altitude to sea level: how long before (+) adaptations reverse/decay

After training high I get the best results on the 3rd and the 7th day. after 3 weeks all is lost and sometimes performance drops right off. It should only take about 2 weeks of running up high again to start working out well and seeing some improvement.

I disagree with this. My hematocrit only dropped from 49 to 47 in the 6 weeks after Berlin last year.

Jason, from your traiining at altitude if you are racing at sea level how much time prior to the race do you spend at sea level? Days, weeks, etc.?

Suslov proposes that benefits continue for as long as 35 days based on his analysis (which can be found in New Studies in Athletics a few years ago) of performances of athletes returning to sea level.

Intuitively this makes senses from a physiological standpoint, but of course one's training and racing schedule will be critical.

Altitude training is not a fix all for a bad training training plan.

The science here isn't completely in. A primary effect of altitude training is to raise the red blood cell count naturally. The average life of a red blood cell is around 30-60 days. So, it's reasonable to assume that one can see benefits from the altitude over the course of a month. However, a recent study of the Ethiopians showed that they also have a very high blood volume (moreso perhaps than a high hematocrit.) The more blood you have, the more rbcs you have, even if percentage-wise you are still below 50%. I don't know of a study that has considered how long blood volume remains raised after a return to sea level. Anyone?

A good time to ignore much of the science and believe in your fitness. We had guys spend 4-6 weeks at altitude and when back at SL never did lose anything a year later. It is often fair to assume that being at altitude raised your fitness to a new level and no reason to believe it will leave you as long as you keep training at SL. Runners are often led to believe thay have just so long at SL to run well before the bottom falls out so they believe in that and it becomes self-fulfilling. Or did you mean will I still have anything left for altitude after I return some weeks later -- the answer here is that there are two types of accimatization to altitude and one is a competitive one, which is pretty much mental and not lost. So you will need some time to re-adjust to altitude physiologically, but won't need much (if any) to remember how to deal with altitude. Don't get bogged down in detail

[quote]jtupper wrote:

Or did you mean will I still have anything left for altitude after I return some weeks

Both. I hope to race well at SL through early July, return to ALT and re-acclimate for a higher altitude race in mid-August.

Thanks for the input.

jtupper wrote:

It is often fair to assume that being at altitude raised your fitness to a new level and no reason to believe it will leave you as long as you keep training at SL.

Exactly!

For 2 summers during college, I lived and trained at ~8,000ft. My best XC races happend at the end of the season as they should, not in the 2-3 weeks following my return to sea-level. After a summer of miles and altitude training, I dropped my 5 mile XC PR from 26:15 down to 25:40 in hot and humid southern Alabama.

On a side note ... 90 - 100+ mile weeks felt relatively easy after a summer of 60 - 85 mile weeks @ 8,000ft.

jtupper, I have an altitude related question. I have been learning more about the physiology of running over the past few years, mostly since I have started reading this board. I understand that there are physiological changes due to the altitude, but it seems like one of the benefits is that being at altitude would force you to work more within your aerobic range, essiential building a better base, does this have any logic to it?

I will not presume to speak for jtupper, but there might be issues besides altitude. Remember for every athlete who went to altitude for a period of time and then went to SL, there are probably several athletes who went to altitude and did nothing on returning to SL.

1) A good training plan and integration of altitude is critical. Just going to altitude to try a short cut is probably going to do any good.

2) It is conceivable that athletes training together in a group has more impact than the altitude. Often altitude camps are held with groups.

3) Going to altitude might mean being in a situation where a person can train without distraction and maybe increase training volume, run on trails, get in some hill work, etc. Of course, some people find a change in their training venue to be a bigger distraction.

4) One cannot ignore the cumulative effect of training. It might be that one summer spent at altitude is not the cause of the improvement, but the fact that one has trained for another year is the deciding factor.

The science issue deserves some consideration, but having read the altitude literature for years and working with athletes using tents, rooms and living at moderate altitude (~2000m or so), I think altitude is a bit overrated and not a substitute for poor training plan design.

luv2run, great points.

x First, luv2run makes good points, things I have tried to say over and over for years. Out typical altitude subject was a college student from Kansas, Oklahoma (where I was coaching back in the dark ages). They had just finishedcollege and the weather was pretty hot and school was pretty stressful. So we test them, they run time trials, they go to altitude for 4-6 weeks (with nothing to do but eat, sleep, train and have fun) and upon return they do better than before altitude. Wow, that altitude is a great place. Not all fun, actually. Would you believe a world record holder volunteering and paying his own expenses to do this for 6 weeks -- worked for $1.50 an hour stocking shelves in a grocery store to pay for meals. But no distractions either -- one day a guy with a hand-held tape recorder came into the store and asked for an interview, to which this very famous runner politely declined saying a delivery had just arrived and he had to unload. The reporter said, "Oh, that's OK, I'll talk to this other clerk." He was interviewing grocery clerks for a ocal radio station and had no idea who this great runner was. No distractions for sure. This guy broke 2 world records during his 6-week stay at altitude (during 2 SL 1-day trips). Another guy spent 5 weeks not improving his AL 3mile time by mor than 4 seconds. So I sent him bak home to SL for 12 days. The day he got back to AL he knocked 35 seconds off his AL 3mile time. He just needed some time at home and this proved to me anyway that some time back at SL doesn't interrupt your AL acclimatization -- I think it helps. And it helped convince the USOC (going into Mexico Olympics) that a few days at SL for processing the athletes wouldn't ruin their AL acclimatization. One of our steeple guys had a knee problem when he started the program and it cleared right up the first couple weeks at AL -- maybe becasue he got to relax more, maybe because he was forced to train a little slower on most runs. x -- regarding a possible better base, I am willing to believe anythng. You never know how it affects different people. I had DIII woman with a SL PR of 2:39 for the 800 who spent 3-4 weeks at AL and the next year had a mjor breakthrough (no particular training at AL -- just running (she won Penn Relays 10k in 33:01 2 years later (with a 2:31 last 800 -- 8 seconds better than her previous 800 PR). Was it altitude? Who knows -- In her case and many others, I feel safe saying it was that particular experience, which happened to include altitude. That girl spent a total of 3 weeks at altitude in her life, but kept improving for 3 years. If you've got it it will eventually come out. Altitude may be your particular stimulating factor, or not. I sure know I would spend any extra money I had going to altitude before bringing AL to my bedroom; unless of course the latter is what motivates you and makes you feel warm and cozy.

All your examples are people spending time at altitude for more than 3weeeks. What about a shorter period of time, like only a week. Would this have any benefit once you returned to sea level?

If it's easy to reach and not too costly, a week can be good. I usually say 2 week minimum, but mostly because I figure the expense of getting there is big and if going might as well stay awhile longer, but if cheap and easy to get to a week would be nice. If moderate altitude (5-8000 foot range) don't worry about cutting back any- just do what you have been doing (some people say take it easy your first few days or first week, which is not necessary at these moderate altitudes). We used to always require a time trial the first day so people would face reality quickly and not get fooled into thinking they aren't losing anything, and never had a problem with hard traing those first days. Live it up

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