4 Lessons We Can Learn from Runners on Performance-Enhancing Drugs (PEDs)

It seems like every few months, another runner that I know gets caught using performance-enhancing drugs.

This past week, the situation struck eerily close to home. A runner recently caught using EPO (Mo Trafeh) is someone that I’d met many times.

My second race as a professional runner was the USA 10 mile championship in September, 2011. I placed 5^th in the race and was immediately escorted to the drug-testing tent where other top finishers sat and waited to be tested.

Mo Trafeh was among them, laughing and chatting with the testers, completely at ease.

The memory makes me sick. Why is it that we feel so violated when an athlete we know or admire is busted for PEDs?

PEDs go against everything that long distance running stands for

When I was in college, I began to notice a trend in other sports. All of the girls on the volleyball team were over 6ft tall and built similarly, long legs and slender figures.

All of the swimmers had broad shoulders, and narrow waists, perfect for propelling them through the pool.

The basketball players were built like stacks of muscle, rippling quads, and biceps hinting at explosively developed fast-twitch muscle.

Then there was the track team.

Even among the distance runners, there were all shapes and sizes, stocky little powerhouses like me and tall slender gazelles that ate up the track with strides twice as long as mine.

Long distance running is a sport that does not discriminate based on genetics; all can participate. The simple rule of thumb is that you get out of running what you choose to put into it and those who work hard will continue to improve and compete well.

Of course, talent plays a large role in determining who is at the front of the pack in a race and who is in the back, but hard work and determination are what establish personal improvement and success.

The use of performance-enhancing drugs is a slap in the face of hard work.

When two athletes of a similar talent level and training experience are barreling down the homestretch of a race, gritting their teeth and pumping their arms and legs furiously, the athlete who finally pulls away to cross the line first should be the athlete who simply wants it more or who has pushed just a little harder in practice, not the athlete who takes performance-enhancing drugs.

Running should not be a “free ride”

The things that make you better as a runner require sacrifice. Hard training requires the sacrifice of your body.

Eating healthy requires both a financial and social sacrifice; after all, who wants to be the one sitting with a plate of pasta and green salad while the rest of the group is enjoying hot wings and beer?

Getting the proper amount of sleep requires a sacrifice of time.

Athletes who wish to get the absolute best bang for their buck in training sacrifice a lot, moving to altitude, purchasing massages and spending quality time with their coach, discussing the many aspects of training.

Performance-enhancing drugs provide the benefits of hard training and speedy recovery without the sacrifice.

In essence, PEDs eliminate the need for hard work.

At the core of PED use is laziness and deceit. Runners who choose to use performance-enhancing drugs don’t have the guts to be vulnerable on race day by trusting in their own fitness and bravery.

In college, I took a sports psychology course that covered the use of PEDs. We learned that the number one reason athletes choose to use performance-enhancing drugs is that their best years are behind them and in an effort to get back to the race times of their prime, they opt to use PEDs.

This denial of the natural aging process shows an enormous amount of pride and denial.

Any athlete who can stand on a podium and accept a trophy and a check for prize money that they didn’t earn is a criminal.

What can we learn?

Accept the ebb and flow of your running career

It is extremely rare to have a running career in which every year boasts improvement.

There may be a year or two in which your progress seems to be slowing or at a stand still.

Don’t panic.

Instead, enjoy running for the love of running and continue to believe in your body, trusting that eventually, breakthroughs will happen.

Accept the decrease in speed that comes with aging

Age group running exists because of a fundamental truth that many of us try to fight. We slow down as we age.

Speed is a relative term and we should always remember that even if our “fastest” days are behind us, our “best” days could still be ahead of us!

Running is a great way to test yourself and it helps to remember that the amazing race that you had for a minute and a half 5k PR that won your age category is worth just as much as the performance of the 20-something who won the race.

Focus on your own hard work rather than anyone else’s race results

It’s so easy to get caught up in the fallacy of comparison.

On the long ladder that is racing, there will always someone a little faster than us on a higher rung and someone just below.

All we really have to beat is ourselves.

Be brave

Having confidence in yourself and your training is one of the hardest things to master.

Accepting doubt as a normal part of the racing experience and choosing to be brave and race hard anyway is the only way to truly test our limits.

After all, “courage is not the absence of fear, but the realization that something else is more important than that fear”.

So, take joy in the struggle and the sacrifice it takes to be a runner. It’s part of what makes this sport so wonderful.