I only know of one girl for sure. I won't name her because she is 17. But I suspect that many kids have doped and are doping. What about a kid like Slagowski? What about Zophia Dudek? What about a few of the D3 guys who ran 10 minutes in high school and now run 14:00?
There have always been kids who didn’t train in HS who got serious in college. Pat Porter was the poster child for this.
I am sure there are some dopers but I sort of doubt the amount has increased much over the years. If you just add a sec/lap for the shoes things aren’t really that different than the mid 2010s.
No doubt the training nowadays is great. The shoes are better than ever and tracks are fast. With all that said, we are still seeing some insane times. Seeing athletes make huge jumps.
I know it would be impossible to test all high school runners, but could there be a system for testing some of them which would at least make them think? Or do they just get the scholarship from someone who isn’t cheating and burn out after a year in college?
personally, I think all state meet runners should be tested.
Maybe the Covid vaccines have conveyed super powers!
Joking aside and not even weighing in on the doping argument, these new super shoes really are worth a sec per lap, as I’ve been saying for years. And they enable more workload and better recovery from workouts. So, it stands to reason that, along with the 75+ mpw that elite kids are routinely running and “shoe doping,” sub-8:50 is the new sub-9 and sub-4:00 is the new sub-4:05.
People are critical of this viewpoint, but it’s obvious and true. Now, are some of the top kids doping? I have no idea, I’m sure a small fraction of them are.
Unlike the OP, at least you are willing to present evidence. Dudek would be a great example but Stanford has underperformed for many years (see many threads on this forum discussing Stanford’s failures, but class of 23 recruits on the women side doing great). But the dudek example isn’t enough to warrant testing.
The thing that has really changed is how many of the elite runners regress in college. Shoes don't explain that.
I don’t know, but if you have kids who are already running 80mpw and lifting and crushing workouts in the super shoes, it stands to reason that many of them are going to hit their peak in high school. Some will improve with more stimulus, certainly, but many won’t, for any number of reasons.
I only ran 50-55mpw in high school, so my improvement trajectory continued all through college, where I topped out around 90. But I have to say once I went higher than that, I never really improved and got caught in the injury cycle.
I’m not saying there isn’t doping going on. I watched the state champion female and she looked like a dude. And I don’t mean trans because I knew this girl growing up and I mean she looked like she lifted hard and, perhaps, had some supplementation. But, I don’t think doping as alleged here is what’s happening ubiquitously.
The shoes and back to higher volume/threshold training have changed the game. I’m not complaining. It sounds like it. I just think if we had these new shoes back in my era, we would’ve probably tripled the number of sub-9:00s we had, maybe more. So, the answer might be that simple. Sub-4 is now sub-3:55.
The thing that has really changed is how many of the elite runners regress in college. Shoes don't explain that.
I don’t know, but if you have kids who are already running 80mpw and lifting and crushing workouts in the super shoes, it stands to reason that many of them are going to hit their peak in high school. Some will improve with more stimulus, certainly, but many won’t, for any number of reasons.
*****
The shoes and back to higher volume/threshold training have changed the game. I’m not complaining. It sounds like it. I just think if we had these new shoes back in my era, we would’ve probably tripled the number of sub-9:00s we had, maybe more. So, the answer might be that simple. Sub-4 is now sub-3:55.
Gotta agree with this. Kids have access to a lot of information now. They are joining track clubs in grammar and middle school so they are coming into HS with a lot more training than in the past. The bigger test will be how much more these kids improve. These times could just signal that they have all peaked in HS and we won't hear from them every again.
I always assumed German F was doped to the gills in highschool.....it just makes sense if he was
German was washing dishes on the weekends, he could not afford PEDs. They are very expensive.
Yeah, they are truly expensive. So expensive that third tier kenians who race in minor races in South Asia or something like that and that earn a few thousand dollars PER YEAR are able to afford them...it is totally inconceivable that somebody in the USA can afford them, I totally agree...
I’m against testing high schoolers for one reason— participation in high school sports can be important to development (social, educational, physical, emotional) and kicking kids off of teams at that age can be disproportionally devastating. You might bust a few cheaters but you’re going to find a lot more kids have experimented with nonperformance enhancing recreational drugs and you’re going to take away what may be one of the few positive things in they’re lives.
You can achieve those goals in activities other than sports. Sports are all about winning and losing. The fairness of competition is the most important thing at any level. If Olympians are tested, then high school athletes should definitely be tested.
One cheater is one too many. If dozens of kids quit sports, so what? At least clean athletes are not losing medals to drug cheats.
No doubt the training nowadays is great. The shoes are better than ever and tracks are fast. With all that said, we are still seeing some insane times. Seeing athletes make huge jumps.
I know it would be impossible to test all high school runners, but could there be a system for testing some of them which would at least make them think? Or do they just get the scholarship from someone who isn’t cheating and burn out after a year in college?
personally, I think all state meet runners should be tested.
