Episode 443: Ultra Updates - Cheating in Ultra?

This episode covers some current topics in the ultramarathon world. Topics covered include; big name injuries a result of high volume training and shoes, has ultramarathon growth and access resulted in cheating, Gerda Steyn the Queen of Comrades.

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Episode Transcript:

Alight, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Human Performance Outliers podcast. I'm your host, Zach Bitar. I'm going solo today with a bit of an ultra running current event or topic based episode. I'm going to start doing a few more of these as we see some interesting stories kind of roll across the ultra running scene. Try to keep them a little short, keep them a little more kind of off the cuff type stuff. So if it's kind of a first pass for me at some of these topics, and I'm very open to criticism and any way that I should be thinking about these things differently. So if you listen to this one and be like, hey, Zach, you're way off base, check this out. Definitely send it my way. Happy to take a look at any of this stuff, as I sort of continue to dive into some of these topics as they continue to evolve. Today's episode has a few interesting topics. One is just injuries in the sport. Is it due to things like improper training methodologies, or is it the footwear and then cheating in the sport? Do we have a cheating problem in ultramarathon running? Because there's been a couple stories or a few stories kind of rolling around the socials these days that have kind of revolved around that topic a little bit. And then ultimately I want to touch on the Comrades Marathon that happened this weekend, which I think is a phenomenal event that probably doesn't get as much attention in the US as it should. So just a few things about that as well. First one is I was actually listening to the single track podcast with Finn. Great podcast, by the way. He had a group on a group panel and they were talking about different Western states. They were sort of previewing that and things like that. And one of the topics that they talked about that I found really interesting was just sort of like. Big injury news around the event where we kind of had like in a very short period of time. A few notable athletes, including Jim Walmsley and Hayden Hawkes, withdrew from the race because of injury. And this sort of like weaved into, a topic around is this something where like the training is driving injury, are the super shoes and the premium foams that people are wearing causing these injuries that are putting us in a position where we're missing out on some of our top talent, finding their way to the starting line to some of these big events because of it. And I found that really interesting. especially because since I'm dealing with an injury myself right now, getting through it, I'm, I'm, I'm sort of in a pretty good spot with it right now, but still continuing to kind of finalize that process. I found it kind of interesting because, you know, one of the topics they talked about was just like high mileage, as like, we're getting closer to Western states. You start seeing some of these public profiles who share their training, start stacking some really, really huge miles. And is that something that's sustainable or not? And, you know, when we start talking about training weeks at 120, 240 miles and things like that, it is a topic where you do have to ask yourself, is that necessary? Is it something that is going to be more harmful than good? You know, the way I would summarize that topic as a whole. For me personally, my view on it is I think there's probably a place for high mileage training like that. And it probably should be very specific to the buildup to the race and not be something that you're trying to maintain year round. Is it something that we're going to see more of as a sport gets more competitive, and people try to find really small margins to improve upon above their competition and maybe lean into their strengths if they're able to tolerate more volume than the average person. Yeah we will. So does that mean we're probably going to see more injuries going into the sport, into the race itself? Probably going to see that as well, to the degree that the shoes have something to do with that. it could you know, I think it's like one of those things where we have two things to consider there, like the super shoes, the premium foams. They are going to provide a little bit of a softer ride, and that is going to be helpful. In some cases you may take on some less loading in some areas, but usually when we start getting into the really high end performance versions of these shoes, in order to get as much performance out of them as these brands try to. Get. You're going to sacrifice things like stability. And when we start talking about, you know, stability while running these big mileage weeks and things like that, if that's creating issues where you're loading other areas, even if you're relieving some, you're probably going somewhere, right? You know, you're going to have an issue where there's going to be probably more, more issues related to the mechanic changes and these sort of things. So, you know, people are going to have to do a lot more work over the years to figure out kind of what the right dosage is with that sort of a product and how to kind of phase it in at a gradual enough rate in order to not have it become something that they're searching for a small percentage improvement with that, but costing themselves a starting spot on a big race like like Western states. So that's kind of my first thought with that particular topic. One of the bigger topics here today, though, is kind of like the cheating within the sport or, that's probably a little bit of a drastic way to put it, because I think the the main topic here is more around rules and where their value is and which ones we should appreciate and which ones we should. Maybe