The sun is up, the air is fresh, the stone is old

Tracey Lokken was in there at third, a good guy. Legit and confident but he backs it up with hard work.

Yeah, I forgot to include him above. Last week Walter asked me what I thought guys would be running and I told him Tracy would run a 1:10 or 1:11. He ended up running a 1:11 and he is legit. Trains like crazy and well respected.

I think the only way to clean this stuff up is test the top 5 in every championship until it's cleaned up. One of my friends in Dallas working in sports medical says they are dealing with all kinds issues with guys trying to handle the side effects of these drugs. Recreational over 40 athletes. Women our age don't seem to have the same problem.

I got your message, I'll give you a call later. I'm working through the afternoon late today. I am planning on that race still. It would be fun to spend some time with you there.

Another interesting article

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/sports/runner-christian-hesch-describes-doping-with-epo.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1391461350-qcF DvXuMTVqtqrF02bCQ

Only a partial list of banned Kenyans right now:

Basweti Jynocel Onyancha M (Boldenone)

Banned 22.1.12. (Two years ineligibility until 4 July 2014)

Marathon runner but not an elite one

Biwott Salome Jerono F (Norandrosterone)

Banned 28.10.12. (Two years ineligibility until 24 January 2015)

2hr 26min female marathon runner

Erupe Wilson Loyanae M (EPO)

Banned 4.1.13. (Two years ineligibility until 3 February 2015)

2hr 05min marathon time puts him in top 30 of all time

Jelagat Liliane F (EPO)

Banned 29.6.13. (Two years ineligibility until 18 July 2015)

10km runner but not international quality

Jepkorir Peris F (Norandrosterone)

Banned 5.5.13. (Two years ineligibility until 30 July 2015)

2hr 38min marathon runner

Kahenya Pauline F (Prednisone & Prednisolone)

Banned 3.3.13. (One year ineligibility until 21 April 2014)

Won Milan half-marathon earlier this year

Kigen Genoveva F (Clenbuterol)

Banned 28.5.12. (Two years ineligibility 24 June 2014)

Ran all distances from 3,000m to marathon but never an elite athlete

Kimaiyo Nahashon M (Prednisolone)

Banned 25.11.12. (One year ineligibility until 8 January 2014)

2hr 10min marathon runner

Kimutai Andrew Ben M (Dexamethasone)

Banned 18.11.12. (One year ineligibility until 18 March 2014)

Ran Turin marathon in 2hr 18min last year. Not an elite athlete

Kiplagat Nixon M (Norandrosterone)

Banned 4.11.12. (Two years ineligibility until 9 December 2014)

2hr 14min marathon runner

Kisorio Matthews M (Norandrosterone)

Banned 14.6.12. (Two years ineligibility until 10 July 2014)

Competed in world cross-country championships and has run third fastest half-marathon ever

Kiyara Rael F (Norandrosterone)

Banned 29.4.12. (Two years ineligibility until 18 July 2014)

Successful 2hr 24min female marathon runner

Kurgat Moses M (Salbutamol)

Banned 23.10.12. (Two years ineligibility until 14 December 2014)

2hr 08min marathon runner

Kyeva Cosmas M (Norandrosterone)

Banned 5.2.12. (Two years ineligibility until 26 February 2014)

3,000m steeplechase, moved up to marathon

Nyaboke Asiba Neriah F (Norandrosterone)

Banned 4.11.12. (Two years ineligibility until 17 December 2014)

2hr 35min female marathon runner

Rutto Ronald M (EPO)

Banned 23.4.12. (Two years ineligibility until 5 June 2014)

Steeplechaser and marathon runner

Wairuri Anthony M (Norandrosterone)

Banned 28.10.12. (Two years ineligibility until 20 January 2015)

2hr 09min marathon runner

Most of the people on that list are just plain stupid (for getting caught). The best way to make/keep things clean is

1) Test all the top finishers at championships and prize money events, like you said

2) Biological passport w/ out of competition testing

Unfortunately those things cost $$$ (esp the passport system) which would take away from prize money, and potentially would deter events from wanting to host championships.

