USADA's Reasoned Decision

USADA recently released the evidence that it had accrued against Lance Armstrong and the United States Postal Service (USPS) team. It is available on the USADA website. The most interesting piece in the document is the Reasoned Decision, all the witness testimonies are collated and we get a behind the scenes look at the culture of the USPS team at that point.

Before I go into any depth about this I think it is relevant to note that prior to reading this document I was aware that doping was going on in cycling over that period, however I was not aware of the extent to which it was happening. My view on Lance previously was that he probably blood doped, but didn't take any performance enhancing drugs and that when he came out of retirement he was probably not doping.

This document was definitely an eye opener. I have read most of the reasoned decision (I skipped all the boring procedural stuff at the start and the end) and it really reads like a biography of Lance, assuming that everything in the document is true. There seems to be no reason to think otherwise, there are 21 witness testimonies that they rely on. 11 of these are cyclists on Lance's team at one point and there are also other witnesses involved with and highly trusted by the team. All their testimonies correlate events that happened and there are other sources of evidence including bank statements that emails that confirm the testimonies of the witnesses. 

So we believe the witnesses, but why did they come out now, suddenly realising that they had cheated and breaking the code of silence. The attitude towards doping has changed a lot in recent years. Suddenly everyone who achieves greatness is tainted with the possibility of doping, not just by the public but by the media. With an increasing number of athletes being caught from tests performed years after collection, it was something like 7 athletes tested positive for CERA from the Athens games. The world of sport in general is more aware of doping and cycling in particular is aware of it. There have been a number of athletes come out and admit to doping and with that bringing light to the culture of doping within professional cycling as well as a number of very high profile cyclists testing positive for banned substances, Floyd Landis, Alberto Contador, Frank Schleck to name a few. The wall behind which the doping was taking place has been starting to show some cracks.

Then along came Floyd Landis who in 2010 finally admitted that he was actually doping after testing positive in 2006. He went on to accuse many of his team mates including Lance were systematically doping. This prompted an investigation into the possibility of USPS funds being used fraudulently, i.e to dope. This investigation and court case didn't end up finding anything but all of the evidence was passed onto USADA. Now providing sufficient evidence that funds from a sponsor were used to dope, and that doping was occurring are completely different. This is when a number of riders were approached by USADA to give testimonies against Lance and the systematic doping occurring the USPS team at that point. 

There was a growing body of evidence that doping was occurring in the team but any previous accusations of doping Lance had successfully passed off. There needed to be a large body of evidence. I believe that there was some pressure from USADA, you don't suddenly have a group of cyclists walk up to USADA and start confessing. However the wall has been cracking, all it needed was a little force to come down completely.

Now that this is all out in the open what does it mean for cycling? All the media focus has been primarily on Lance, and yes I am guilty of writing about Lance for all of this post. However I think this evidence is bigger than Lance. There is one incident in the report where Lance allegedly tested positive for EPO at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland. 

Armstrong’s conversation with Hamilton was in 2001, and he told Hamilton “his people had been in touch with UCI, they were going to have a meeting and everything was going to be ok.”247 Armstrong’s conversation with Landis was in 2002, and Landis recalled Armstrong saying that, “he and Mr. Bruyneel flew to the UCI headquarters and made a financial agreement to keep the positive test hidden.” Consistent with the testimony of both Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Landis, Pat McQuaid, the current president of UCI, has acknowledged that during 2002, Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel visited the UCI headquarters in Aigle in May 2002 and offered at least $100,000 to help the development of cycling. 

This event is also surrounded by team directors knowing when doping officials will be turing up, infusion of saline solution to lower hematocrit levels while the doping official is dealing with other athletes from the team that are known to have a lower hematocrit. Random out of competition testing rather than targeted to specific athletes. Being able to just not answer the door when a doping official turned up without any consequence. Training from a hotel so remote that doping officials wouldn't be bothered to turn up and taking drugs at night because doping officials are unlikely to turn up and the drugs will be out of the system in the morning. The UCI was responsible for the testing of elite level cyclists and we have a system that is predictable and incredibly open to doping. There have been some changes and improvements to the system, however the same organisation and people in control of that organisation.

In contrast to how this appears, I think that this is possibly the best thing that could happen to cycling. There is the opportunity to accept that doping was a part of the sport and that there is going to be definite change, a change in the anti-doping methodology, with targeted testing and a comprehensive out of competition testing regime. There is the opportunity for deep organisational change within cycling, to have a fresh start where doping isn't a main talking point of the sport. I think cycling should change for the better, do you?

Race Report - Sydney Marathon

So I decided to run a marathon, well actually decided is probably not the best term. Convinced is more accurate. After running the SMH Half Marathon one of my work colleagues was going to run it and somehow persuaded me it was a good idea.

