The Doping Arms Race as Prisoner's Dilemma

I'm going to stand on the sideline as history rewrites athletic records.  I think the issue of doping in sports falls into the same category as politics and religion.  Rather than start an argument I'll let my readers defend their positions.

 

Athletes using drugs can test and beat today's drug tests but they cannot predict the future tests that might be used to test samples saved years earlier.  So it seems we will continue to have records rewritten as future drug tests are developed to uncover cheating.  Bruce Schneier calls doping in sports a Classic Prisoner's Dilemma.  Bruce Schneier updated his 2006 article which you can read in Wired Magazine. 

The Long Run

This week I started curling at the Philadelphia Curling Club and played games on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  The curling cut into my time for marathon training and it showed up in today's long run.  The plan was to run twenty one miles and that is what the GPS says I traveled but I had to walk some of that distance during the last five mile loop.  Another interesting thing about the GPS, it showed I burned 2500 calories.  I ate my typical breakfast and consumed gels and gatorade while I ran but I was obviously I was in a calorie deficit.  I'll have to work on consuming more calories before I run and during the run or I'll never make it to the end of the marathon.

The weather was a sunny beautiful sixty degrees and breezy.  I was wearing two shirts and when the breeze stopped I was overly warm. The leaves and pine needles were falling and many photographers were out taking pictures of the fall foliage.  There were families in the park enjoying the day and flying kites.

Fastest Training Run for Marathon

Today I ran another sixteen miles in Valley Forge National Park.  The temperature was in the 35 degree range when I woke up this morning so I didn't go running until late morning.  By then it had warmed up to 48 degrees.  I need to figure out what to wear when the weather is chilly since late November in Philadelphia could be very chilly.  Today was my fastest run yet.  I'm not sure why I ran so well today, maybe the cooler weather actually helped my running. 

I setup my watch to report my split time every mile.  I started out pretty fast and ran high seven low eight minute pace until mile eleven.  From eleven miles onward I slowed down to nine minute miles.  My overall pace for the sixteen miles was good but slowing down after eleven miles doesn't bode well for a marathon race.  I really need to work on running slower in the first half of the race and faster in the second half.

Today I passed a runner who was wearing the orange t-shirt of the 2012 Nation's Triathlon.  In our brief encounter he said he was also registered for the 2013 Nation's Triathlon.  As I always do, I asked his age and found out he was not in my age group.

Registered for my first Ironman 70.3 triathlon

Today I registered for my first Half Ironman distance triathlon and last night I registered for two sprint distance triathlons.  As soon as I finish the Philadelphia Marathon I'm taking off a month to rest up for 2013. 

Marathon training continues

I was out of town last week and missed my long run.  This week I missed some training due to work so I'm way behind on my training for the Philadelphia Marathon.  Today I went to Valley Forge National Park to run the loop.  The outer loop path circles the park and is a little over 5 miles in distance.  I ran the loop three times and finished the day with 16 miles under my belt.  The loop has rolling hills so I expected to be a little slower then I was on the last 16 mile run on the trail.

Today I was wearing my t-shirt from the 2012 Upper Mainline YMCA triathlon.  A woman running the loop in the opposite direction was wearing the same shirt and on my last loop I guy running towards me yelled that he was in the same triathlon.

To climb steep hills requires slow pace at first. - William Shakespeare