Maybe the Covid vaccines have conveyed super powers!
Joking aside and not even weighing in on the doping argument, these new super shoes really are worth a sec per lap, as I’ve been saying for years. And they enable more workload and better recovery from workouts. So, it stands to reason that, along with the 75+ mpw that elite kids are routinely running and “shoe doping,” sub-8:50 is the new sub-9 and sub-4:00 is the new sub-4:05.
People are critical of this viewpoint, but it’s obvious and true. Now, are some of the top kids doping? I have no idea, I’m sure a small fraction of them are.
Doesn’t really explain the sprints though. I don’t think you can count “shoe doping” in anything less than a mile.
Although the overall use of performance-enhancing drugs (pEDs) has declined, the use of PEDs in the adolescent population is on the rise.1 The Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (PATS) found that in 2013, 11% of teens reported using synthetic human growth hormone within their lifetime—a 2-fold increase since 2012, while steroid use increased from 5% to 7% in the same time frame.
Maybe the Covid vaccines have conveyed super powers!
Joking aside and not even weighing in on the doping argument, these new super shoes really are worth a sec per lap, as I’ve been saying for years. And they enable more workload and better recovery from workouts. So, it stands to reason that, along with the 75+ mpw that elite kids are routinely running and “shoe doping,” sub-8:50 is the new sub-9 and sub-4:00 is the new sub-4:05.
People are critical of this viewpoint, but it’s obvious and true. Now, are some of the top kids doping? I have no idea, I’m sure a small fraction of them are.
Doesn’t really explain the sprints though. I don’t think you can count “shoe doping” in anything less than a mile.
I’m against testing high schoolers for one reason— participation in high school sports can be important to development (social, educational, physical, emotional) and kicking kids off of teams at that age can be disproportionally devastating. You might bust a few cheaters but you’re going to find a lot more kids have experimented with nonperformance enhancing recreational drugs and you’re going to take away what may be one of the few positive things in they’re lives.
You can achieve those goals in activities other than sports. Sports are all about winning and losing. The fairness of competition is the most important thing at any level. If Olympians are tested, then high school athletes should definitely be tested.
One cheater is one too many. If dozens of kids quit sports, so what? At least clean athletes are not losing medals to drug cheats.
Are you joking? You would test all HS athletes to stop one cheater from getting a medal? You want to fund that? I don’t even know where my high school medals are anymore.
You can achieve those goals in activities other than sports. Sports are all about winning and losing. The fairness of competition is the most important thing at any level. If Olympians are tested, then high school athletes should definitely be tested.
One cheater is one too many. If dozens of kids quit sports, so what? At least clean athletes are not losing medals to drug cheats.
Are you joking? You would test all HS athletes to stop one cheater from getting a medal? You want to fund that? I don’t even know where my high school medals are anymore.
Are you an elitist like Megan Rapinoe who thinks high school sports are less serious competition than Olympics?
For all kids who do not go on to compete in college, high school state championships are their Olympics. District meets are their Olympic trials. A kid who misses the state meet by one spot is devastated just like an athlete who misses the Olympics by one spot. Why should their dream be shuttered by drug cheats?
It does not matter whether you know where your high school medals are. Mondo may not know where his NCAA medal is. But for kids who do not win any medal in college, their high school medals are the most precious memorabilia of their dedication and hard work.
Are you joking? You would test all HS athletes to stop one cheater from getting a medal? You want to fund that? I don’t even know where my high school medals are anymore.
Are you an elitist like Megan Rapinoe who thinks high school sports are less serious competition than Olympics?
For all kids who do not go on to compete in college, high school state championships are their Olympics. District meets are their Olympic trials. A kid who misses the state meet by one spot is devastated just like an athlete who misses the Olympics by one spot. Why should their dream be shuttered by drug cheats?
It does not matter whether you know where your high school medals are. Mondo may not know where his NCAA medal is. But for kids who do not win any medal in college, their high school medals are the most precious memorabilia of their dedication and hard work.
And for kids who aren't competitive in high school their chance to win a medal in middle school might have been ruined by a drug cheat. Better test them too. In fact, post-collegiate runners may never get another chance to win anything if we don't start testing at the neighborhood 5K races. Where I stand you sound like an elitist hellbent on enforcing the integrity of the sport (as you see it) for a tiny percentage of already top competitors. And I agree with you to an extent... integrity of the sport is important. It's why professionals are tested. But whether or not to test high schoolers is also a matter of resources and of unintended consequences. The majority of kids have no idea what they want to do with their lives yet. A kid may try a recreational drug one weekend and go out for track the next week. Let sports be the positive influence they should be. Don't force kids off of teams and toward worse lifestyles. I've been around schools that have chosen self impose tests for athletes before and when kids were getting busted it wasn't for PEDs.