Run to Win

I am glad that I am not a professional cyclist right now. The sport has a rediculous amount of negative publicity heaped upon it on an annual basis because there are not only a (seemingly) large number of cheaters in the sport, but the governing body that is supposed to catch the cheaters is either corrupt or incompetent. With the sport’s largest stage beginning in a few weeks, the directors of the Tour de France have decided that they need to do something to make their event less of a mockery. They have decided to only let riders into their event who sign the UCI’s anti-doping charter.

On the surface, I think that this is a great idea. The problem that I have with it, though, is that nobody in their right mind would sign it. Signing the charter states the athlete… (Click here to continue reading…)

Bicycle activists in Toronto are fed up with the city government. The city has spent less than half of the money earmarked for putting in bicycle lanes, and is 2 years behind schedule. Cajoling the city has not had any luck, so they have decided to take matters into their own hands. They have been painting their own bike lanes onto the roads in an effort to make the city sit up and take notice.

“The shop owners on Bloor said they thought it was the city staff painting,” said Rick Helary, manager of road operations in Toronto. He says the total cost of the clean up was $1973.74. This is a small price to pay, says the Repair Squad’s ringleader, a man in his late 30s(members of the group asked their names not be used). “The city is taking way too long. There is no need for this. Why don’t they just paint the bike lanes? People are dying.” The most recent cyclist killed in the GTA died earlier this month when he collided with a garbage truck on Bayview Ave., near the 401.

I am not sure how much good this will do, but I hope that it works and that they stop doing it soon. It is interesting to see people complaining that the city is not spending enough money rather than that they are spending too much.

Portland has some pretty good bicycle access; quite a few of the major roads have bike lanes and there are more slated to be painted in the next few years. The trick is convincing drivers that bikes have a right to be in the road, and convincing cyclists that they need to follow the rules of the road.

(Source: The Toronto Star)

The Mud Hog Trail Race is debuting this year at the Gunstock Mountain Resort in Gilford, New Hampshire. The race is on June 16^th and will be a team effort between two people. One person will run the course while the other bikes it, and after completing an obstacle they will switch off. At the end of the race there will be a 60 foot mud pit that both members of the team will need to crawl through in order to get to the finish line. There will be a BBQ complete with beer at the finish line for all participants.
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This week last year was pretty busy. There was a lot of running news and tips, and I continued my animated weight lifting tutorials. The site also surpassed 100 people in a single day this week last year, which was a nice milestone to reach.

• I continued my animated workout series with how to do pushups, a staple in just about any routine. I also published a tip about bicycle riding and traffic, namely that you should always ride your bike with traffic. On a bike, you are usually going to be legally obligated not to ride against traffic.
• I first learned about the Endurance 50 Challenge where Dean Karnazes decided to run 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days. I wound up getting to see him run one of them and was in another one (but I didn’t see him). In other marathon news, I learned that a 2:55:00 marathon guarentees entry into New York City, and not a 2:50:00 marathon. I also started a contest on the site to win a free copy of Coast to Coast, a book written by a friend of mine about a relay from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
• On a slightly less endurance-minded note, I gave my thoughts on whether or not it was worth it to taper for a 10k.
• I reviewed the Phedippations podcast/radio show. It is recorded by Steve “Runner” Walker on a weekly basis. I haven’t been keeping up for the past few months, though.
• I continued my thoughts on the New Rules of Lifting with New Rule #14 (stretching is not a warm-up) and New Rule #15 (you don’t need to warm up to stretch).

Having always been an active person, it is hard for me to tell people that I am happy because I exercise a lot. I know that it is true, but the only significant times I have not exercised have been when I was sick so I really do not have a good frame of referene. However, I read an article earlier today that does provide a frame of reference. FMF from Free Money Finance used to be unhealthy and had high cholesterol. He describes how riding a bicicyle saved his life.

