50/50 (17 page)
“Nah, I don’t remember that one; I was too delirious to remember much of anything,” I said, only half jokingly.
We swapped war stories about Badwater, laughing with the others in the group about the qualities it takes to complete the 135-mile desert crossing, principally a limited IQ. The miles came easy today—all things are relative, including heat—and the splendor of the landscape and the good company had an uplifting effect, mellowing the edge that yesterday had taken on.
We finished the marathon forty minutes faster than we’d finished the Desert Classic, on a much tougher and hillier course. The cooler temperatures had certainly played a part, but the camaraderie had a greater role. As we said good-bye to the other runners and bid farewell to the hundreds of schoolkids who’d come out to run the last mile with us, I found myself glad to be traveling northward—our next stop was Utah—and to be one day deeper into autumn. As I settled back in my seat and watched the setting sun light the dusk sky ablaze, all I kept thinking was one thing:
Bring on fall!
Running High
Day 21
October 7, 2006
St. George Marathon
St. George, Utah
Elevation: 2,940'
Weather: 68 degrees; clear
Time: 3:20:04
Net calories burned: 66,927
Number of runners: 5,100
I
ran three and a half marathons
at altitude over the course of the Endurance 50. A marathon is generally considered to be “at altitude” if it takes place above five thousand feet (roughly a mile) of elevation. The Boulder Backroads Marathon, the Casper Marathon, and the New Mexico Marathon were each a mile high. The St. George Marathon in Utah started at 5,240 feet and ended at 2,680 feet, so half of it was at altitude.
The five-thousand-foot dividing line is not arbitrary. Above this level, the thin-air factor begins to have a measurable effect on running performance. If you’ve ever run or done any type of vigorous exercise within a short time after arriving at altitude, you probably recall what this effect feels like. At five to seven thousand feet it can be pronounced. When running within this elevation range, initially you might feel as though you haven’t run for ten days and your fitness has gone two steps backward.
Above seven thousand feet, the effect becomes considerably more noticeable. You feel as though you are trying to run while breathing underwater. Your lungs just can’t get enough oxygen. At eight thousand feet, the barometric pressure is 25 percent lower than it is at sea level. This means you get 25 percent less oxygen per breath than at sea level. That’s a difference you can’t fail to notice.
The most extreme high-altitude running experience I’ve had was when I ran the John Muir Trail a few years back. I crossed over mountain passes exceeding thirteen thousand feet of elevation. I was reduced to a near crawl at these high points. It was humbling.
QUICK TAKE:
Get there early. New evidence shows that acclimatization begins after just a few high-altitude hours, when a chemical trigger in the body called HIF-1 alpha activates genes that help you adapt to heights.
Many elite runners seek out high-altitude locations for training camps or even permanent residence. If you aren’t familiar with the phenomenon of altitude training, you might wonder why runners would deliberately train in an environment where it’s hard to breathe. The answer, of course, is that over time the human body adapts to living at altitude in ways that improve sea-level running performance. Within a few weeks of relocating from sea level to a high altitude, runners exhibit a number of beneficial physiological changes. Foremost among them is increased production of erythropoietin (EPO), the protein that regulates red blood cell production. Red blood cells transport oxygen to the muscles. Thus, higher EPO levels enable runners to consume oxygen at a higher rate when running, partially counteracting the effects of high altitude.
Being born and raised at high altitude has been shown to be more beneficial than relocating to the mountains later in life. No wonder some of the world’s greatest runners hail from high-altitude locations. A hugely disproportionate number of the best distance runners come from the Rift Valley in Kenya at altitudes ranging from five to ten thousand feet. America’s best young marathon runner, Ryan Hall, is also a child of the heights. He grew up in Big Bear, California: elevation seven thousand feet.
The Dean’s List
Acute mountain sickness (AMS) can strike endurance athletes at altitudes as low as sixty-three hundred feet. Signs of AMS include loss of appetite, a strong headache accompanied by nausea, ringing in the ears, loss of breath, and dizziness. Here are some products that can help:
• Diamox, a prescription drug
•
Ginkgo biloba,
an over-the-counter herbal remedy that’s shown mixed results in studies
• Ginger—preferably raw, if you can tolerate it
There is one disadvantage to training at high altitude, however. Because it isn’t possible to run as fast at altitude as at sea level, runners who always train at the heights miss out on some of the benefits that come from running at faster speeds. This limitation has led to a philosophy called “live high, train low.” The most basic way to practice this approach is to live at high altitude and drive down to lower-lying locations for some workouts. Top running coach Greg McMillan, who’s based in Albuquerque, uses this tactic with his runners.
The fanciest way to live high and train low is to sleep in an altitude simulation tent or live in a hypobaric house. A hypobaric house is an entire house that is mechanically depressurized to simulate the thin air of high altitude. Nike converted a house in Eugene, Oregon, into an altitude house for several members of a Nike-sponsored running team, who live there. As long as the runners spend at least ten hours per day in the house, their bodies undergo the same VO
2
-max-boosting physiological changes that they would experience if they lived at ten thousand feet. Yet they can walk right out the door and train at sea level. Hey, we Americans need every (legal) advantage we can get to compete with those Kenyans!
Shortcuts to the Mountains
If you’re very serious about improving your running performance and you have seven to ten grand burning a hole in your pocket, you can get the benefits of living at altitude by sleeping in an altitude (or “hypoxic”) tent. Leading brands are Hypoxico (
www.hypoxico.com
) and Colorado Altitude Training (
www.altitudetraining.com
). Using one should improve your personal-best race times by 2 to 4 percent.
A cheaper alternative that could yield roughly half as much improvement is to spend five minutes a day breathing through a straw. This simple exercise strengthens the breathing muscles so they don’t fatigue as quickly during high-intensity running.
