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Comment by Lio | Hacker News Reader

Great name. I take it it’s a play on the word endurance and the name of the great Spanish cycling champion Miguel Induráin.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Indur%C3%A1in

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Best of the best at a time when almost everyone was doping like mad. Worked with EPO pioneer Dr. Conconi. He was never caught but chances are he wasn't clean.

Istr he was also some sort of physiological freak - huge lung capacity combined with a ridiculously low resting heart rate. Won all his tours by hammering out huge TT leads that were unassailable in the the mountain stages.

I don't want start a doping argument on HN, and I don't dispute what you've written, but a very low heart rate can be a result of EPO usage.

There's an interesting account in (IIRC) Pantani's biography of riders having to sleep with heart rate monitors. An alarm would trigger if their HR dropped into a dangerous territory, whereupon they'd wake up and have to jump on a bike (which would already be set up on a trainer) in their room to bring their HR back up again.

Also in Obree's book "Flying Scotsman" [0] where his attitude to "medical assistance" makes him "not a team player", and recounts how he'd hear certain teams running through the hotel at night to avoid the potential blot clots associated with EPO usage.

* https://www.amazon.co.uk/Flying-Scotsman-Graeme-Obree/dp/190...

"Medlife Crisis" has an interesting video about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT8GZlBBv5k (Cyclists' hearts: can you be so fit that you die?)

Realistically, it's probably a "yes, and" situation. You don't get to that level without having a lot of natural talent, but... those years were what they were.

that's not why they had to get up. It's because they were hitting the EPO so hard, their hematocrits would be like over 60% (60% red blood cells/mL of blood) and thus when their heart rate/cardiac output would drop during sleep (to very low levels typically of highly trained athletes...not because of the EPO) the blood would be too viscous and start to clot

so the low heart rates caused a problem for those abusing EPO, but wasn't a result of using EPO

Thanks - and fair challenge.

Reviewing this, I realised I was guilty of an assumption: that as a low haematocrit can absolutely cause a high heart rate, so a high haematocrit might contribute to a low heart rate... but I can't find any support for this supposition. :)

Sadly, I can't edit my earlier post.

+1 on doping, but the context you provide is very interesting, thank you for the info.

George Hincapie was also kind of a physiological freak. I remember watching him at junior nationals one year just completely decimate the field. It was a criterium and he had a slow leak on his front tire and still won the race. A really strong and talented rider long before he was a doper.

It is a fine name but Endurian - become one with, be the durian was also right there.

Thats how I read it as well. It sounds better off the tongue, but the -rain name is in gear with such an app - as this is not a fruity dieting app for Filipinos.

Or if you live in Ireland - "endure the rain" - because we have no other choice /s

Reminds me of childhood holidays in county Wexford. We’d always be told it’d been constant sunshine the week before… as we stared out the window at the driving rain.

Wexford’s ace though so we never really minded. ;)

Works for Seattle too :)

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