(Oops, 'scuse the excessive length. I thought I was posting the edited version half this length. Apparently I posted the rough draft with redundant paragraphs. Oh, well, nobody is gonna read this whole thing anyway.)
I've read several stories this week about her case. I sympathize but I don't believe any experienced athlete who's competed at that level doesn't know the risks associated with eating organ meats from unknown sources. If your curated news feed includes sports, at least once a week you'll see similar reports of athletes who failed a doping test because of something they ate.
Protip: The whole reason some of us eat organ meats, especially from outside the US, is *for* the concentrated hormones and heme iron. Ditto weird herbal supplements that smell like feet.
Several athletes of all ages have used the same excuse: "I didn't know there were hormones in the Mexican wild boar, beef liver, pork organs, etc , that I ate just before competition."
Yeah, no. We know what's in it. To paraphrase Lone Watie from The Outlaw Josey Wales, we're looking for an edge.
That includes boxers Tyson Fury (wild boar) and Saul "Canelo" Alvarez (Mexican pork or beef, I forget), both in their primes, both gigged for PEDs, both used the food excuse. And both were permitted to continue competing anyway, maybe after a short suspension, because there's a buttload of money in pro boxing and nobody wants to miss their cut. If you've followed boxing as long as I have you learn pretty quickly that almost every elite level pro dopes, and the only reason some are penalized is because they aren't well liked and don't generate enough money for the officials to look the other way. James Toney is among the very few boxers who had any significant penalties for doping, and that's because Toney is an unrepentant trash talker with the talent to back it up in his prime. He didn't make many friends in the sport, didn't win enough high profile big money bouts to make it easier to overlook his abrasive personality. Compare that with Evander Holyfield, a known doper, who was a big money maker for promoters, a fan favorite, and a likeable guy -- who got his butt handed to him by James Toney. But Holyfield never suffered any serious consequences for doping. But you can bet that every top ten boxer over age 30 who has grown from, say, flyweight to middleweight as an adult, and still competes at the highest level is doped to the gills -- and every official is bribed to the gills to overlook it.
Several athletes, men and women, over age 60 have been gigged for failing doping tests. Even when the competition didn't amount to much in recognition and compensation. Y'know why? Because getting old sucks.
Or, in my case, just trying to regain the energy for a casual bike ride. Screw that noise about wisdom and growing old graciously. Save it for fairy tales.
After my thyroid failed and surgery for thyroid cancer, my iron, hemoglobin, hematocrit, vitamin D, calcium and testosterone levels tanked. For a few months in 2018 I barely had the energy to walk, let alone bike or run. I literally fell down a couple of times that year when I was too weak to stand to pee.
But my doctors weren't interested in complaints about anything that affected quality of life. They shrugged off anything that couldn't be measured in lab tests. If the numbers were good, heck, I must be lying about feeling like old fly covered meadow muffins. I've read my medical reports online. Invariably the doctors and nurses condense my reports of declining fitness -- backed up by data in activity apps -- to "fatigue."
This is why more ambitious athletes wind up seeing "sports medicine" specialists and sketchy doctors who are willing to prescribe HGH, etc. It's not simply that your family doctor and conventional specialists won't authorize tests or treatments related to complaints of unusual fatigue, weakness, etc. They don't even listen. It simply doesn't register with them.
I sort of understand. I'm only 63, but most of the veterans my age I see at the VA are in wheelchairs and walkers, obese, with all kinds of health problems related to diet, lack of exercise, excessive smoking and drinking. I suppose after seeing enough of those guys, the doctors and nurses look at me and think there's nothing wrong, nothing to complain about.
So I chose my own supplements that were readily available legally without prescriptions or resorting to the dark web.
Also, we can legit claim later "we didn't know" that beef liver, wild boar, burrito made from pork organ meats, etc, were full of nandrolone metabolites. Because if you can't trust your neighborhood taco truck dealer, who can you trust? Why do you think I buy beef liver from Fiesta instead of Kroger? (Tastes better too.)
Of course we know. That info is all over the web. If our daily curated news feed includes sports, hardly a week goes by without a report of an athlete who was gigged for PEDs that were supposedly linked to our diets.
I also take beta ecdysterone from plant sources. It's in spinach and other greens, some root vegetables, and the exoskeletons of some shellfish, insects and true bugs. It's a marginal gains type thing which some athletic organizations are considering regulating or banning, but for now it's legal and unregulated. TBH, it doesn't really do much.
The problem? Orally consumed steroids don't really work. Mostly they just get detected in PED tests without conferring super powers.
I eat this stuff often. All it does is just barely get me moving again. It ain't Popeye's magic spinach. Neither is the Albuterol I take for asthma. It barely works as an asthma inhaler, let alone a PED.
On the plus side, I don't need to worry about growing man-boobs, developing premature osteoporosis, or suddenly thinking I should run for governor, from injecting anabolic steroids.
I feel bad for Shelby Houlihan. She might not have known the risk. There's no indication of any previous PED infractions. And maybe the sports regulatory agencies need better standards and testing. WADA and UCI have gotten it wrong before, notably with Chris Froome.
And FWIW, I don't compete at any level anymore and don't plan to. Even with the dietary tricks I try, nobody's KOMs are in danger. I haven't managed a top ten on any worthwhile segment since 2017, before my thyroid cancer and injuries from being hit by a car in 2018. The stuff I do -- deliberately eating organ meats, OTC supplements, etc. -- merely gets me up and going. I'm no longer even in the top ten of local guys my age and had to quit fast group rides about a year ago. I got tired of folks waiting for me at every regroup point after I got dropped. My best solo ride on a 20 mile tough roller coaster route last year was 18 mph. This year I can barely average 14 mph on the same route. In March my fastest 5k was 27 minutes. I haven't been able to reproduce that since.
Yeah, I understand the urge to try something, anything, to get stronger or retain our old fitness. But while stuffing ourselves with organ meats that have a little extra nandrolone might be measurable in a test, it won't necessarily confer any superpowers.
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