Why is this still a debate?

Okay, I was just flipping through my recent copy of Triathlete Magazine when I came across yet another point-counter point article on doping.  I figured I would weigh-in with my opinion on my own web site, where I have enough space to really exbound on my ideas.  I am thoroughly anti-doping, but I intend on making an argument based on sound ideas, not just emontion, so here goes.

First, a rehashing of what has already been said in favor of legalizing drug use: 

A lot of the “proponents of drug use in sport” say that the problem with drugs is not the drug itself, it is the tag of “illegal”.  They claim that the real problem is that these drugs (such as erythropoeitin, or anabolic steroids) are not regulated efficiently to prevent athlete deaths because they are illegal.  These drug proponents also say that it is the label of shame that is dropped on a sport when an athlete is caught/charged with using drugs (Barry Bonds for example, or more strikingly Lance Armstrong with Cycling).  The final argument is typically that athletes who wish to dope will always find a way to dope, regardless of testing.

First, drug proponents often use a “Regulation over Prohibition” argument, saying that it would be easier and safer to regulate a legal drug than an illegal drug.  Sudafed is legal, does that stop people from crushing it up and making methamphetamine?  No.  These athletes are abusing drugs when their use is illegal.  If you can convince yourself that winning is worth doing something illegal, do you think you would refrain from doing more of something legal to win?  It would be like telling a professional Ironman athlete they could only work out 30 hours a week or they will be disqualified.  Everybody who is abusing illegal EPO would continue to abuse legal EPO.  EPO deaths are not occuring from tainted drugs, they are happening from abuse, plain and simple.  Making it legal would only make it more available.  This is a thinly veiled attempt at making this argument sound like it has the athlete’s best interests at heart for health reasons.

 Second, the “Label of Shame” position states that it is not drugs themselves that ruin a sport, but the public scrutiny of those who use drugs.  Nobody ever told people to stop watching the Tour de France because of the Lance Armstrong/Floyd Landis doping controversy, our wondeful public illustrated their position on this argument very clearly.  They turned off Le Tour.  The general athletic public is of the opinion that performance enhancing drugs are a bane to sport, and they don’t want to watch drug-hyped athletes.  The “Label of Shame” exists not because these drugs are illegal, but because the public views their use as shameful.

The last typical argument is the “Impossible Fight” argument, where these drug-use proponents say that it is just too difficult, too costly, too time consuming to carry on with drug screening.  Cost may be prohibitive to some, but a basic drug screen costs about $20 per test, I was recently drug-tested for school as a requirement and I had to pay $18 for a laboratory to do my testing.  $30 catches more performance enhancing drugs, and if you want to go all-out you can test for nearly everything for $80 per test.  Initial positives are backed up with a confirmation test, which drives the cost up a bit, but only if you have a lot of dopers.  Say you run a local triathlon and you want to randomly test one of the top three finishers from the following divisions (Elite Male, Elite Female, M20-24, F20-24, M25-29, F25-29, M30-34, F30-34, M35-39, F35-39, M40-45, F40-45).  That is 12 tests, which costs between $240 and $960.  Assuming you have 400 contestants, this raises the entry fee per person by between $0.60 and $2.40.  Want to test all of the top three in those divisions? $1.80-$9.60.  If the race has 2,000 participants like many of the Ironman and 70.3 events the cost is hardly prohibitive to test these athletes.  I only picked the typically largest age groups, but you can see that the math works out.  What about how time consuming these tests are?  Not at all.  The athlete has to pee in a cup, big deal.  The organizers don’t have to wait for the results of the test to announce winners and hand out plaques or whatever.  If checks are involved, they will be mailed pending the results of the drug screening.  With everything being computerized nowadays it is easy to change the results of a race with a few clicks to move somebody to the DQ list.  Lastly, is it too difficult?  Sure, testing athletes for performance enhancing drugs is difficult, but last I checked so is completing a triathlon.  Should we give up because something is difficult?

Now I get to make a few points of my own.  Your reason for not using performance enhancing drugs should depend on your situation.  If you are a professional athlete, who makes a living off of your performance on one single day, you may be tempted to dope.  Your livelihood depends on your performance.  Do you want to risk your job?  Consider the ramifications of being caught.  From a monetary standpoint there is the fact that your winnings will be stripped for that race, and you will probably be banned from further competition.  Performance enhancing drugs take money out of the professional athlete’s pocket.  Also, if you are a professional or otherwise, consider the “Label of Shame”.  I have yet to see an athlete say, with squared shoulders and an upturned chin, “Yes, I am a doper, and proud of it!” 

