.

Cycling

A colleague sent me a link to a Velo News (the bible of Cycling) article on a new analysis of power outputs on iconic Tour de France mountain climbs.  The data come from a number of top cyclists over the last ~30 years and provides a color coded index of suspicion related to who might have been doping on what climb when.   The idea is that if you know a rider’s power output in watts/kg you can make reasonable estimates of oxygen consumption and that some of these power outputs would require people to be working at VO₂max for prolonged periods of time, at altitude, at the end of long rides with multiple climbs.  This is a collection of circumstances that seems physiologically unlikely at best.   The article is an interesting read and here is a link to the full analysis being published as a one time magazine and also a podcast interview with the author.

Summary

At one level the news is depressing and it appears that doping goes on more or less unchecked with ever more sophisticated “work arounds” to beat the testing.  At another level perhaps the testing, analysis and detective work are getting good enough to keep the lid on things to some extent.  This has been likened to having enough speed limit enforcement on the highways to keep most drivers close to the speed limit.  Perhaps this is the best we can hope for given the money and fame at stake in professional sports.

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A follow up to the recent Secretariat post from the Wall Street Journal.

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The Belmont Stakes horse race will be run this Saturday.  Forty years ago Secretariat won the 1.5 mile race by an incredible 31 lengths.  His time of 2:24 is faster by 2 seconds than the next fastest time posted over the last 40 years.  Some have argued that Secretariat’s run at the Belmont in 1973 is the greatest performance in sports history.  The video below shows this remarkable feat.

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Last summer during the Olympics I posted a number of videos of people like Bob Hayes and Jim Ryun and also wrote about the role of relaxation and rhythm in sports.  Note the length of the great horse’s stride and how little Secretariat’s head bobs.  From what I can tell his jockey never uses the whip.  Have you ever seen such power and relaxation at the same time?

Humans Still Getting Faster

One other piece of brain candy related to this is that as a result of selective breeding over several hundred years horses may have reached a plateau in terms of performance.  The figure below is from a fascinating 2008 paper that shows this for the three Triple Crown races.

By contrast, the data from humans suggest that we are still getting faster, at least in some events.  The human to animal comparison is confused by major changes in training, technique, equipment, and (unfortunately) doping for humans.  There are also more humans competing at a high level than ever before as the population grows and more people from more countries participate.  Things in horse racing have been relatively stagnant by comparison.  As I mentioned last summer when reasonable assumptions about artificial tracks are made it is unclear if performances are physiologically better now than in the 1960s.

Summary

Thinking about records and the limits of performance is an interesting intellectual exercise that can shed light on all sorts of things and fuel a lot of fun arguments.  Watching a performance like Secretariat’s always leaves me with a sense of awe.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Last weekend there was a piece in the New York Times on 16 year old Alana Hadley who is running more than 100 miles per week in hopes of breaking 2:40 for the marathon.  Her story is the most recent chapter in a long running debate about heavy training in general and marathon running in specific for teenagers and even younger kids.   I had several e-mail exchanges with Terry Laughlin and Amby Burfoot on the topic and here are some thoughts that might be of interest.

• Is this a good idea?  Who knows and who knows what motivates young people to do these things.  Everyone worries about parental pressure, but this is probably true for prodigies in any field.
• Would this be a big deal if she were a swimmer, a golfer or a tennis player?  These sports are full of teenage girls who have won at the highest levels.   Some of the early winners go on to long successful careers while others are one hit wonders.
• There is a general rule of thumb that most people can only really train at the highest level for perhaps 6-8 years.  This might be getting stretched with the emergence of financial opportunities, but eventually people get injured or choose to focus on other things.
• For younger runners is it best to focus on shorter distances and move up later?  In other words train for the mile or 2-mile (3,000m) and let the longer races come.
• This has happened before.   The best example was Wesley Paul who broke three hours when he was 9 years old.   Paul still runs but was never world class.  The link below is  what looks like a pretty good list of year specific records for the marathon.

Don’t forget Gerry Lindgren

In 1964, 18 year old Gerry Lindgren “beat the Russians” in the 10,000m in the USA-USSR track meet held in the Los Angeles Coliseum.  At the height of the Cold War this was seen as a David and Goliath like accomplishment. His high school 5k record stood for 40 years and is still probably the best ever if you consider is was run on a dirt track.  The brief video clip below shows Lindgren at age 19 breaking the world 6 mile record as he is nipped at the tape by the legendary Billy Mills.   Lindgren competed at the 1964 Olympics, and then went on to disappear and appear several more times and is a now you see him now you don’t collection of urban legends.   Perhaps the greatest ever and greatest never all wrapped up into one person.

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Last week I happened to see the ceremonial opening tee shot at the Masters golf tournament that featured Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Gary Player who are all great champions.  Palmer is 83, Nicklaus is 73, and Player 77.   What struck me as I watched was how well Player hit the ball at age 77.   The video clip below is from earlier in the year and shows Player hitting off the tee.   Here is a link to a slow motion video from a year ago.

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I am not a huge golf fan, but the flexibility, range of motion, rhythm and power of Player at age 77 is remarkable.  Player is also one of the first high profile athletes to really incorporate fitness training into his routine and he has kept at it as he ages and continues to participate and compete.   His program includes a lot of core strength exercises and he has some excellent tips about things like remembering to take the stairs.  Here are his “10 rules” on being an athlete, you can argue about some of the specifics, but on the whole he has it right.   His program and his rules might also be described as state of the art thoughts from someone who is aging well — extremely well.   He also makes a key point about staying engaged in life with his rule number 10:

“When I’m on vacation, I try to play golf with younger people, the fitter the better. I think you tend to take on the characteristics of the individuals you spend the most time with. Doing activities with young, healthy people has had a way of making me rise to their level. The best traits of young people–their optimism, curiosity, alertness and energy–are contagious and will definitely make you feel younger. “

Never Too Late!

Seeing Player hit the ball so well and reading about his fitness program reminded me that it is never too late to improve.   The clip below is of 95 year old Paul Lurie swimming with Terry Laughlin.  Lurie, like Player, shows outstanding flexibility and rhythm along with terrific overall technique.   I find the fact that Lurie is taking lessons and improving in his 90s as inspirational.

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Something Special?

It is tempting to argue that Player and Lurie are “something special”; however what they do is pretty typical of “healthy agers”.   And while the population as a whole gets fatter and less fit there is going to be a subset of people like Player and Lurie who both age and thrive.  I also think Player’s comments about doing things with younger people are right on the mark and a key part of the “staying engaged in life” element of successful or active aging.  Some have argued that aging has become overly medicalized and that as the world gets older we need a new paradigm focused on the many positive aspects of aging and how to promote them.  Player and Lurie are good examples of what a new aging paradigm might look like.