The "True" Confessions of Racn4acure!

I decided to bare my soul and come clean with what has really happened these past eight years with my marathon, half marathon, and 10K racing career.  For years, I've vehemently denied the use of performance enhancing drugs (PED's).  I've viciously attacked and threatened anyone who suggested I might be using PED's.  I felt invincible.  But it took a tough investigative journalist, the famous Opera "Bats" Belfry, to dig into the facts and expose my little charade.  She locked in on things like a dog after a bone, and backed me into a corner quicker than Lindsay Lohan reaching for another drink.  There was no way out other than to face the truth.  So after all this, I decided Opera had earned the right for an exclusive interview.  Here is is:

Opera: "Thank you for agreeing to do this, Racn4acure.  I know it is not easy to admit to the world that you are a lying, cheating weasel."
Racn: "Hey, I resemble that remark, Opera!  Don't you think it casts unfair aspersions on members of the Mustelid family?"
Opera: "Let's 'Lance' that boil and get right to it: have you used performance enhancing drugs?"
Racn: "Yes."
Opera: "For every race?"
Racn: "No, not for my first 10K, or the marathon in Anchorage in 2005.  And not for last year's races - I don't think the statute of limitations is over for them, yet, is it?  But for all of the rest, to some degree or another, yes, I did."
Opera: "What made you sink so low, Racn?"
Racn: "You know, it happened a little bit at a time, Opera.  In the Anchorage Marathon, I walked my buns off for 26 miles in the rain, and still finished in the bottom 15% of males, and pretty far down for females as well.  And when I analyzed the results, I realized that there was only one possible explanation why so many people beat me: they, every single one of them, were on PED's!  It was an epiphany for me."
Opera: "Every single one of them?"
Racn: "Yes, there is no other explanation."
Opera: "Some of them were not just naturally faster, or had more endurance, or had trained harder?"
Racn: "Okay, maybe a few.  I can see that.  A handful, perhaps.  But hundreds? Come on, Opera!  You didn't just fall off the turnip truck!"
Opera: "But some of them, most of them, actually, ran while you walked."
Racn: "You see?  If that isn't cheating, what is?  Running while someone else walks?  Talk about gaining an unfair advantage!  Why aren't you exposing some of them?"
Opera: "So, what happened next?"
Racn: "Well, after reaching that epiphany that I spoke of, I realized my only way to do better was to try some PED's.  I didn't know where to start, but I knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a gal who knew a guy, and leading up to the San Diego Marathon, I started using all kinds of things - but not a lot of any one thing.  Just to experiment.  And I knocked something like 20 or 25 minutes off my marathon time.  And I thought, how much better can I do if I ramp things up a bit more?"
Opera: "Then came your training for the Arizona Marathon in 2008, right?"
Racn: "Yep, and I went all out, Opera.  I started with caffeine.  Then I tried some goo's, lots of goo's.  I added PB and J - well, actually, first just the PB alone and then PB with the J - and LOL.  Then, I used stuff like ROFLOL.  I even did Cliff Shots during the race - giving myself Cliff Shots three times in porta-potties!"
Opera: "Cliff Shots in a porta potty?  Do you know how disgusting that sounds, Racn4acure?"
Racn: "Let's not get judgemental here, Opera.  But yes, oh, the stories I could tell you about what goes on in those porta potties on race day.  Why, in this one porta potty...."
Opera: "Let's not go there.  What else did you use?"
Racn: "I am so ashamed of this still that I can barely admit it, but I even used EVOO - lots of it, and often."
Opera: "EVOO? No, Racn, not that!  Really?  Extra-virgin olive oil?  That is just terrible."
Racn: "I became obsessed.  What can I say?"
Opera: "I can understand OO.  I can even understand how you might be tempted to try VOO. But extra-virgin?  That's about as low as it gets.  There may be a special place in Hell for you."
Racn (sobbing): "I know, Opera.  I know.  And it continued as I started to run the half marathons and 10K's.  Oh, the shame of it all!"
Opera: "Why did you do it?  Did you hope to win?"
Racn: "No, I knew I could never win a race, Opera.  There were too many people really cheating for me to accomplish that.  I just wanted to be sure I was never the last man over the finish line.  I was actually OK finishing in the bottom 20%.  But I already knew that everyone who finished ahead of me - all but a handful of them, anyway - were on this stuff.  What if the people behind me started doing PED's, too?  I could, without warning, finish last.  That could not happen, Opera.  I could not let that happen.  Then, I broke the six hour barrier in the Arizona Marathon, and I thought, 'Whoa, this stuff really works!'  And I just kept going with it, even the EVOO."
Opera: "You left plenty of clues for me along the way, but it was the Arizona Marathon that really put me on to you.  It was such an improvement in your best times that I knew something was going on under the covers (or in the porta potties).  I talked to some of the world class marathons, the two hours and change guys, about your time.  You know what they told me?  'Six hours!  I didn't know that it was humanly possible to complete a marathon in six hours!'  So I started digging.  And I found a lot of dirt."
Racn: "Clues?  What kind of clues did I leave?  I thought I was being very careful, plus I threatened - uh, that is - I suggested to anyone who was going to expose me that it might not be the best of ideas."
Opera: "Well, for starters, the miles 19-22 in San Diego when you felt so sick and said that it was because you tried some 'new energy candy.'  Energy candy?  Pul-ease!  Pathetic, Racn4acure!  Pa - thet - tic!"
Racn: "I made a mistake."
Opera: "Then, there was that 'vertigo' the day before the Arizona Marathon.  You'd never had vertigo before, and breaking the six hour barrier the next day confirmed what really happened.  Too much caffeine and EVOO - although at the time I was thinking maybe VOO, never believing that even you would stoop to EVOO - had made you dizzy."
Racn: "You're good!"
Opera: "I have to be.  It's my job.  Then, there was the 'purple hair dye' in Seattle in 2010.  That was diabolically clever, Racn.  You almost got away with it.  And you would have, had it been a nice deep shade of purple.  But there were even more early clues that made me suspicious."
Racn: "Like what?"
Opera: "That training run in 2006 when you caught that snail down the stretch and left him gasping in his own slime trail.  The octogenarian with the walker that you lapped on the track.  The weight room workouts where your ability to pump iron increased three fold - why, you even bench pressed 30 or 35 pounds that one time with those arms strong of yours.  And you thought no one would notice?"
Racn: "But everyone else was doing it, Opera.  I just didn't want to finish last some day.  Hey, I have flaw, just like every other human being."
Opera: "Flaw?  Don't you mean 'flaws'?"
Racn: "Nope, flaw."
Opera: "Wow, not only are you as honest as the day is long at the North Pole on the day of the winter solstice, but you're humble, too!"
Racn: "Why, thank you, Opera!"
Opera: "Are you familiar with sarcasm?"
Racn: "Sarcasm? Sure, that's like the place where the baby eels are born, right?"
Opera: "American eels, a catadromous species of fish, return from fresh water to breed and lay eggs in the Sargasso Sea, not the Sarcasm Sea.  The word 'sarcasm' means.... Oh, never mind!"

