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I used to do triathlons pretty hard-core with a top tri club in NYC. The amount of athletes I trained with who took illegal performance enhancing drugs was surprisingly high. They would see sketchy anti-aging out-of-pocket concierge docs for 5-10k a month who would prescribe them whatever they wanted/needed.

It's a very ego-driven sport. You get a lot of rich mid-life crisis types, generally uber Type-A Captains of Industry who achieve professional success and then are like "now what, what is my next feather in my cap?" ... the answer is Ironman/Kona. These dudes would drop 15k on a tri bike, swag it out 3 different sets of race wheels, rollers, power meter, carbon everything, $600 a month for the coach, $250 a month for the gym, $300 for pool fees and swim stroke clinics, $350 for yoga classes, $500 a month for massages, 20k per season for race entry fees and travel to races, training camps, etc etc etc.

I always advise to single women who want to meet rich dudes to join a tri club. My tri club alone had like 5 marriages in the time I trained there.

Anyway, fun sport, but I couldn't take the egos. I've found ultrarunning to have a much more down to earth and friendly crowd.

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I raced bicycles in the 1980s and duathlons in the 1990s. By the 1990s, drug cheating had become rampant at the professional level and was seeping downwards into amateur sports.

I have stayed in touch with the sport, and it’s especially filthy amongst the age-groupers. They have no financial motivation not to cheat: They are already well-off and won’t lose a penny of sponsorship money if they get caught.

Furthermore, many come from the world of business, where cheating is a fact of life. You do a certain thing, if you get caught, you hire lawyers and fight and/or bargain your way to the least unfavourable outcome.

What is the difference between offshoring your tax avoidance and visiting a shady doctor for a prescription? This is especially true when it reaches a certain tipping point where “everybody cheats.”

Like many things in life, there are two sets of rules: One for those with a lot of money, who sit on the board of their local club and/or sponsor the racing scene, and another for those who ride purely for fun.

For a certain type of middle-aged type-a male, it is about being the “Alpha” in the scene, and that means winning your age group at all costs, having your business’s name splashed over everything in sight, and that means being a part of the power elite within the sport itself.

I’m no longer a part of the multi-sport scene, I switched to mountain biking, where I thought I’d find a laid-back outdoorsy California vibe.

It is there, if you look past the guys with a “quiver” of six or seven carbon-fibre bikes :-)

It's not definite from your phrasing, but based on the parallel to sports I'm assuming you view this attitude negatively. Have you managed to find a business niche that isn't prey to this? Have you found a way to make peace with this without feeling that you've given up your sense of morality? This is something I struggle with.

I find that morality follows a distribution. Of course, the distribution is different in different sectors than in others, but there is still a distribution.

This is interesting, because it tells me that no matter how crooked the business sector, there is some company so awful that that puts all the others to shame. And there is another out at the other end that has good people trying to do good things.

If you're looking for a job, you can only work for one company, so that provides some hope: You just need to find that positive outlier. And if they are also successful and not crippled by attempts to stay sane in an insane world, you'll be fine.

It's much the same as with startups. Lots are absolute nonsense, conceived with the purpose of extracting money from a gullible market for investments in hot technology.

But you don't have to work for or with any of them, you just have to find the people who are genuinely trying to make the world a better place in a way that fits with what you have to offer.

> laid-back outdoorsy California vibe

as far as i can tell this is permanently gone from california. we are now all hyper-capitalists living in a weird socialist-leaning statist bureaucracy.

i grew up here but i'm thinking of moving somewhere else. the problem is there are only 3 states on the west coast and washington is basically turning into california 2.0

Don't look at Colorado either, it's all Tebow lovers and overly stoned grass-heads now.

Counter-point from me. My triathlon club is almost entirely down to earth middle aged people looking for competition and/or challenging healthy activity. Not particularly well-heeled (and those who are don't advertise it).

For those down-thread wondering if this is a witch-hunt, I've followed it in detail and if you know the sport the evidence of cheating is very clear. She has been singled out in the sense there are other cheats out there (I've seen it myself) but her high profile fairly reflects the callibre of events she's won (ITU long course).

Oh, I totally agree. There are lots of fun/nice tri clubs and I met a lot of great lifelong friends and great people while enjoying the sport. I certainly don't think that everyone who does tris is a rich douchebag. Just that there are SOME people like that, and their "loud personalities" can suck up all the oxygen in the room sometimes.

I'll probably get back into it because there is lots I miss about training, I just needed a break and have been enjoying the ultra scene for now.

Based on my experience, that sounds like it is more of a NYC rich person culture, not a universal culture regarding triathletes. At least, the people I have known in the Western USA who participate are much more down to earth.

I was in a tri team in Australia as a teenager that had a bunch of people compete in the Hawaiian Ironman, and my experiences match yours: about half the team owned well known mall franchises.

That matches my experience. I finished a long distance triathlon once and a whole year was dedicated for this single great day. I joined clubs and met a lot of people who trained for Ironman races. Most of them have been really nice and down to earth. But when it comes to winning age groups or getting a ticket to Kona you run into a lot of ego-driven money waving guys. I always refused to call myself a triathlet. I did Triathlon and for me that made a difference.

You train for one (1) year to merely finish a triathlon and then rag on people that are looking for something greater than ticking a box?

If this was a computer game, people would deem you a "casual".

What's wrong with being a casual gamer?

Nothing. It's the feigned ignorance and offhand dismissal of other peoples passions.

Yes, it took me one year of training for a casual daylight-finish. You know, it's not that easy.