Its a tough situation and there aren't easy solutions.

Yep, test them all. It's pretty cheap. EPO is the biggest cheat right now and easy to test. Publish results so race directors don't have to give them money. I'm tested every six months as a pilot. Not a big deal and cheap to do. I'm not sure what the biological passport is. I'm going to look at that.

Just checked that out. What a great idea! I just think athletes should pay for it. Kind of like a professional license. If you are interested in collecting money or in national titles you hold the license. Years back I started flying for a company out of Chicago. In order to fly in and out of that airport I had to agree to pay for certification badge. That badge had a background check, fingerprinting, and drug tests. I had to carry the cost if I wanted to make money there. I don't work there any more but the program still operates.

I don't necessarily think its THAT cheap to test. Maybe relative to bigtime pro sports, but it would take a chunk out of a running event's budget. You're probably talking a couple thousand dollars to test the Top 5 M/W at a race, plus you need coordination w/ a local lab.

Now if USATF/USADA partnered w/ some central mainstream laboratory in a situation like you suggested, I bet the price could drop exponentially.

But that's not going to happen. I don't think anyone wants to blow the system up. Tyson Gay was banned almost a year ago... we still don't know what for.

Mary Akor just got nabbed too. I have run with her and thought that she was a class act until she got caught cheating too.

Steve, saw this article and it made me worry about expeditions like yours last year where you took a huge group across the Grand Canyon. Might want to avoid big, inexperienced groups in the future or all of us may be shut out. Goal number one: minimize impact, don't attract attention.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/27/grand-canyon-tourism-changes/4220477/

Jeff, I hadn't heard that. That's sad. I deleted most of my comments on this master's drug thing because there's just too many uncertainties and you can cause too much hate even by pointing a finger, but it's a serious mess.

Jon, that's an interesting article. We do have to be careful how we use these lands. I have a lot of problems with this thing though. Those lands, like all national parks, belong to the people. Park services have ran into a lot of problems restricting these parks which they have no right to do. It's not an exaggeration to say that a lot of park service people would like to restrict the entire canyon so that you could just look down into it from the rim. I've talked to some of those.

I also have seen none of the things described by the negative comments. Runners are not sleeping on benches, mobbing Phantom Ranch, pushing hikers off trails, leaving trash, and being rude. I have seen a lot of what was described by the other paragraph, hikers high fiving you, increased attention and respect for national parks, rangers helping us with RV repairs and even free camping.

I also think there is a push from NPS for extra staffing and some of their publicity about runners is to get staffing back and start pouring some money into the corridor. That would be a good thing.

I've been thinking about this canyon thing through the morning. When we do run this again this article is something we will all read and talk about. I think two things that made a big difference with our group run was letting the Park Service know we were going to be there, involving them in our planning, and cutting out runners quick who couldn't make it.

A natural human trend when you have something neat is to hide it or posses it. I'm not into that, I hate it. If I had the ability I would get every American I could off their asses and video games and into our National Parks. We need to teach our kids how to respect them and use our schools to teach them the history of them. Every person in that group now has a better understanding of how amazing that canyon is. They will be involved in defending and protecting it. They'll take their kids to it. It's one more step away from the live in your living room, buy and throw away, Wal-Mart mentality in our country. I hope to get a group to run East to West this year.

Steve,

I completely agree that more people should be doing these activities, not fewer. And technically, it is "our" land. That being said, as Death Valley just showed, one ticked off government bureaucrat or park worker can shut down the whole thing. Very selfish and stupid to shut people out, but they can do it. And that makes it so all future runners can't do the Big Ditch.

Glad to hear you'll be going again. Per the above link, hopefully your group doesn't get too big and unwieldy. I don't think I'd do the run in a group bigger than 4 and really keep our impact to a minimum.