Race day morning, it's a 04:45 wake up. The race doesn't start until 07:30 but I have a pathological need to be early. So early it was. Actually by the time you wait in line for the toilets being early is a necessity. I get to Milsons Point (start line) at 06:25 and warm up a bit. Yes I know that by the time I actually start running that there is negligible benefit. But it's my process of getting ready and knowing that I am feeling good on the day. 

How did I go? My marathon time was 3:34, not quite what I would have liked but still a reasonable time. But this doesn't tell the whole story. Going in to the race I didn't know what time I was going to run. I had decided that 3:00 was too quick since my half marathon PB was only 1:28. It is also a PB in the sense that that I have only raced a half marathon once. And about 3:30 was what I thought would be a reasonable time to run. 

Something that I seem to always do in a race is go out too hard. In fact I can't remember I ran a negative split. I know I have this problem and I know I need to fix it because invariably I spend a fair portion of the race struggling to stand up let alone run. This time I had a plan, I had a set of paces that I would attempt to hold in certain parts of the race. Well it was a plan for the first half of the race. Run the first 10 km at 4:25-4:30 pace and then the next 10 km at 4:20-4:25 pace and then hopefully finish faster than that.  Problem was I was feeling too good at the start my running was effortless, relaxed, smooth and quick. So quick in fact that I was particularly greedy in thinking that I could finish the marathon in under 3 hours. The 3:00 pacer was just too tempting a target to catch. It sat just 100m in front of me for the first 26 km of the race. I ran through the half marathon point at just over 1 min off my best time. Yes this was a recipe for disaster. 

26km came and went and then my groin decided that it wasn't going to play nice. No not one of the main running muscles, but a stabilising one. This was really problematic and probably highly amusing as I was trying to run in a straight line but one leg was going kinda crazy. This wasn't a massive problem to begin with but as a marathon can only do it brings out the worst in you. The bit that is giving you a reason that this is all too hard and that it is perfectly fine to give up. 

Running is just as much a mental battle as a physical one, especially at these distances and beyond. Those moments when rolling down the hill seems like a much better alternative to running (I didn't actually try this but was very nearly tempted) or you are too exhausted to have a mental breakdown. At the end of the day the most important thing is finishing the race, finishing what I start is something that I hold in high regard (the definition of start may be a little loose though) and really if I was silly enough to enter and to put myself in this position then well I have to be silly enough to finish :P.

Will I run another marathon? At the moment all the muscles in my body are saying no. But I know that I can do better and I want to do better so chances are I will be running another marathon in the not too distant future.  

A Sensible Choice of Units

I am a scientist, or at least I spend so much time pretending to be one that I may as well be one. One of my pet peeves are units, those things that go on the end of numbers and give them meaning, well only some units actually achieve this.

There are many systems of units in use today, read any news and you will be bombarded with weight in elephants (usually it doesn't specify whether this refers to the African elephant or its slightly smaller relative the Indian elephant), length in busses and volume in Sydney Harbours. The issue facing any unit is how big is it. It has to be well defined so that I can come along with my elephant and confidently say that it weighs 1.143 elephants. This really doesn't make sense so we have a collection of units, the Systeme International (it's French) which at he Metre convention became official global system of units.

So what are the SI units. Starting with the seven base units of Kilogram, Meter, Second, Candela, Kelvin, Mole and Ampere. From these units all other SI units can be derived from these. Those of you in the US and UK are now thinking yeah that's fine but what's wrong with miles and feet and pounds.

Firstly science is done in SI units because they are so much easier to work with. Let's say I run 10 000 m I know this is 10 km because the SI is a prefixed based system. I can also say I ran 10 000 000 mm or 0.01 Mm. With yards and miles you actually have to think. This is really useful for small measurements, the current generation of transistors are 22 nm, if we used inches we are looking at a millionth of an inch. If you are still not convinced we can compare this to the previous generation of transistors at 25 nm, or a millionth of an inch. Unless you want to write out all 6 figures you can't differentiate between the two.

Furthermore when giving the rise of a race feet is generally used, but miles is used for the distance. These are not comparable, and you have to convert to find the gradient. Using SI however you have kilometers and meters and you just need to move a decimal point 3 places. No calculators and minimal thinking involved.

SI is the system of units that has been globally accepted by Metrologists (people that measure stuff) as the standard global system because it is easy to work with. The imperial system is archaic and defined based on the SI units. So seriously, don't use it!

The Dream

There is a time every now and then, but not often enough when everything aligns correctly and your running is effortless. You feel like you are on top of the world and no trail is going to stop you. This is The Dream.

This past weekend I had one of those runs, my last long run before I run a marathon. I had some niggling injuries going into the weekend, and was very cautious about this run that I had planned, 30 km was the goal distance. If I could run that then I would be feeling relatively confident about being able to finish a marathon. I also threw in a few hills and plenty of trail running to keep things fun. My route ended up looking a lot like this:

Yes it is straight from Garmin Connect.

