Are any marathon runners out there trying rapamycin? I’d be curious if anyone who runs marathons regularly has started rapamycin and noticed a change in their times.
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Im not a marathon runner but do a lot of endurance sports (martial arts & much much more incl running)
Im on rapa since ~4 months
I havnt noticed ANY changes jet. I think I won’t notice any changes in the future. But I am not the average, Im just highly trained.
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I don’t believe anyone thinks rapamycin is a performance enhancer per se. It’s also not on the WADA banned substance list. What I wonder about, is if rapamycin users see more consistency in things like marathon times after decades of use, and less of a decline overall than what would be expected. The late great Ed Whitlock’s marathon record times decreased about 10 mins per five years, with a big decline happening after 85.
Will a longtime rapa user be able to break age group world records, and if so, will they be disqualified because of rapa use?
It’s probably easier to measure if VO2 max declines slower compared to a control (this may have already been done) than compare marathon times, since there’s a lot that goes into having a good race.
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Someone needs to send Eliud Kipchoge some rapamycin… with all the research. Rapamycin would keep him running at his speed much longer I suspect…
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There’s actually some uncertainty around Kipchoge’s age. Supposedly he lied about his age and said that he was younger when he started his track career; agents apparently were more impressed by younger runners and hence the motivation to lie. He could be as much has 5-6 years older than his claimed age of 38, meaning he’s probably more like 43-44 years old, which would make him the fastest masters marathoner by far. These basically rumors/hearsay though, based on Kenyans that knew/have run with Kipchoge. There hasn’t been any real reporting on it. We likely won’t know the truth for a while, if ever.
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@Maveric78 is big into cycling I know. I wonder if he’s seen any change - positive or negative - in his times or endurance…?
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I saw no detriment in performance at 5mg/wk. Indeed I was hitting my best power numbers for several years at a lower body weight.
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Wow! Those are some impressive numbers! Do you do races over 100 miles? Is there a race over 100 miles you did before and after rapamycin? Have you taken rapamycin pretty continuously once a week or do you cycle on and off?
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I took rapamycin once per week for 15 months straight.
I ride track primarily so rarely do such long rides but I find my endurance for any distance over 10 miles is largely linked to my FTP (plus feeding strategy).
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Another post (and longer thread that touches on this issue you’ve asked about): Rapamycin and Exercise: any Muscle inhibition? - #180 by Bettywhitetest
Another (another) post Rapamycin and exercise same day? - #42 by midage_runner – midage_runner has a number of comments related to endurance running.
My best guess is that larger doses of rapamycin, certainly weekly, would not be best for endurance training. Lower weekly doses have some good anecdotal evidence.
I am very curious about Dr. Green’s interview comments that his senior athletes have had “extraordinary” results in senior Olympics levels activities. It would be nice to know what they dose at. In addition, Dr Green claims his healthy insulin sensitive patients get the most benefit from rapamycin. This is in contrast to unhealthy patients who only get half the benefit of healthy ones. Alan Green on Rapamycin Master Series | Lessons learned from over 1200 patients - YouTube Often the benefits for supplements or drugs like metformin are best seen in unhealthy people. In the case of rapamycin, it may be the opposite.
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I’ve ran 3 marathons in my life. My PR is right at 3hrs. I regularly run 40-70 miles a week. I’m currently about 10 weeks into a marathon training cycle while taking 3-5mg a week. I also will take a week break about every 8 weeks.
Things I’ve anecdotally noticed that are different than previous training cycles.
- If I take rapamycin on my interval workout day, which I’m currently in the aerobic strength phase (running 10 seconds faster than goal marathon pace on 1+ mile repeats). My heart rate has been considerably lower and more steady. I find it hard to go anaerobic, which is considerably different than my previous marathon training. I naturally go anaerobic fairly easy, so my heart rate staying high aerobic instead of spiking has been awesome. I now intentionally take it on the morning of my interval days because I feel like training your heart to not go anaerobic is important for the marathon distance.
- Marathon training is about cumulative fatigue. Rapamycin hits me like an extra run, without the wear and tear from actually running. There are several studies showing what it does to your mitochondria, which is our aerobic powerhouse. Every run I do, taxes my mitochondria, then that system adapts and rebuilds stronger. Taking rapamycin makes my body feel like I did 2 runs in a day instead of one.
