This brings up a great point. With the prescribed medication my levels would still probably much lower than 95% of my age group. Do you crush every charity ride you participate in? Asking this question galvanized what I figured would come out of this. I get it. The rules say test bad. This isn't a lance Armstrong 1000mg test/epo situation. I think we can all agree test is the building block for basically everthing.

is it ok if people in the MOP cut the course? draft? do a Frank Mesa, as long as they don't wind up in the FOP or set records???

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

I’m glad I don’t have to deal with it. How shitty. I’d really hate to stop racing (I’m no threat to win). It would have a big effect on my overall well being

Feel bad you have to make the choice

For the record I don’t care as long as you are MoP

Is it OK? No. Am I going to lose any sleep over it? Again, no.

This whole exchange cracks me up, and is really reflective of the point I'm trying to make. A quick google search turns up the fact that >9,700 people were killed in 2018 because fo speeding, and it accounted for a quarter of all traffic deaths. And yet, when I dare make the analogy that a MOP'er doping with T to get back to 'normal' levels (whatever that means) is analogous to driving over the speed limit, the pitchforks come out. Quick question - how many people will be killed in triathlons as a result of someone taking T? So I'll say it one last time and I'm out... let's all get a grip here and take ourselves and the sport a little less seriously.

I thought Frank Meza cheated to set records?

To me, cutting the course, drafting etc is different than someone taking a drug for a medical condition. It sounds like he needs the T for his overall health, not because he is racing. To me, that's different than taking it to get a performance advantage. I understand he's getting a performance advantage by taking it but that's not his overall reason for using it and the performance advantage isn't going to get him anything. He's in the middle of the pack. I'm assuming if he didn't have low T he wouldn't be thinking of taking it.

I get your side of the argument and I don't disagree, technically it's cheating. But to me personally, it wouldn't bother me if I was racing against him and he beat me. Like I said before, I'm in the middle of the pack, I'm not racing against anyone other than myself.

There are side effects to testosterone, just as there are with any medication. Recent research is actually pointing more towards the negative long term health effects of low testosterone being the main issue versus the somewhat negligible side effects of testosterone supplementation. The mistake many people make, and I do not blame you for falling into the same trap, is assuming that testosterone supplementation means jacking your T up to superhuman levels. That simply isn't the case as the vast majority of people taking T look for a boost back to the age defined average so they can pursue a healthy long life.

An athlete who's missed the Bike cut off multiple times decided to use an E-bike. Is that okay? They're not taking a Kona Spot or effecting anyone's race and still finishing BOP. Is it okay? Of course it's NOT OKAY! Once you open the door a crack to cheating, the light floods everywhere.

I put a lot of time, energy, resources and sacrifices training three sports all year long. If I finish 2500 at an Ironman and a doper finishes one spot ahead of me, I'd be pissed off. So I care. I care about morality, ethics, following the rules. Again, guess it was just the way I raised.

sure he's thinking about taking T to get a performance advantage. He's having symptoms of having low energy due to the stresses placed on his body by work, sleep, and training, and on top of that he's getting near 40. guess what, that's normal, we don't have the same resilience as we enter our 40's as we did in our 20's, and the legitimate way to do it is to try to figure out how to get more sleep, look at diet, and perhaps cut back on training to a load that you can handle. he wants to be able to keep training at what appears to be a fairly high level by using T to enable that training load. That's a performance advantage....

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

It costs at least $1000 to race an IM-branded 140.6, and that's if you're local to the race and don't have to worry about travel costs. not to mention the $ put towards coaching, equipment, training plans, nutrition. plus the time devoted to the training.

It's not unreasonable for participants to want a level playing field. Telling everyone to "just chill" isn't really an option.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Not replying to you, Jason, in particular. You just happened to be the last post.

The OP simply needs to get a different job with a normal schedule and see what happens.

