Following up on last year’s sprint triathlon, I did another triathlon recently. I did a similar timing of dosage, 10 weeks on rapamycin and then 8 weeks off. The big difference was last year I was on a compounded version of rapamycin, This past year I have been on either Biocon or Zydus at levels of 3-8 mg weekly taken with fats. My presumption is that I have much higher blood levels of rapamycin this past year versus the compounded pharmacy capsule version without enteric coating.
This year’s triathlon was a bit longer and in a different location. So rather than compare times, I will use results placement to compare events.
Last year I had exceptional gains in my training and triathlon results. Placing 65th of 180 m/f finishers
This years results as follows:
Placed 89th of 153 m/f finishers - a lot worse than last year’s result, but more to the mean as to how I typically do in a sprint triathlon. I had trained well (but raced poorly-swim in particular). But as a broad measure I wanted to see if my rapamycin usage could be seen as a performance enhancing substance.
Last year:
Resting heart rate went down in a linear fashion during training from 50 bpm to 42 bpm
This year:
Resting heart rate gains were less and more erratic. Measuring anywhere from 55 to 45 to 50. Definitely some gains in endurance but not the dramatic gains from last year as far as bpm
Last year:
Excellent sleep 8+
This year:
Sleep 6-7 hours. It got to the point where I was considering using a dose of rapamycin to enhance my sleep. Some irony as I used to complain about rapamycin messing with my sleep. Over time this has changed to an sleep enhancement. My sleep wasn’t bad, but not what is needing to excel at a higher training level.
Annual Physical: Had my annual physical before the event. Normal blood measures, with the exception of free testosterone levels above normal range. Not taking trt and only have last year’s blood test to measure against. And that was somewhat high also.
Conclusions: At a higher dose of rapamycin and taking a break during training, I did not see anything suggesting it helped or detracted from my training and placing in the triathlon. As far as the year before, maybe it did at lower dosage.
Future dosing: I plan on taking smaller doses of rapamycin. 2-3mg Zydus every 10 days or so in the coming year. I will also consider 1mg a day for a week/then off rapamycin for 7 days. I will use subjective measures of sleep, energy levels, etc to gauge how to dose. If I do the triathlon in 2024, I will use a low dose regiment during training and see how it goes.