- According to my watch (which isn’t super accurate), my VO2 has gone from a 54 to a 58 during this cycle. According to the same watch, my VO2 has not been higher during any other marathon training cycle. The highest it’s been is 2 marathon training cycles ago at 56. I realize this may have a lot to do with workouts, mileage, and how well I’m training. I am having a very good training cycle, there are several factors.
- At first I hated workout days with rapamycin, just left my body exhausted more than usual. After about 4-5 weeks I really hits a stride and it’s no longer that hard on me. My workouts are going really great and if anything, it feels like I’m recovering faster.
- I mentioned that I took a week break. Rapamycin seems to be massive anti-inflammatory drug. I can tell this during this cycle. Which is also why I think it feels like I’m recovering quickly. I have learned though, your body needs some inflammation to heal. My joints started feeling a bit out of sorts, a bit more achy from the grind. Whether I’m correct or not, it just felt like I needed to take a break to allow some inflammation in the joints for healing purposes. Placebo or not, the following week things started going better.
I’m massively experimenting right now and haven’t shared much with the forum yet. This is the first time I’ve mentioned thoughts/results. My overall times aren’t better than other training cycles, most things I’ve noticed have to do with heart rate. There are really too many factors in marathon training and even race day to positively correlate the rapamycin with performance. Weather, training, rest, food prep, etc…
I’ve enjoyed the training so far and do think there may be something to it.
Lastly, my wife did an entire marathon cycle on rapamycin and hit a PB by 9 minutes, improving her time from low 3:30 to a low 3:20. She also really enjoyed marathon training on rapamycin, taking 2-4mg per week. Her and I have discussed what we felt were the benefits and that’s what I’ve listed above. One thing we decided to test with her, was no taking rapamycin the week she ran her race. After the race, she regretted not taking it the week of. She felt her body had gotten very use to it and not taking it the week of the race put her body in an unfamiliar place. She felt she could have run faster had she taken it the week of the race. I’m likely to take it the week of the race.
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Thanks for sharing. I am a cat 1 mountain bike racer and trail runner with one ultra under a belt and half-iron. I have been racing for the past 10 years and now that I turned 50 I noticed it’s a bit harder to recover. Boy, your review of rapamycin does not sound like a good idea for an endurance and racing athlete. I have been researching rapamycin for the past few months. Unfortunately there are only few studies on humans and none on human athletic performance. So all we can go by is animal data and anecdotal evidence. I would disagree with you that training is not so much about fatigue as it is about recovery and adaptation. As you get older you need even more time for recovery. So your experience about feeling even more fatigued and unable to hit to what I guess you refer to Anaerobic threshold is worrisome. Accruing fatigue is easy between HIIT and zone 2 training, it’s the recovery that’s hard as we age. Have you said that you feel less fatigued and able to bounce back and do more training the next day, that would be indication that rapa is doing something positive. It’s also interesting the point you made about rapa being anti-inflammatory drugs. Anti-inflammatory drugs in the studies have been shown to reduce exercise adaption, because you are right post-exercise inflammation is needed for that adaption to occur. I wonder if rapamycin would work better for more sedentary individuals just like metformin works better in patients with insulin resistance. We may have some answers if Dr. Brad Stanfield ever gets human study off the ground, as he is planning to study just that - exercise adaptation on rapamycin. Until then I would stick to more natural M-TOR inhibition via more exercise, EGCG (3 teaspoon of matcha daily) and curcumin. I am also doing TRE for animal protein. Good luck on your journey.
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I’m not sure why you’re disagreeing with me. Training is a very complex topic that can’t be covered in a single post. Just like your knowledge also can’t be. I strongly agree with you that training is about recovery and adaptation. You can’t have recovery and adaptation without fatigue. Cumulative fatigue and running on tired legs is the basics of most marathon training plans. It’s just a term that Hanson’s marathon training uses. I do get enough rest/recovery before I take off on the next run.
What I was trying to imply with that statement is that rapamycin is another form of stress/fatigue. Used correctly at low dosage, I feel like it can be another tool (anecdotally).