Look man, I'm not going to say that the rules are very fair for everyone right now or that the rules are perfect. They have flaws, especially with the TUE system and I think they should be changed in ways that would allow people i your situation (if genuine) to enjoy sanctioned events and "race" to some degree. However, flawed or not, those are the fucking rules. For everyone. Period. Don't race.

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808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo

These are the threads I wish someone from WADA or some associated country doping authority is reading and investigating. Everyone advocating that breaking the rules is OK for MOPers should be tested.

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808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo

Zinc supplements have helped me.

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

Hello smboudreaux and All,

Your have a gift!

You may be looking at 10 or 20 years of extended longevity. (Lance will only be eligible for 5 or 10.)

Look for the silver lining in the clouds ....

Make lemonade from lemons .....

https://www.nytimes.com/...-health-crisis-.html

Excerpts:

Overall in the United States, males make up 49 percent of the population. But over age 65, the population is 57 percent female — and starting at that age survival differences by sex become more marked. There are only about half as many males as females among people over age 80, and 81 percent of American centenarians are women. According to the United Nations, women outlive men in all but a few of the over 200 nations and territories it monitors.

Sex differences in hormones, immunity and genes offer possible explanations for why relatively healthy males die while their less healthy female counterparts survive. Testosterone is not only associated with risk-taking and violence, but it also appears to introduce physiological harms, since castrated males live a decade or two longer than intact ones.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/...1df86ab04_story.html

By contrast, estrogen facilitates the elimination of cholesterol, lowering chances of heart disease, the No. 1 killer in higher income countries. Perhaps more important, estrogen has both anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative properties not present in testosterone that improve immune function and response to biological stress.

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Of course there is a downside to low testosterone ....





The question is how to get the 10 or 20 year life extension .... and ..... the benefits of testosterone.

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Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

It doesn't sound like you're at the top of any AG so I wouldn't really give a crap if I raced against you. You're not taking any podiums and sure as heck aren't taking KQ slots so I don't see any conflicts on that front.

As for "cheating"; you can't really argue against the fact that taking T is cheating.

I'd also throw out there that people who can afford super fancy bikes, wheels, and Vapor shoes all have an advantage of those without similar equipment, but that seems to be ok. Reality is that Lionel on a Huffy would probably still wipe the floor with me; but you put an average AG'r on a 7k bike vs the guy with a 1k bike and I'm pretty sure they'll end up finishing ahead of the other and nobody would bat an eye at the "advantage" gained.

FWIW, I have really really low T(<100) now and had it during my Crossfit days. One of the main reasons I quit Crossfit was because the amount of cheating in the masters group was unreal and I could not compete with the others in the heavy lifts. I've chosen not to do low T replacement therapy cuz I have long term racing goals that obviously can't be met if supplementing.

Sport is about finding your personal limits. Personally, do what ever you want; none of us will ever know and those that care will finish in front of you anyways.

Actually 14-19 years longer... If you want to live longer and be healthier, castration and estrogen supplements are the way to go... ;)
I suspect the real downsides of T supplementation won't be fully known for a couple decades. Not something I'd do lightly for sure.

"Until the late 19th century, Korean rulers employed eunuchs to serve the royal court. These eunuchs were allowed to marry and adopt castrated boys as their sons. The Yang-Se-Gye-Bo, a genealogical record of the eunuch families, has survived, and it documents the birth and death dates and other personal details of 385 eunuchs who lived between the mid-16th century and the mid-19th century.
Min and colleagues from the National Institute of Korean History and Korea University began to pore over the Yang-Se-Gye-Bo. After painstakingly comparing it with other historical records, the team was able to identify and verify life spans for 81 of the listed eunuchs. To rule out the effects of cushy conditions on longevity, they compared the eunuchs’ life spans to those of uncastrated men of similar social status living at the same time. The eunuchs outlived their uncastrated contemporaries by 14 to 19 years, the researchers report online in the journal Current Biology.
The eunuch group also boasted three centenarians among the 81 verified life spans, an unusual number considering that the current incidence of centenarians is just one in 3,500 in Japan and one in 4,400 in the United States."