as a sport, recognize it too much, too soon? Are we going about this the wrong way? And how can we get a little more specific for our particular sport versus what maybe we see in other other sports that have a much bigger funding, much bigger group and testing pool of people to kind of run some of these things on. So there's a couple podcasts of interest that I've had. One was with Davy Crockett, where we covered kind of the history of ultramarathon, and we got into a topic about some of these multi-day races and how old and historic those actually are to the degree where they date back hundreds of years. So just. Even though they're just starting to kind of gain more popularity nowadays in these like 48 hour and six day type events. They had a very rich history and they were very, very competitive back in the late 1800s, early 1900s. So if you want to kind of get into that, check out that episode that I did with Davy Crockett. another one I did is I had a couple reps from Gomo, which is the global organization of multi-day ultras, which is a essentially a organization that is trying to help bridge the gap between some of the more traditional governing bodies and our sport, because our sport has needs that just aren't getting met by organizations like World Athletics, or even like even governing bodies are specific to ultramarathon running, like the International Association of Ultra Runners or the IAU. So for some background there, World Athletics technically only recognizes the 50 kilometer and the 100 kilometer races. And in terms of world records, that's all they care about. Those are two very small pieces to the sport. So it's kind of like they dip their toe in on a couple that they find important for one reason or the other, but don't really bother with the rest. And we get a little more specific with the International Association of Ultrarunning or Ultra Runners, I should say IAU. And you know, they respect or honor world records, certify world records for 50 K, 100 K, six hour, 12 hour, 100 miles, 24 hours, 48 hours and six days. So they're getting a little bit closer, but it's still not inclusive to the degree where I would say. All right, we've got our bases covered. The whole sport is accounted for. And we have some organization in place that we can kind of look at this without a whole bunch of weird things that, like, we can't really discern from where. An example of this would be. We have world records and we have world bests. So depending on what country or what governing body and what organization is looking at it, you know, it might be called a world record, it might be called a world best. And it just gets really confusing, I think at the end of the day, because then you have to ask yourself, well, what kind of rules do we apply to world records versus world bests? Should they be the same? Should we put them all under the same category? How do we kind of do that? To me personally, I think the sport of ultrarunning probably needs to just embrace that it's unique and come up with an organization that sort of covers the sport as a whole, and maybe even move away from organizations like World Athletics. Or if the International Association of Ultra Runners wants to be partly involved in that wholly involved, make that sort of a system where it's like, yeah, get all involved or not at all. And I understand that's going to be complicated because there's going to be resources and funding that make that doable or not doable. But I think realistically, when you look at the whole history of the sport and the fact that like record keeping is, is, you know, really different back hundreds of years ago and certainly like, certainly like legalities around like doping and things were way different. They weren't really testing anything back then. And in fact, there's plenty of evidence that people were on all sorts of things that would be considered illegal performance enhancers today that were setting world class marks and in the record books, so to speak, That, would just simply not be validated nowadays. So the reason this topic becomes interesting right now is we've seen a lot of marks get put up for events like the 24 hour, the 48 hour, and the sixth day on both the men's and women's side of the sport, where there's been a lot of conversation online, just about like, are these real world records or not? And, you know, you have stakeholders. You have former and current world record holders on both the men's and women's side, between Yanis Kouros and Camille Herren, who are publicly voicing their concerns around these things and criticizing organizations like Gomo about maybe not being as strict as they should be about these things. And, you know, to me, I think it's something where at the end of the day, I would just kind of like to see some consistency in the sense that we look at the sport as unique and we look at it through the lens of, what are we actually trying to get out of this here? Because. If you want to play like real hard line with this and be like, okay, we need to apply a bunch of different rules and a bunch of different processes to make sure that these things are all uniform great, but we also need to be consistent with that and honest about it, because the stricter we get with that sort of thing, the more stretched thin we get with the resources we currently have within ultramarathon running, that it becomes a very inclusive project where in order to break a world record, now, the amount of resources and opportunities you have to have gets to be such a high bar to clear that most people won't even have access to it. So where I may see a problem with this topic is you'll get someone who wants to have all those parameters put in place, but also wants inclusivity in the sport. It's like we're kind of at a point in our growth period with ultrarunning, where you can't really have both. You can't have inclusivity where pretty much anyone can find access to a timed event at some