What about the age grouper who just wants to stay healthy?  Doping should not even be on the radar for this athlete.  Doping is about as unhealthy as you can get.  Just check these links out for EPO, anabolic steroids, and amphetamines.  The end resultof abusing these drugs is death.

Lastly, an important argument that I have not seen made before in popular publication is relationship between success and other’s use of performance enhancing drugs.  I call this the ”Inspirational User”.  The Inspirational User may be a user for whatever reason; they may be a professional who races for money, they may be an average person who just wants to be faster than their friends so they can have a bit of admiration.  The problem is that we all inspire others, no matter how we perform.  The Inspirational User, like most users, has rationalized their drug abuse.  Sorry to those few athletes who may have been doped by trainers, most of the abusers knew and made some convoluted logic up to justify what they were doing.  The problem is when this Inspirational User convinces a friend, family member, co-worker, training partner or anyone else to do a sport.  They are the role model, and as such they are the gateway for others’ use of drugs.  The use of anabolic steroids in high school athletes is skyrocketing, and can the kids really be blamed when their successful role models are shown to be abusing performance enhancing drugs?

 Okay, that’s my soapbox.  Want some more light reading on doping?  Check here.

Chops up! oh, um, I mean pictures are up!

Well, I got some pictures up for the Langley Pond and Clemson races, so that makes it look like something other than just a sludge of words on my site.  I am going to start working on the videos soon, not necessarily even going to worry about sound since this is just a for fun practice with the video editing part.  I will try to learn a little something and have some neat editing tricks in them as I explore what the Windows Media Editor can do.  Thus far it has been really user friendly, which is pretty appealing!

I now have some small amount of free time, since school is out and I have had a week to get caught up on some stuff.  It is very nice to not have to worry constantly about class, and I think I actually do more work when left to my own devices!  Oh yeah, school’s out, I got grades.  Two Bs, two B+s, and two As!  Collectively keeping my “Cum Laude” average up!  Is it really an honor to graduate with honors in two Bachelor’s degrees?  Should the second one be pro-rated to something like “Graduate with two thumbs up.”  Hmm…

Today may have been my last day at PT.  Everything is feeling stronger and stronger as the days go by, and our appointment for next week is a “have it scheduled just in case something goes wrong” appointment which, fingers crossed, I will call and cancel.  Excellent group of folks, and they really make me see why having a personal trainer or coach would make the workouts that much better; knowing someone else is involved to help achieve my goals makes me work harder.

Anyhow, that’s it for now!  Sorta   More coming soon!

All these things that I’ve done

Holy rusted metal batman!  There has been a ton of stuff these past few days! 

I felt like I was getting caught up on my school work, but realized that was only becasue I had not noticed a couple of papers that are due within the next two weeks!  Got one of those done, started on the other already.  Gotta stay ahead until the end of October, this will be a busy month! 

Got my workout gear to the printers to get the Stronghold logo put on it.  Turns out Shelly, the owner’s wife, is a photoshop master!  What I thought would be a long project took about twleve clicks and the image was ready to go!

Got invited to see a Panther’s game with my brother on October 8th!  It has been so long since I’ve seen him and my niece and nephew, that would be great to do!

I got my swim and run in today.  40 minutes at a 1:50 per hundred, so about 2200 meters.  Then I ran a 24 minute 5k at a steady pace.  If I could go a ten minute average and still feel good for the last three miles of the half iron, I might see if I can knock out three eight minute miles at the end.  That all depends on how the bike ride goes, though.

Okay, off to shower, and watch a movie (finally!)

Who knew I could wrestle, too?

That is to say, with photoshop, for two hours.  But, now I like the header for the page.  Text coming later, but for now I am going to just admire the editing.  I know this could have been done in about twenty minutes by anybody who knew what they were doing, but that is not me, and it really did take about twenty minutes of work to do.  It just took an hour and forty minutes of figuring out how to make it do what I wanted so I could do twenty minutes of work.  Oh well, I guess that’s why I don’t do that kind of work.  Oh, and I swam today, a lot, two hours.  Tomorrow is a day off, but I’m not too excited about that.  I want to workout and get better, but I know rest is good.  Long post about nothing much, sorry!

Welcome!

Well, this is the first post on the new blog.  I have a lot of interests that I would like to share with others, and I might as well use the internet as a medium for that!  My current goal is the Ironman Triathlon.  I am in my first season as a triathlete, and have found that the opportunity to inspire others and to give and recieve feedback is one of the greatest motivations I have on a day-to-day basis.  For now, I am going to go get the page looking like I want it, updates coming soon!