The first 5 km were a bit tentative but afterwards nothing was going to stop me, Even a building site blocking off the trail. I was running mostly 5 min kms where there was room to stride out, something even I was surprised about. Even at the end of the run I felt I could have gone further.

Hopefully I haven't peaked too early but this marathon is looking like it could be a good one

Sudden Onset Pre-Race Anxiety (SOPRA)

Today marks 3 weeks until my first marathon distance race. I am entered in the Blackmores Sydney Running Festival Marathon. A coworker encouraged me to enter this event just after I had run my first half marathon and she had run half the North Face 100 as part of a teams event. So there were endorphin highs all-round, I felt I could conquer anything. There was nothing logical about entering back then.

Fast forward to today, with only a couple of runs over 20 km, feeling absolutely terrible on others and getting in nowhere near as many km's as I would like suddenly everything is not looking so rosy. 

Actually it is, all rosy red and painful. This is not usually a problem, as an endurance athlete* you would understand that pain is addictive and I am addicted to it. It is the mental aspect that is hard to deal with, not just getting through the race but dealing with the disappointments along the way.
* Endurance athlete only loosely applies to me.

Everyone has some sort of goal, in a race this usually manifests itself as a time. A magical number that will justify all the work that you have put into this preparation. Not meeting this goal is disappointing to say the least, suddenly you have to question everything. Did I prepare well enough? Was I hydrated? Did I have enough energy? Did I pace correctly? Did I follow my plan? Sure these are important but you really have to ask, was this goal achievable?

This is my problem, currently I have no idea if I can even run 42 km. Will I make the distance, or will I collapse in a quivering heap, for me there is no middle ground I will finish the race. That is just me, I have to finish what I start. Hiking the Coast Track one time I spent most of a night in hospital before going back and finishing the next day, but that is a story for another day.

I had already established that however nice, a sub 3 hour marathon although not beyond the realms of possibility is beyond the realms of probability especially in 3 weeks time. The cause of my SOPRA is now starting to doubt that I will be able to run a 3:30 marathon. Looking on the bright side this a bit of a kick up the backside to get me working harder.

So sub 3:30 marathon in 3 weeks...Bring it on!

Google Pagerank

As of 17:45 on the 26th Aug 2012 I have had 1 view of my first post. In an attempt to remedy this fact I am going to exploit Google's PageRank algorithm.

PageRank was developed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were at Stamford University. They then went and set up a web search engine, Google, using this algorithm. It assigns a probability of an imaginary web surfer landing on a page by randomly clicking links on other pages. There is also a random element, a probability that the web surfer will enter an address of a web page. 

Currently PageRank is only one of many tools that Google uses to order pages in it's search results, however this link to my first post about USADA's case against Lance Armstrong has approximately doubled it's PageRank.

Proof by hand waving (read at your own risk)

The probability of landing on my first post is simply the random factor divided by the number of pages on the web. Having a second post doubles the chances of landing on my blog. Now we also have a link to my first post on the second post, and random factor is small, we can assume that the probability of moving from the page of the second post to the first is approximately 1. So we add the two probabilities together to get double the initial probability.

If that made no sense I did warn you to read at your own risk. Equations would be nice but that is not one of my main concerns. This blog thing is new to me and I still have to work out/on prettifying it. 

USADA and Lance Armstrong

You probably have your own opinion whether Lance was doping or not, we are probably never going to find out. But what I think is more important to take from this is that USADA's case against Lance.

As a professional athlete Lance will have kept his anti doping agency informed of all his movements, in this case USADA. The same applies to athletes from any other country. This allows the governing body to perform random out of competition tests at any point. There are severe consequences for not adhering to this. Skipping a test carries the same penalties as testing positive as Zoltan Kovago, the Hungarian Discus thrower found out at the olympics.

So USADA was convinced Lance was doping (if they are now I'm sure they were back then), and they had the opportunity and resources to test him at any time, yet he has passed every test. So what does this say about USADA's testing regime.

Tests have been developed to detect most drugs: EPO, HGH, steroids, corticosteroids, stimulants, even designer drugs like CERA. These are looking at minute quantities, down to nanogram per millilitre quantities ( or parts per billion). Problem is being a drug it will be metabolised and excreted from the body, so they only stick around for so long. This is where a good testing program can make all the difference. If you are testing athletes when they are likely to be taking the drugs, months before a large competition then athletes that are doping have a higher chance of being caught. 

So lets assume that Lance was doping for the 7 years that he won the tour. USADA had 7 years and hundreds of opportunities for their testing to coincide with his doing regime. 

With USADA casting away the hundreds of negative samples in favour of the word of a collection of confirmed dopers they are throwing away the credibility of their testing process and with it the confidence that sport really is drug free. 

So who's next, Michael Phelps?