point, but very few people can have access to one where it's actually going to come anywhere close to being fully certified in a way where you could walk away with a world record performance and actually have that certified. So I think there's a conversation there to be had about where we are in our growth, in our sport, and where does that place us in how strict we are with the sort of the rules that we put in place in order to certify a record or a world best? my personal opinion here is I think I really don't like half measures. I don't like it where I don't like the fact that we have things in place where it's like, okay, we have a piece to the puzzle in place, but not the whole puzzle. An example of this would be doping control. So if you look at like Olympics, Olympics, track and field doping control is multifaceted, where if you break a world record or win a medal, you're going to get tested right after that race, and that's going to give you a pass or a non pass in terms of whether that is certified. But you're also going to have that athlete that is going to have that in a testing pool, where they can just randomly select you during your training way outside of an event and say, okay, we need you to produce a sample to make sure that you're not cheating when you're training. Because the reality is, it'd be quite easy for somebody with even minimal resources to cheat while they're training and then stop cheating. Essentially stop doping just in time so that when they show up to an event, they don't test positive after the event. So the reason that's important is because every athlete knows in the Olympics they're going to get tested after the event. What they don't know is whether they're going to get tested when and where in training. So you need that element of surprise in order to catch people who are trying to skirt the rules. In ultrarunning, the best we have at this point, and it's very, very seldom still is these post-race testing. And when we're looking at organizations like the IAU or World Athletics, they are going to require that you officially acquire a world record for one of the events that they recognize. So when the global organization of multi-day ultras decided to come up and try to kind of fill the gap between what those two organizations aren't covering in our sport, you know, there is a topic or a question there of like, what rules do they should they have to apply, who should they have to work with in order to validate some of these things and call it a world record or a world best? And that's where I think a lot of the controversy comes up, where we have a situation where I think one thing that Gomo has been trying to do is really get into the sport specifics and look at which rules that World Athletics or the IAU would apply are maybe not as necessary or don't make any sense. And the best example of this would be pacing. So there's a pacing rule where, like if you are in a race and you're pacing another runner intentionally, you can get dq'd for that. And the way that they apply that rule is sort of subjective, where it's like if you are not any longer competitive in that race. And you start pacing someone that's illegal. So this makes sense in events like the five K or the ten K where if if I fall out of that race, if I'm not competing there with the leaders and I fall back and I get lapped, and then I jump back in and start pacing somebody to help them get to the finish line quicker. That would be violating that pacing rule, because I'm no longer competitive in that event, and now I'm helping other runners, runners or runners to get to the finish line faster. So that makes a ton of sense to me in terms of why you would have that rule in place. But now if we take that same rule and apply it to ultra running, when we're getting into some of these events that are spanning multiple days, if you get lapped on one of these short loop courses, you are nowhere near out of the race. You're still competing. So if you're a couple laps behind somebody and then you start running with them, because that is an aspect of the sport. If you watch any major marathon, any Olympic event, you're going to have pacing tactics where people will take the lead and people sit on them and use them as a tool to try to, you know, relieve some of the physiological and psychological stress of having to lead a race. it's just different when you, when you're in these multi-day things because, like, where is that line where you're out of the race versus not because you could be miles and miles behind five days into a six day and still be in the race, because if the other person drops out and you keep moving, you can make up that time. So I think that's just an example of like, how do we kind of come up with a strategy or a structure where it applies to the sports specifics versus just trying to apply things that make no sense from other events that are kind of like directionally the same. It's all running or moving, I guess, at the end of the day. but not similar enough to have these same rules apply. Another one that is just kind of interesting to me is the way that we just look at things around the timing of stuff. So like I was getting this a little bit with the doping before, but like, you know, a scenario where say you have a race finish and you know, you have to test this athlete in order to produce a sample where, where they, they prove that they don't have anything illegal in their system. I think just doing that is sort of like a half measure because again, I don't even know what it really proves. I've been tested multiple times after races. I've been tested prior to world 100 K's in 2014. That was actually a blood sample that got randomly selected and brought in to test for that. I've been tested after all my world records that I had broken in the past. I got tested after winning the 100 mile road championships in 2021. I passed them all, obviously, or I would have been a storyline. but I don't even