There are lots of theories about how to deal with altitude when it comes to racing. I’ve always been fascinated by this from both a personal and scientific perspective. Over the years, I’ve personally seen the impact of altitude on my athletic performance. Perhaps the most striking example was running a half marathon at sea level at 7:05 pace when my fastest training at altitude was at 7:30 pace. There is no question in my mind that I benefitted from training at altitude when it came to performing at sea level. Ironically, I’m not sure that I ever really got to experience the benefit of this in an ironman. I definitely did see results in half marathons and 5K’s. What I’ll never now is whether I’d have achieved the same results training at sea level.
The other thing that has been obvious to me is that living at altitude for 18 years has given me some physiologic memory to fall back on. I remember that when I first moved to Denver, it took me almost six months to fully acclimatize. I feel like it now only takes a couple of weeks for my body to recall what altitude feels like. With that said, I still feel the difference during my first day or two at altitude. Yesterday was a good example. Having done 9 hours of training over the weekend, it is likely that I was already slightly dehydrated, and definitely fatigued. Going to altitude kicked my butt for about a day, but after a good night’s sleep, I awoke feeling pretty good, I’ll consider this my first day of being at altitude in preparation for Ironman Boulder. Tomorrow night we’ll be in St George, which is “only” about 2500 feet, but will give me some altitude stimulus. By Friday, I’ll be at altitude again, where I will stay until Tuesday. So, four more days added to my “altitude tab.”
The body responds to altitude by adjusting. There is certainly the attempt at making more red blood cells, as well as the body’s attempt to dehydrate itself in order to increase the concentration of red blood cells. I will sometimes take some additional iron during this time period. There is some school of thought about taking in more alkaline fluids. I generally find that after 4 or 5 days that I’m feeling pretty comfortable. Hydration, and some additional electrolytes are important. Another thing that I’ve learned is that the body burns more carbohydrates at altitude, and my more “keto” approach to eating has some downside So, at altitude, I’ll actually make sure that I take in some additional carbohydrates.
I’ll be back home for a few days before heading back to Boulder next Friday, giving me nine more additional days prior to race day. Adding my altitude time up, I’ll have two weeks at altitude in the bag prior to race day. In my experience, that will give me a significant amount of acclimatization for the race.
My coach does note that altitude doesn’t really have much impact on ironman. The impact is greater on high intensity training or racing. With that said, over the course of an ironman, the interplay of greater carbohydrate requirements at altitude certainly has some effect. In my experience, it ultimately adds up at the end of a race, although it’s hard to imagine that the cumulative impact of an ironman itself isn’t mostly responsible. So, altitude will have an impact, but it will hopefully be mitigated by my having a couple weeks to prepare my body for racing at higher altitude.
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