“After initially be [sic] notified of the positive finding for Ephedrine, I personally jumped to the conclusion that the Benadryl Allergy Medicine I had been taking must have been the cause. But doing some research online, it seems that this is not the case. 7 I submit as attachment photographs of all of the medicines that I had taken in the weeks prior to the competition in Lima, and I believe that I have now identified the likely source of the Ephedrine – a box of Chinese Herbal Medicine that I was given by some Asians I met at a restaurant in late January 2014 when I was competing in the Osaka Ladies Marathon in Japan and when my allergies and cough were especially bothering me to the extent that I could not finish the competition. It is green and white with Chinese characters in the attached photographs. The label of the box is all in Chinese which I cannot read, but I had a Chinese associate translate the label for me and he informs that the fifth and sixth characters translate to “Ephedra Sinica”, an herb that does contain Ephedrine. I did not even specifically intend to take this medicine in the days prior to the Lima Marathon, but I have (until now) been in the habit of putting some of [sic] all the pills that I take (analgesics, antihistamines) into a single pill bottle for convenience when traveling. There are some of the Chinese pills in this bottle, so I am convinced that I must have inadvertently taken some while in Lima.”