The International Amateur Athletics Union, the world governing body of track and field, actually has considered banning altitude tents and houses. Some feel this ban would be too strict, because these devices accomplish nothing that can’t be duplicated by living on a mountain. Another, existing ban that I very much favor is the prohibition of blood doping, or using drugs such as artificial EPO and blood transfusions to thicken the blood, thus simulating some effects of living at altitude. If you ask me, those who go for such shady practices are cheating themselves more than anyone else. The point is not to win at all costs but to become the best that
you
can be through dedication, commitment, and sacrifice, not through needle injections.
I have never been the least bit tempted to try blood doping. It probably wouldn’t help me, anyway. In ultramarathons, the rate of oxygen consumption is relatively low, so boosting your body’s capacity to consume oxygen through doping offers less advantage than it does in shorter, faster races. Other factors are more limiting in ultramarathons—including pain tolerance and raw endurance—and that’s the way I like it. No amount of EPO will help you there.
Day 22
October 8, 2006
New Mexico Marathon
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Elevation: 5,217'
Weather: 67 degrees; cloudy
Time: 4:09:58
Net calories burned: 70,114
Number of runners: 30
Altitude and hills go hand in hand. You have to climb mountains to reach altitude, so when you run at altitude, you’re bound to encounter some killer hills.
The New Mexico Marathon took place at altitude and included a few challenging hills. We started at fifty-seven hundred feet and climbed to sixty-one hundred feet by mile eight. The next eighteen miles brought us down more than a thousand feet. If you think that sounds like an escalator ride, though, think again. Running downhill for long stretches can be just as tough as running uphill. While running uphill stresses the heart and lungs more, running downhill is harder on the muscles, because they have to act as brakes to keep you from tumbling. After running downhill for eighteen miles, your thighs feel as though they have been tenderized by mallets for three hours.
We were rewarded for our suffering with some delightful sights. The New Mexico Marathon starts and finishes in historic Old Town Albuquerque. The adobe architecture of the pueblo-style buildings was stunning. Grandest of them all was the high-walled San Felipe Church, which towered above an immaculate grassy plaza dating back to the city’s birth in 1706. I saw lots of amazing architecture, representing a plethora of styles, during the Endurance 50, but nothing topped the clean-lined, earthy structures of Old Town Albuquerque, elevation 5,217 feet.
Some runners love hills. Other runners dread them. I’m in the former group. I don’t know if it’s because hill running is one of my strengths, or because I love the feeling of accomplishment that comes with reaching the top of a hill (or, better yet, a mountain). Whatever the reason, I find myself wearing a smile every time the road or trail turns upward.
Love them or hate them, I encourage you to incorporate some hill running into your training, if possible. Not only will it lessen your dread of hills, supposing you have such a dread, but it will also make you a stronger all-around runner. There are various ways to incorporate hills into your training. The simplest is to choose hilly routes for some of your longer runs. Doing a ten-mile run on a hilly route can provide the same fitness benefits as a twelve- or thirteen-mile run on a flat course, with less pounding.
When I do hilly long runs, I sometimes try to “coast” up the hills; other times I attack them. Wearing a heart rate monitor can help you coast up hills effectively. The idea is to keep your heart rate from increasing by more than ten beats per minute as you transition from level ground to an upward slope. This will teach you to run hills relaxed and to conserve energy. Attacking the hills—by which I mean running up at a hard but manageable effort—provides all the benefits that come with cranking up the intensity of running.
Another great way to incorporate hills into your training is with hill repetitions. A session of hill repetitions is a lot like a set of speed intervals at the track, except with less speed and more gravitational resistance. All you do is warm up and then run hard up a stretch of hill, jog back down, and repeat. Most runners do relatively short hill repetitions of a couple hundred meters. As an ultrarunner, I like to do longer hill repetitions with 250 to 300 feet of elevation gain over a quarter mile or so.
Steep Hill Sprints
In recent years, steep hill sprints have become popular in the elite ranks of distance running. Of course, they’re beneficial for runners of every level. To do them, find the steepest hill around and sprint up it at maximum effort for just ten to twelve seconds. Walk back down and repeat a few more times. Try to work up to six to eight reps per outing. Steep hill sprints help build a more powerful stride, and also reduce injury risk by strengthening the running muscles.
Going Downhill
Some runners actually prefer running up steep hills to running down them, because running down steep hills can be rather scary, especially on technical singletrack trails. You fear losing control and twisting an ankle, or worse. Plus, it can be rather hard on the knees. The key to overcoming this fear and discomfort is to learn how to run downhill properly. Instead of leaning back and landing on your heels, tilt your entire body forward from the ankles and land on your midfoot. You will run faster this way, and with more control and less shock to your knees.
Choose a manageable number of repetitions to perform (start with just two or three), and run each at a pace that’s within 10 percent of the fastest pace you can sustain through the last repetition. Time yourself to make sure you aren’t slowing down significantly in the latter repetitions. If you are, then begin the workout with a little more restraint the next time you do it so you’re able to finish at close to the same pace.
Hill repetitions are hard, but once you get used to them they can become quite exhilarating. At least
I
think so. But my very favorite type of hill workout is mountain runs. Find the longest hill available (hopefully at least a mile) and simply run straight to the top, turn around, and charge back down. It’s the best bang-for-your-buck workout I know. The first half builds strength and endurance; the second half increases durability and technique. That about covers it.
I have nothing against Nebraska, but I’m glad I live in a place with a little more topographic variation. I’d spend a lot of time running up the Cornhuskers Memorial Stadium stairs if I lived in the heartland!
You Never Forget Your First
Day 23
October 9, 2006
Route 66 Marathon
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Elevation: 626'