After my marathon cycle I looked back over my logs and nothing impressive stood out about rapamycin. Most my heart rate observations after analyzing again were subjective and not outside of any normal statistical analysis. My body felt just as good/bad as ever during a marathon training cycle.
If anything, I felt I was recovering faster from workouts. I think this is likely due to rapamycin being anti-inflammatory.
Like you said, you need inflammation for adaptation. So this needs to be done with caution. This is one reason I never take it with grapefruit juice and during the bulk of the marathon training cycle I was only taking 3 or 4mg. I also took a full week break after every 3 weeks for extra recovery. That was to make sure my body wasn’t wearing down.
At no point did I think my CNS was worn out from the training. I would caution anyone using rapamycin full year round without rest as an endurance athlete. I suspect the anti-inflammatory properties + constant hard training would break down your body, resulting in an injury.
After my most recent race I took a 4 week break. I’m now back on it using it as a tool like before at low dose.
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Again, I think this statement is only partially accurate. Fatigue from exercise - YES, fatigue from poor sleep - NO, fatigue from overtraining - NO, fatigue from drinking too much alcohol - NO, fatigue from stress in your life - NO, fatigue from taking a rapamycin - I don’t know. No one knows, but honestly I would rather have majority of my fatigue coming from training - base miles, HIIT, weights, sauna, etc. It’s just my opinion but if it works for you that’s great.
Again, I appreciate you sharing your experience with the drug. I was on the fence about taking the oral rapamycin due to my active lifestyle - 10-15 hours a week of riding, running and gym. I can’t afford anything messing with my recovery.
BTW, did you by any chance track your HRV’s before and after rapamycin ?
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I did and have tracked it periodically as a tool to help with recovery when training 50+ miles of running a week. I saw no significant difference before/after taking rapamycin.
The primary advantage and thing I enjoyed the most, was muscle fatigue seemed way less than normal on the weeks that I took rapamycin.
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No HRV changes is good news. It sounds like the fatigue might be just perceived as such. Supposedly people that use Beta-blockers and exercise perceive more fatigue even though their performance is not affected and sometimes enhanced at lower levels (beta blockers can enhance cardiac output). Over the years I found the HRV’s measurements to be pretty sensitive and specific measure to quantify fatigue. In fact there are study that have shown that HRV’s can predict onset of COVID. Reduced muscle soreness definitely makes sense due rapamycin’s anti-inflammatory effect. I am not sure though if that would impair body adaptation like it does with NSAID’s. Carry on.
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When I started Rapamycin, my HRV decreased significantly but then recovered. The decrease was similar to running a marathon, but as I continued the once-weekly dose, the HRV decrease lessened, and now I do not notice a reduction in my HRV. It reminds me how your HRV decreases when you start a new exercise program and your body adapts.
My initial thought in posting the marathon question is that I see a marathon time as an estimate of general health. I haven’t trained for a marathon for many years, but I still run one or two a year. I see it as a more accurate estimate of health than telomerase tests or other longevity estimates. I’m always surprised that my times over the past ten years have been pretty consistent. I’ll be curious to see how my times change on the Rapamycin.
I agree with midage_runner that I wonder if taking Ramamycin continually might decrease the ability of the body to recover from a marathon or heavy training and if periodic breaks might be a good idea. I’ve heard different intervals, such as on for eight weeks and off for five weeks, but I haven’t decided how to do the breaks yet.
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Hey 
I have taken 15 mins off my marathon time since starting it & qualified for Boston. I continue to get faster. Who knows tho right?! I’m also happier and stress levels are lower than before. Do I think it helps fitness? Yes, imo, it’s doing something for sure.
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One other thing I just noticed: instead of every 7 days, I decided to try dosing every 12 days and felt not right at all! I was completely off and a bit dizzy (minor flu symptoms). My partner did the same and felt flu like symptoms so that was very interesting! We did not have the real flu! I feel like dosing once a week is my sweet spot which avoids side effects. Not sure why having too much of a break in between isn’t good.
I also noticed a drop on my HRV at the beginning and now is balanced. My resting HR is also a little lower than when I started - averaging 44-46.
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