(at this point, Opera Belfry mutters something under breath.  It is barely audible, but the powerful mics on her sound stage make it clear that she is saying "So, not only is he doping, but he is a dope as well."

Opera: "So, okay, let's get back on track, then.  This so-called 'fact' that everyone else was doing it - that justified your cheating?"
Racn: "You know, I had to look up the word 'cheat' in Dictionary.com."
Opera: "Yeah, I saw where they got two hits for that word last month.  I wondered if one of them was you.  You could have saved yourself the trouble and just asked a five year old kid.  They could tell you what cheating is."
Racn: "Yeah, that was me, Opera!  Anyhow, it said something like 'to break the rules and regulations in an attempt to gain an unfair advantage.' And I didn't do that.  No, siree!  I was just trying to level the playing field.  So I am not a cheater.  I am a playing field leveler.  And, actually, I think that is good thing."
Opera: "A good thing?  How?"
Racn: "Well, there is nothing America likes more than a level playing field.  And I did that.  I made that happen. I saw what had to be done, a problem that had to be solved, and I solved it.  I leveled the playing field.  So, you're welcome, America.  You've welcome!"
Opera: "Wow, you're quite the hero, then.  You know, with a perspective like that, you could have a great career in Congress, say in the House.  Or maybe even as a Senator."
Racn: "Thanks, Opera!  That's a great compliment."
Opera: "It wasn't - really."
Racn: "Ah-ha!"
Opera: "Well, Racn4acure, our time is about up.  Anything you would like to add to our conversation?"
Racn: "Put yourself in my running shoes, Opera.  Everyone else in the whole world is cheating.  They have to be.  Hell, even that octogenarian with the walker that I lapped was chain smoking to try to give himself some nicotine stimulation.  What would you do?"
Opera: "What would I do?  I would remember what I was taught in elementary school: that he or she who cheats, cheats only themselves.  This is Opera Belfry, wishing you a good day.  Thank you for watching!"