Altitude training in spanish speaking country. Any suggestions?

Hi Ive been to Guadix in Southern Spain.The town is at 900-1000m altitude but you can run at up to 2000m. Its cheap to stay in and just 1 hour on train from Almeria airport.Home town of Spanish race walking star Francisco 'Paquilo' Fernandez!!!!

anyone on the site train in Cusco, Peru, specifically?

thanks for the word on spain, i will look into it. i just realized that cuzco is 11000 ft. maybe ryan hall would benefit from that, but coming from sea level, that would probably kill me. 6000-8000 ft is my money spot. anyone?

Don't drink the water. Seriously.

bogota, medellin, and quito.

I went to Cusco for a couple of weeks. I never ran, but I played soccer. The first match I played I was so pumped that I played really hard for the first 3 minutes, thinking I could keep that intensity for the whole match. I ended playing goalie the rest of the match and never caught my breath.

Toluca, Mexico

Has altitude, a good track, access to trails, and a couple of Super Wal-Marts. Puebla is another good option in Mexico too.

There are a lot of Kenyans there and plenty of other runners from different countries from time to time. During my visit there I ran into Said Aouita's group from Australia at the track.

Alamosa, Colorado

Spain has a high altitude training center near Grenada.

Sierra Nevada is the place near Granada in Spain. Have spent a fair bit of time there. Let me know if you want more info. AC

Hello

Can you please give me some information about Grenada???Any email address where you can contact with them.I would like to go there to train.How much does it cost for a months?

Thanks

also in colombia there is a town called paipa that i think is at about 9,000 feet. many kenyans train there, there is a road racing club there, and many south american runners get some of their altitude training in there. i've heard it is like the boulder of south america. it is about a 3 hour bus ride from bogota.

wow, thanks for all the help. has anyone been you peru? there are a couple of solid language schools and one is in arequipa, which is at about 7500ft. thanks again.

"to peru" i mean

i was in cusco during december. i needed to run there but i simply couldnt because the air quality was so poor. i couldnt even walk down the street without holding my breath the whole time because the pollution was just awful. it is also a bit higher than you would want to train (10,000 ft.). you'll get very winded from just walking around. 5000-8000 is really where you want, and in a developed country with air pollution laws.

I've been in Peru a couple of times, and my friend, you are not going to be doing much running there. Most of the cities where you might stay are polluted, crowded, and unsafe for running. Your best bet (what I did) is to pick a week while you're there and try to get out in the Andes for a backpacking trip to really build up your altitude tolerance. Hiking at 15,000 feet is quite amazing.

Quito, Ecuador is a slightly better bet if you want to be able to do some serious running... most of the problems I mentioned about Peru are lesser there. Marius Bakken went to Bolivia I think.

I have traveled, lived and ran in Ecuador, Peru and Spain. A few observation:

1- Cusco is just too high at 11,000 and a lot of traffic.

2- Quito is at about 9000 feet but has too much traffic and no real place to run.

3- The city of Grenada in Spain is not located at any significant altitude but the mountains outside of town are quite high (9000 feet are so) but I don't think they are really runable.

4- You might could find a place in Northern Spain.

5- My best advice to you is Southern Ecuador in a city called Cuenca. City of about 300,000 at 8,000 feet. It takes about of 3 months of running before you can do anything significant. There are mountains outside of town that go to 16,000 feet for some real running. Ecuador's best race walkers are from and live in Cuenca. Ever heard of gold medalist in the 20k walk Jefferson Perez, he is from Cuenca.

Quito has at least one track in the city, which is what I had in mind. Otherwise it is too crowded.

But it does not take 3 months to get acclimated to 9000 feet. At absolute worst, 2 weeks.

In my experience, most people have a range of "instant" adaptation. For me, this means that it takes me less than a day for 6000 feet or less. After that, you gain about 500-1000 feet per day. I live at sea level, but after exactly 7 days I was able to run at 13,000 feet without problems (resting heart rate at sea level = 50, resting heart rate at 13,000 feet after 7 days = 58). I think most people are a little slower at adapting than me, but my girlfriend (who is much less fit) was only a couple of days behind.

It will take significant time before you can do any quality work at 8000 feet or higher. At least 2 months, if you are from sea level! If your idea of training is 6-8 miles at training pace you will not have a problem adapting. Resting heart rate...who cares? The problem is when you start running and the lack of oxygen feeding your muscles.

I went to Ecuador in about 15:30 shape and could not run longer than 45 minutes at training pace without muscle cramps. I never have had cramping issues before. Anything close to threshold pace was a joke.

My body slowly adapted and after a year was quite fit when I returned to the states. I was actually in the best shape about a month after I returned and was able to get some real quality work with all the extra oxygen.

Anyway, I wish I had my twenties back and could do it all over again. I would definately drink less beer and kick the chicas out at midnight so I could get my runs in. Something about 50 cent 1 liter beers and beautiful latin women who love gringos was too tempting for me. I may not have the fastest PRs but I got some great TRUE stories.