really know what that proves. You know, I can say. Oh, yeah, I passed my postrace drug test. It's cool. But I was never tested at all during training. And, you know, if it goes back to I was talking about before, like anyone who wants to try to cheat, they're going to do that in the training and then they're going to taper off of it to the degree where it doesn't show up in their post race, when they can predict that they're likely going to get a test done to them if they want to get their their records certified. So to the degree that we get like overly complicated in terms of some of that stuff, I just find it to be like, if we're going to apply, like doping control to some of these markers, then we should maybe try to come up with a strategy where we do it right, right out the gate versus apply a piece to it, and then hope to get to a point where we can apply the other pieces as we get further along. I know, it's very complicated. I don't have a great answer as to how to do that, how to fund that, or how to really go about it in any way. I just think it's like a little bit of a kind of a gray area, gray area thing where it kind of puts us in a position where we end up having a lot of accusations that, you know, are are potentially valid by the rule book, but also kind of like maybe not in the spirit of the sports to some degree, where the precedents that we had and where we're at from a development standpoint as a sport, we just we just aren't there yet. So hopefully as the sport grows, we can get a little more thorough and, and, and, and have these processes in place. So it's not so difficult for someone who doesn't have the resources of someone like myself, where if I want to chase a record, I can go anywhere in the world to do it. You know, it's like I have those opportunities and resources to do that. Whereas, you know, someone who's coming up in the sport maybe doesn't, and they could be very capable of breaking a record, but they don't have that. there's, there's not that inclusive aspect of what's required to certify that and what they have access to. So that's kind of my overview of that topic right now as we see that kind of like churn through the socials and online content that kind of floats around there. All right. To finalize things here. I did want to touch on comrades because comrades is, I think, one of the coolest events that ultrarunning has to offer. It's incredibly popular in South Africa, and probably more so internationally. It gets a very disproportionally lack of recognition, I think, in the United States for one reason or the other. But the reason I think it's really interesting is it's like 30,000 participants now. And it spans from like world class runners all the way to people who are just trying to better themselves. And, you know, it's very similar to what I would describe as one of the World Marathon Majors where you have tons of people there from world class all the way to, you know, people just trying to run their best marathon. And it's probably the best similarity to one of those that we have in ultrarunning right now. And one of them on the female side, Herta Stein has just been absolutely redefining what it means to be one of the champions of that event. She won it this year in a time of five hours and 51 minutes and 19 seconds, which comes out to roughly six minutes and 15 seconds per mile pace. And it's not an easy course either. Depending on the year, it's got an interesting aspect to it where it's point to point and they switch directions each year. It'd be like if Boston decided every other year we're going to run the opposite direction. That's what comrades are essentially doing. So she actually has the course record on both the up year and the down year. So on an up year, you go 7000 ft up 4000 ft down on a down year, it's basically the reverse 4000 up, 7000 down. There's a little bit of a discrepancy between distance because the endpoints change. So it's like a two kilometer difference where the down year is two kilometers shorter than the up year. But no matter how you look at it and unpack that, she's running some insanely fast times. She's won it five years in a row now. It really kind of redefined that event, in my opinion, for the women's field and it is just a really interesting storyline and worth following if you tune into athletes on social media and online and things like that. So, and also an interesting kind of, individual story with that too, is I did comrades in 2015, and I believe that was Stein's first year doing it as her first year doing it, and she wasn't nearly along her running journey as she is now. And she did well, but she wasn't on the podium or in the top ten or anything like that. But she really embraced that event and refined it to the point where now she is the face of the women's comrades, events and things like that. She's also a 224 marathon or an Olympia now, too, so she's been kind of cool to have met her back when she was just kind of getting into it and just watched that evolution of progress through running in sport with that one. So check out comrades. Check out Stein and all she's done with that event and other things too. And, enjoy the content that comes out of that one if you're, if you're interested. So. All right. That's all I got for this one. I'm looking forward to doing a few more of these and kind of keeping them a little bit more loose and a little bit shorter than some of the typical podcast episodes. But if you have a current event that comes across your desk and you're like, hey, I'd love to hear your chat about this one, feel free to shoot it my way. If you have an issue with anything I said or think that I'm off base on something, we'd love to hear that as well. I think there's a lot of moving parts on some of these topics, especially as they're still fresh, so I'm very open to changing my opinion and stance on how we go about these things or view these things through the lens of the ultra community.