All my adult life I’ve had borderline bad cholesterol. Since I started keeping track of my results in 1998, my total cholesterol has been at a high of 237 and a low of 216. [...] So three years ago I took up cycling. [...] Two years ago, after I had a year of cycling under my belt, I went in for a physical and had my blood taken. For some reason, I never received the test results and I never called to ask for them (I figured that if I was on death’s door, they’d call me.) Anyway, I recently went in for another physical and received the test results from 2005. My cholesterol was at a mind-numbingly-low 169!

In one year, his cholesteral went down the better part of 100 points. He has been working out consistently for 2 years since then, and expects that his cholesterol will be even lower now than it was then. He has saved himself a lot of money by becoming fit, despite the three grand or so that he has spent on cycling toys. He is healthier, he is happier, and he will most likely live longer to enjoy his life.

It was a good story and a quick read. If you are on the edge of starting a workout program, spend 3 or 4 minutes and head over to read his entire article.

Last year, a Spanish raid resulted in the ruined careers of athletes even before any hard evidence ever appeared. For some of the people, such as Jan Ullrich, the investigation had already been dropped. The damage had already been done to his reputation, though, and forced his retirement from cycling.

Now, anybody else concerned about their links to the case have no cause to worry any longer. While the doping was deemed unethical by the judge, he did not feel that the specific practice that they used was damaging to the athletes’ health. Spain only recently enacted laws which made any sort of doping illegal, but they went into effect long after the infractions under investigation.

The new law took effect in February and made it a crime to prescribe, dispense or facilitate use of such substances, regardless of whether they harm a person’s health. If the judge’s ruling holds up, it will mean an investigation into what was considered the biggest doping scandal in cycling in years will all have been for nothing.

This is just the latest black eye for cycling. While the judge has made the right call based on the facts in the article and based on what I have read before, it still makes it look as though cycling really can not do anything to clean itself up. Cycling needs to enact better standards regarding the rights and privacy of their athletes, and needs to be more consistent not only in how they test athletes but in how they announce their results. I have complained about that before, though.

Update: The UCI plans on continuing the investigation once they find out whether there will be an appeal or not. Hopefully they will get access to some of the evidence, but I also hope that they don’t falsely accuse somebody after drawing conclusions rather than having a concrete and definitive way to say that somebody cheated. (2007/03/13)

(Source: ESPN.com – Update)

Rather than writing on different news notes that I have noticed from over the weekend, I thought (for the sake of brevity) that I’d just link to the interesting articles.

• Saturday evening, I went to the RIT at Bentley hockey game. RIT lost by one point, 7-6. There were probably about 8 or 9 RIT fans for every Bentley fan. It has been a long time since I have painted my chest for a sporting event, but myself and a few friends decided to be a little cold while watching the game. The night before they had clinched the Atlantic East title, so RIT was giving their 3rd string goal tender some minutes. It is only their second year as a Division I program, so they are not eligible for post-season play until next year.
• The commissioner, a few owners, the players association and a few players in the NFL sat down to chat about how to clean up some of the off-field shenanigans and negative publicity that has been plaguing the NFL the past few years. The players thought that there should be a three strikes and you’re out policy. Apparently, they feel that it is hard to be in the wrong place at the wrong time over and over again.
• In cycling news, Jan Ullrich announced his retirement and plans to be a consultant rather than a competitive biker. He still maintains his innocence, and his involvement with the Spanish doping ring was dropped, but the damage to his reputation had already been done. He is still facing legal action in Germany for “fraud against the public.”

It seems that as far as doping labs go, they can never seem to get anything right. It was not too long ago that an 7 year old anonymous blood sample that had no control samples (since the control samples had been previously tested came back negative) seemingly proved Lance Armstrong was a doper. With even more relevance to the issue at hand, the case against Inigo Landaluze was dropped after his blood samples were mishandled.

The French laboratory that handled the test results may have allowed improper access to Landis’ urine samples, [...] According to the report, two technicians who conducted the “A” sample on Landis were involved in tests on the second “B” sample, which is used to confirm the first test. International lab standards do not allow the same technicians to work on both tests to prevent them from attempting to validate their original findings.

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