From a sports perspective all of the age groupers have my deep respect. Again, most of them are nice guys. But this sport also attracts people I do not like. Too loud, too much bragging, too stylish.

I find the average triathlete more down to earn than the average programmer or hacker news user. YMMV.

The ultra community is great. Sadly, I expect it'll only last until there's some real money in the sport. Quietly, I sort of hope that never happens.

The community itself - the Joe Runner types - are absolutely great, and I can't see that changing.

An anecdote: I went to see my buddy run a 50 miler in the Charlottesville VA area a few weeks ago. I remember being told how great the race was a few years ago - cheap, fun, great afterparty. This year, entry fees were much higher, the post-race spread was more or less nonexistent... signs of nickel-and-diming everywhere.

I suspect that's fairly common now- RD's looking to make a profit through their racing companies.

Never imagined doing a triathlon, since my swimming isn't very good, but I agree about ultrarunning, though I was only ever on the edges of it.

Barley would be the opposite of it (I've never participated, I've just watched a documentary on Netflix).

*Barkley. You have to superhuman to finish one lap, let alone the race itself...

At spirit, ultrarunning is the polar opposite of tri- laid back, get it done fast or slow, have a beer after (or during...), most importantly, stop and help others, thank volunteers midrace, etc. That has been my experience thus far.

But money's seeping into the sport through sponsorships and purses, so let's not be naive - cheating is probably already happening (haven't seen it firsthand so I can't say it definitively), and it's to the point that influential voices in the sport are trying to figure out what to do about it.

[0] http://www.irunfar.com/2015/12/doping-and-the-effect-on-ultr... [1] http://running.competitor.com/2015/12/news/ultrarunning-at-a...

(I can't find the fairly provocative piece from mid-2015 nor can I remember who wrote it, help anyone?)

Could you expand a bit on your ultra running experiences? I'm thinking about trying it out.

Sure! Where are you based out of, I can recommend some specific clubs/starter races/routes if you're interested.

I've LOVED it. The majority of the ultra runners are kooky/cool/fun and interesting people. I was pleasantly surprised to find people of ALL body types and ages finishing 50 and 100 mile races as well. Here is a great article about Mirna Valerio, a 250lb ultrarunner:

http://www.runnersworld.com/runners-stories/ultra

Harrier Hash is another very fun running club to check out.

I would say a good way to get started is to check out volunteering at some races, see if you like the vibe. There are some aid stations at Western States every year that are a lot of fun.

The PCTR races are fun and low key and a good way to start out in the sport. My best advice to to stay within yourself and have fun with the training and the races. Listen to your body and if it needs a break give it a break, build up to ultra miles slowly, your body will think you for it.

Thank you so much! I'm an avid short distance runner (less than 10k ) and have been looking to do something more fun. Will definitely give it a good look. :)

I always thought of triathlon of a sport where doping was not that useful?

EPO and HGH will provide a huge advantage in triathlon. Anabolic steroids could be of some benefit to swimming performance. In a study of ~3000 amateur triathletes in Germany, 13% admitted to doping. 15% admitted to taking banned cognitive enhancers like modafinil.

http://www.irishtriathlon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/iro...

Anabolic steroids are very useful for distance sports, but in a different way. They speed up recovery from micro-injuries, enabling cheaters to put in more training miles on the bike or running.

Famously, Mary Decker Slaney was busted for having an illegal T/E ratio. She disputed it by claiming that contraceptive drugs altered her hormones, but the IAAF upheld her ban.

What advantage does Modafinil, which I believe is used to treat sleep disorders, offer?

Check out the modafinal subreddit. It's like a 12 hour coffee without the side effects. Improves concentration somewhat like Ritalin although less intense.

doping is ALWAYS userful, doping allows the biggest advantage you can have: you can train more at higher intensities because your recovery is a lot quicker and you get injured less.

This of course also helps with the narrative of "I won because I trained super hard", some people are genetically blessed to be able to absorb large training volumes without getting injured or burning out, for the others there are plenty of things one can use to achieve similar effects

This is also why unfortunately some coaches seem to go through athletes quite a bit until they find some that can take the workload, and focus on those, not so good though for the ones that ended up getting injured and out of the sport though.

I do think the news tend to portray doping too much as "race day doping" when the biggest gains are made in the offseason, and this is why there are rules like offseason testing where athletes have to inform the anti-doping agencies where they are at all times, and why it raises a lot of questions when some countries don't seem to have effective offseason anti-doping controls.

Not as useful as in professional cycling but its still an endurance sport and, of course, the recovery benefits etc. etc.

Why isn't it as useful? The team nature of cycling?

Every time I've heard that in the past, the sport has been completely filthy.

Parent was likely referring to the prevalence of stage races e.g. Tour de France in pro cycling. Unlike one-day triathlons, recovery is a crucial determinant in stage racing success. That's where anabolic steroids do their work.

This is why us road bikers absolutely can't stand tri guys.

The fact that "road bikers" aren't as different as you'd like to think is why I don't have much to do with cycling these days. Starting with the attitude conveyed in your comment.

speak for yourself

"They would see sketchy anti-aging out-of-pocket concierge docs for 5-10k a month who would prescribe them whatever they wanted/needed."

I used to feel sorry for doctors who paid a lot of malpractice insurance, and wanted to give them tort reform. I thought they deserved protection.

But when doctors sell out for money, I could care less about helping them out. It's not so much that they are dispensing HGH, steroids, etc., I imagine the doses are low, and the wealthy patient sees nothing, but placebo effects.

It's the money part. I really don't like doctors whom sell out for money.