Cameron Hanes / YouTube
Cameron Hanes of ‘Lift, Run, Shoot’ fame is an accomplished hunter with records to his name and an accomplished ultra-runner. He finished the Cocodona 250 last year, a 253-mile race through the deserts of Arizona. At the Eugene Marathon this year in Oregon he ran a time of 2:39:11 and he is 58 years old.
Cam competed in this year’s Cocodona 250 but had a ‘DNF’ after hitting his head, suffering a concussion after a bad gash to his forehead that leaked a lot of blood, and was forced to pull out. While all of that was going on, another elite runner was trying to cancel Hanes for peptide use and having admitted to taking WADA banned substances in the past.
Cameron Hanes Addresses Peptides, Calls Out People Trying To ‘Cancel’ Him
Before we get into everything below, I find it pretty wild that people are trying to ‘cancel’ someone in 2026 for taking a peptide in lieu of surgery when there are just so many thousands of other things in the world to get worked up about right now. But to each his own, I suppose. Cameron Hanes has a thoughful response here so let’s take a look.
As for the person leading the charge in the canceling department, that person is long distance runner Sage Canaday who ran for Cornell in college and qualified for the U.S. Olympic Trials at 21 years old back in 2008, the youngest-ever qualifier at that time. He won the Ivy League 10,000 meter championship in 2008, has a personal best half-marathon time of 1:04:32, has set 6 FKTs, and ran a 2:16:52 marathon in San Diego.
Sage Canaday is an extremely accomplished long distance runner, an elite athlete, and has a traditional background in the sport unlike Cam Hanes who came to ultrarunning later in life. Prior to the 2026 Cocodona 250, Sage Canaday shared an excerpt from an old blog post of Cam Hanes where Cam admitted “to taking a WADA banned drug.”
View on Threads
That blog post can be seen here. It’s from July 18, 2011. Cam Hanes was already 44-years-old then. In the post he wrote “On any given day, for growth, I take one tablet each of external testosterone in the A.M. and P.M. from Legal Limit Labs called Super Nova, along with another LLL productcalled Halo-Zol and anabolic optimizer from LLL and I take two tablets early and late of a product called Mega Shred. All of this stuff is for lean weight gain and it works. In the evening after work, I down some Xyience and head to the gym fired up because on these supplements I know I won’t feel the fatiguing effects of lifting nearly as much. I have a hard time leaving the gym because I am not tired.”
On Threads and elsewhere, Sage Canaday wrote “it’s come to my attention that a well known ‘Hybrid-Athlete-Influencer’ has publicly publicly admitted in an Instagram comment to taking a WADA banned drug.”
In the posts I came across, I never saw him mention Cam Hanes by name. Possibly to avoid trolls, who knows. But he put the quotes out there and let other people come to it. Then went on a tirade about how the dangers of these substances, Aravaipa Running’s doping policy (they put on Cocodona 250), and more.
So now that you’re caught up, Cameron Hanes addressed all of this on the latest episode of his Keep Hammering Collective podcast, his peptide use as alternative medicine to heal without surgery, his DNF at Cocodona this year, and more. I’ll include the full video right below but Cam’s quotes are below that with time stamps as well.
Cam Hanes Explains His Peptide Use
(36:11) “I ran with Kilian Korth, I ran with Michael McKnight, all the legends… as an old man. And that’s all I want to do. So how can I get this broken body to take my heart and soul to experience that with these legends?”
“If I’m hurt, my foot’s broken and I’m trying to avoid surgery by alternative medicine and taking a peptide, like last year I took a peptide to help me heal without surgery and it allows me to experience those moments with these incredible runners, I’m going to do it. Yeah, I’m going to do it. I don’t give a f— what anybody thinks. I’m not making the f—— Olympics. I’m not winning money.”
In response to to questions of, if people want runners tested for banned substances at a place like the Cocodona 250 then why aren’t we testing at local marathons and races? And then what do the elite runners in these races think about all this?
Cam Hanes explained (49:01) “I’ll just say, there’s somebody trying to cancel me. There’s people trying to cancel me in hunting too. I’m not complaining. I’ve been so blessed and so lucky with these opportunities, even to race Cocodona” He continued “I can’t sit here and say I’m a victim. I’m not a victim. I’m blessed. I’m lucky, but whatever. So this guy’s trying to cancel me. This guy doesn’t like me but he didn’t like me before any of this because we’re just different. He’s liberal, vegan, whatever. Fine.”
Cam Hanes takes exception to Canaday coming at him and his family, and rightfully so, as they are personal attacks. Hanes went on to say “so he doesn’t like my family and now it’s like he gets a reason that he can run with it, right? I’m not a liar. I’ve said many times what what I’ve done. Like he has this old (blog) post from 15 years ago on some OTC supplements that I use from GNC because I was just ‘hey, let’s get big!’ Legal. Over-the-counter. Whatever. Probably not legal for Olympic-style testing. But I’m not a f—— Olympian.”
Cam continued, saying “he has this thing from 15 years ago, still on my website… I’m not hiding anything. I’ve said I go to Ways to Well, I’ve got stem cells, I said I tried the peptides in my broken foot instead of surgery, I’ve been very open about everything… Even in this case, the peptide or whatever, the TRT, I’ll just say something about TRT, I know probably half the field is on it out there because it’s in aging. The women need estrogen. The me need testosterone. Whatever. If they’re healthy and they can experience a life-changing event, I’m down.”
At this point, Cameron Hanes has made it abundantly clear how he feels about all of this. It’s also crystal clear that he and Sage Canaday will never see eye to eye on any of this.
Cam later says he wants the Olympics to be clean. He does not want doping in sports among the elites. But he wants everyone to be on a level playing field. He says he understand where Sage Canaday is coming from with his background and respects that, and he’s a man of his word. But asks that Canaday comes back to him in twenty years when he’s 60 like Cam nearly is and would like to hear how Sage feels about peptides then.
What now?
Ultimately, all of this will blow over. The running community will move on. Cam Hanes is not getting canceled by Sage Canaday, or anyone for that matter.
Ultimately, if peptides and TRT are so prevalent in these races then securing USADA waivers would seem like the logical thing to do for athletes. It’s common in triathlons for people with ADHD like myself to take banned substances (adderall, etc) and I’ve personally reached out to USADA about a waiver and was told that as an amateur athlete I didn’t need one.
I’m not getting on the podium in Kona. Cam is not winning Cocodona 250 at 58 years old. In fact, he DNF’d this year. But I think at least having these discussions, putting it all out there, is ultimately good for the sport. Transparency is best.
Now go watch the full episode above!