The Weirdness of Racing at Altitude
I did my first ‘out west’ race after moving to Colorado from Michigan.
It was in Leadville, Colorado. 14,000 feet! It was the season opener. What a funny feeling
that was. I had no idea.
I was ready to kick butt and I had plenty of
lungs to spare. I figure I might lose a few minutes, but I saw the
past winning times for the race and thought, dang, we’re faster than that in Michigan,
I can do that. This little 10k was at 14,000 feet! —I went from sea level
to 14k and tried to race after a couple months. Very funny!
I had a good start, but halfway into it I found myself in deep molasses.
Which lasted for the next 44 minutes. My longest classic 10k in history.
I maybe beat a couple people. Ha.
For the next whole year I suffered in all events with total collapses
1 mi after the start. Where I’d have to stand off to the side of the trail and
recover. I even built that occasion into my expectations, my 2km Breakdown.
The next year I got a couple good finishes.
The third year I was rolling just fine, no problems—-but I always
had to beware of the first 2 miles and start rather easy. In the end,
that was the only permanent concession I had to make to altitude.
But it sure weren’t no 2 weeks for acclimation!
When I visited sea level after my first year at altitude, I went for a very fast 12 mile run immediately. After not having done any running for 6 months. Ouch. I was running at bike speed, pacing behind commuter cyclists. 6 min/mi’s for sure. I couldn’t walk for the next few days hardly at all. Silly. But I had lungpower galore.
When I finally moved back to sea level, I did a Cat 3 bike race without training and got 7th. It was pretty easy.
I felt the main difference to be that sports at sea level worked your muscles and at altitude they worked your lungs. So that if you were used to altitude, the only thing that would ever give out at sea level would be your muscles. And at altitude, I always felt like I had muscle to spare well after the lungs were burned out.
I did another humorous thing about 7 years after moving back down to sea level. Martha and I went on a road trip to Colorado. I brought bikes. When we were there I realized that the famous Iron Horse Classic was taking place, so I entered the Cat 3 event of this famous old 70 mile bicycle road race.that went over two 11,000 foot mountain passes. Sheesh, why didn’t I just enter the citizen division? I hadn’t raced in years, but I thought I was still a ‘semi pro.’ I had my pride. To promote myself, I bought sticky letters at a hardware store and put them on my bike: “Team Sea Level” and “Team MIchigan.” I saw some people I used to race with in the old days. I noticed that several pro mt-bikers were in the field, including Tinker Juarez. No sweat, I thought. I did a test ride partway up one pass. That was my training. I started the race. I rode with the field until the first climb and got dropped like a lead balloon. Then I suffered. I was still ahead of some people going over the top. On the way down I caught a dozen. That was a funny event.
