It's my first day in the mountains, and I just gutted out a 14:30 2-mile at 7000' altitude. It was a flat course in perfect weather, but the altitude made it felt like I was running uphill into a strong headwind.
My question is, what would that convert to at sea level? FWIW, my 5K and 10K PRs are 20:45 and 44:06. I know those are hobby jogger times, but which one is more impressive (or less bad), and does the 14:30 indicate that I'm in PR shape?
Things will get worse for you before they get better. Immediately after getting to altitude your body hasn't been worn down by being at altitude. For World Cup qualifying games at high altitude in Bolivia (12000' back in the day?), teams like Brazil would fly in day of the game.
If you want something more “official,” you can infer from the NCAA conversion rates that your 14:30 is probably 30-40 seconds slower than the same effort at sea level:
Things will get worse for you before they get better. Immediately after getting to altitude your body hasn't been worn down by being at altitude. For World Cup qualifying games at high altitude in Bolivia (12000' back in the day?), teams like Brazil would fly in day of the game.
I was fortunate to see a national team soccer match in La Paz. Bolivia always had a huge home advantage but they were not that great anywhere else.
If you want something more “official,” you can infer from the NCAA conversion rates that your 14:30 is probably 30-40 seconds slower than the same effort at sea level:
If you want something more “official,” you can infer from the NCAA conversion rates that your 14:30 is probably 30-40 seconds slower than the same effort at sea level:
IMO, your 5k at 6:41 pace is better than your 10k at 7:06 pace.
Isn't that for people who either live at altitude or have at least a few weeks of acclimation? Going from 500' to 7000' is rough at the beginning.
Go ahead and give yourself a 7:54 2 mile equivalent if you want. Or just go to sea level and actually run faster than 20:45 for 5k instead of making some insane 90 second 2 mile conversion and extrapolating that conversion to indicate you’re in 5k PR shape.
World Athletics tables say that your 10K is a tiny bit better.
WA tables are pretty good for comparing elite performances, but maybe they go off the rails a bit toward the lower end of the 1400 point scale? They have 20:45 = 105 points = 45:02 and 44:06 = 133 points = 20:21, but who is slowing down 33 seconds per mile from 5k to 10k except maybe the most undertrained 13 year olds? Honestly anyone with any understanding of distance running should know those conversions are whack.
McMillan running calculator on the other hand has 20:45 = 43:06 and 44:06 = 21:14, which is way more reasonable. McMillan has always been quite accurate for me personally from 5k through half marathon.
Sound like you're a 400m runner. 100/200 sprinters benefit from the thin air, while 800m and up folks suffer.
No female mid-distance/distance runner (800-5000). It stinks cuz I was at altitude for a month, ran exactly the same times at altitude as at sea level and then came back to sea level and had no benefit from altitude training 😒.
If you want something more “official,” you can infer from the NCAA conversion rates that your 14:30 is probably 30-40 seconds slower than the same effort at sea level:
IMO, your 5k at 6:41 pace is better than your 10k at 7:06 pace.
Isn't that for people who either live at altitude or have at least a few weeks of acclimation? Going from 500' to 7000' is rough at the beginning.
Yeah I've always been at sea level & only went up to ~4k in my mid-20s and could barely get through workouts for the week I was there/not acclimated. Everyone's different. But I was losing 30s/mile on tempos. I would probably handle it better now with pacing & with workout design. I would probably start with some shorter reps.
So you probably are fit OP but it's not like altitude is giving you huge gains from 1 effort. You're at a place where you can make big jumps in training/racing. You might've been ready for a PB before you left.
In case anyone's interested in seeing how this turned out, I got back to sea level today and just ran a 12:13 3K, which converts to a 13:11ish 2-mile.
My 14:30 on my first day at 7000' was almost exactly 10% slower than today's run. The "10-15% slower" response was actually a pretty good estimate if you take the low end of that range.
The low-altitude run felt like running in quicksand. I wasn't breathing too hard (unlike at 7000'), and my legs weren't full of lactic acid (unlike in a race). But it just seemed that I had zero speed/turnover.