Last thought- you said last time you guys coordinated your RV parking with the rangers and had their numbers in case of problems. My thought is that even talking to them before attracts attention, not sure if good or not. And while they let you park against normal rules (as dumb as I think those rules are), I could imagine the park chief showing up and being annoyed, not knowing you arranged it, and making some impactful new rules. Not trying to get anyone upset, just sharing my perspective and fears. We all want to keep the GC open so we can keep running it. My view is small groups of experienced runners who don't attract any attention is the best way to do that. Not sure if big groups with quite a few runners who don't make it fits the bill.

Anyways, my two cents. Your thoughts?

Enjoy.

I love this kind stuff, I could talk about it all day. :-) I get the opportunity to run in a lot of strange places. I consider it "other people's land". If you take the chance to talk to them beforehand and you are well prepared, things go much smoother. I think the problem of national parks right now is that even though the sedentary population is growing larger, more people do nothing than ever before, the percentage of people who are extremely fit is growing. The amount of people who are out there in the wilderness doing freaky cool stuff is growing. The Park Service can handle visitors, gawkers, the ones who look from the railing and then go to the gift shop. Now they are dealing with runners who travel farther and faster in their own parks than they do. Nearly all are in better shape than they are and have more experience on trails and survival than they do. It's incredibly hard for a person in that situation to admit they have to step up their game. The natural instinct is to fight back, to find fault in what they are doing. When I first ran in the canyon my reaction was to fight back. You can see that in my first R2R2R report. I've since come to the belief that you can get the rangers interested in what you're doing. You find they are more interested in working with people who can read topo maps, know the weather, and are prepared physically than another set of tourists. In fact this Spring a ranger will be running with us on our R2R2R, off the clock of course.

As far as camping and rules go, there was no other solution on that trip. PS is trying different options for North Rim management. This Fall they closed the campgrounds but kept the gift shop open. Since camping is only permitted in campgrounds that shut down all overnight hikers and runners. Nobody was happy with it. The rangers thought it was stupid. The best route was talking to the rangers about what we were doing. I think as PS gets more exposure to this canyon running they will support it more. I hope maybe by working with them they understand us more.

I don't believe in controlling impact by limiting use of public lands. I don't think we touch the trails enough. When I lived in Switzerland I discovered the Swiss hiking. Families hiked every evening and weekends as groups. I have pictures of hikes we did as groups of fifty. It's no surprise to me that when you get deep into the canyon it's Germans and Swiss you run into. They love the land. The future of our land use comes from more exposure to the trails, not in controlling them. Just my two cents.

But I'm learning lots right now with all this. In a few weeks I'll be running my first ultra, well, kind of-a 50k. It's along the trails in Moab that I've done since I was a little kid, Gemini Bridges, Poison Spider, and Pritchett. I don't know if I'll love it or not. But Moabs one of those places that has shown it can take almost every kind of land abuse and survive.

I agree with Jake. I think they should test the top 5 finishers that are in the money. I won $600.00 for 5th so I told the Race director I would be happy to do a post race test ASAP at a fair testing center if he made the other 4 in front of me test. Then I can feel better against watching Kevin run the way he did. I have never run a half marathon where the leader had a 30 second lead on me at mile one. My first mile was 5:13. The guy is on something! Those aren't 40 year old legs. Lol

Good article on Kevin in this month's Running Times. I know there have been a lot of accusations surrounding him, but I've run against him and he's a heck of a competitor. Its definitely possible to run really fast at that age. Wait until Haile Geb makes his masters marathon debut in May... he's probably going to run like 2:05! :-)

I really hope you are right. It would be awesome to know that some of these masters have nailed this. Gives me hope.

Look at Scott 2 weeks ago! He's 39.9 and probably clean :-)

Maybe we should ask him. I've kind of been wondering... :-)