too high to train?

You'll be fine. I've read that over 15K or so is when it's not good to train, and I think most Kenyans train around 11-12K, so you should be fine. Good luck! Might even want to try a couple of weeks in the 100s! :-D

Too high to train? No such thing. There was that time back in college when I did a 10-miler while peaking on acid. I thought I might've been too high. But it was great. Really, it was. :-))

Air quality is pretty bad in Quito, and the city itself is in a relatively narrow valley. Getting out of the city means going higher, generally speaking. The streets are narrow. Hard place to train.

i dont think its toooo high, but a lot of runs would be seriously strenous. i trained 3 weeks at 8800-9600ft, ughhh. ran intervals at 9200ft 10*800, etc, ran 2*10k tempo time trial. i did a lot. came back and had a massive pr. went from a 5:05 10k pace to 4:55 10k pace when i got back.

I found training in Provo UT too high, I did not like it in 1970. Try to limit your running of intervals on hard tracks. Please view my friend from Russia below, she know how to train, do you?

Ideqally you would train at high alt and at sea level--half and half. What it the best alt to train whenh training high alt? That is a very good question because there would have to be a scientific answer--I don't know it though. I would imagine 30,000 feet would be a little too high.

It depends on your own personal body chemistry.

I was born and raised in Reno (4500 feet) and I find that I can train very effectively at very high altitudes. During my build up to the Berlin Marathon (2:18) I did one week at 10,500 feet in Zhongdian. The first run was HELL, felt like I weighed 500 pounds, but the next day I was able to do 59km of running, no problems.

If it were me, I would GO FOR IT. If you are not used to altitude at all, your first 2 weeks might be difficult, but if you are a strong runner, you should adapt in time.

GO FOR IT and train hard up there.

Later this year on my build up for Berlin 2003 I plan to go up to Litang, at 4700 meters (15000 feet) altitude.

Jason

Sounds like a good opportunity. Do it, and don?t sweat the running.

I lived at 10,600 for 5 years. Ran from about 9600 to 11,500 as a matter of course. Intervals on the track at 9200 (ouch). Dehydration will be an issue. You know what to do. The key to it is to run based on time and effort. Forget the mileage totals, and don?t worry about it. Normal training pace will seem pathetic - and if you time it, the watch will agree.

Oh, and I did get some PRs during that time.

In my experience, 8000 is about optimum, but there's nothing sacred about that number. Benefits accrue 3000 feet up or down from that.

Yes, 9400 is too high. I was a part of a high-altitude study a few years ago, where they placed runners at 6000ft, 7000ft, 8000ft and 9200ft. The group placings were randomized based on individual erythropoietin response to altitude, measured during altitude chamber testing at sea-level. I was living at 9200ft, which at the time I thought was great. I'd do a morning run between 9-10k, and then go down to 6000 for the afternoon run. Workouts were done at 4000ft.

To make a long story short, the study found that 9200 ft was too high, and 6000ft too low, for optimal altitude response. Moreover, the majority of guys in my group at 9200ft had a adverse reaction to the altitude and had poor xc seasons in the fall. The ventilatory response of the body to the high altitude was too severe to gain any benefit from the increase in red blood cells.

So, I'd be careful about training at 9400ft, and spend as much time as possible at 7-8k.

-kk

It appears that 7k to 8.5k is a "golden mean" for a living elevation and for and doing easy base training. Some sea level parameters which are influential on running performance can actually be REDUCED by prolonged exposure to high altitude, so you don't want to be TOO high. And, if possible, you want to get down to more moderate altitudes (3k to 4.5k, maybe 5k) for some high-end aerobic running and as close as possible to sea level for still faster running. There's nothing wrong with spending 10-12 hours per day on a couple of successive days at somewhat higher elevations (9k to 12k); in fact, in h-a responders, this may provide an additional Epo boost.

Yes, you need to make sure you're well hydrated when performing any endurance exercise at that altitude. You might also benefit from taking some liquid Iron in a fruit or vegetable juice for 10 days prior to moving to h-a to make sure your Iron stores are adequate. Do not run hard at first. In fact, just spend a couple of days walking around up there before you attempt any running.

Slightly off topic, but ... the jury is still out on the effectiveness of tents or other hypoxic chambers vs. actually relocating to h-a. With the tents, you can get "intermittant hypoxia", which seems to be BETTER than continuous exposure to h-a. But you CAN'T actually do any RUNNING in the tents, and running at the proper speeds at various altitudes unquestionably improves lactate buffering capacity and increases oxidative enzymes.

As far as the hypoxic ventilatory response (HVR) is concerned, that appears to be different from person to person, and it also appears to be mainly an inherited trait. Mr. kohlberg, were you involved with one the studies under Ben Levine and Jim Stray-Gundersen? Kyle Heffner and I looked at some of their (and other) preliminary work and of course relied on our own experience (his in Colorado, mine in New Mexico and Switzerland) when deciding to select Flagstaff as the best location (or certainly one of the best) for hi-mod-lo training.

JK,

Yes, it was a study with Levine and Stray-Gunderson that I participated in. And I second your comments on the liquid iron. Several runners were anemic after just a couple of weeks up there. The stuff tastes absolutely vile (I recommend grapefruit juice as the best taste-masking liquid), but if you don't take it, you may as well be at sea-level.

If HVR is mainly inherited, then the allele frequency in our group at 9200ft was quite high. Only one athlete that I can think of in that group (of about 8) managed to just maintain pre-camp performance when we went back down to sea-level at the end of the study. Everyone else's performance was actually worse after living a month at 9200ft than pre-altitude at the beginning of the summer. And we all just plain felt like shit, despite taking care not to overtrain. I was doing my runs at about 7:30-8 min pace (have had a lot of success putting in miles at 70% max HR), and still felt burnt out. On the other hand, the guys at 7-8000 ft were dropping tens of seconds off their 3k time trial each week.

-kk

I know I am digging up a super old thread but I am wondering if 8700 ft is too high? people say 7000 to 8000 but will this extra 700 ft make a difference, I know its highly personal but the previous poster explained 8000ft did well and 9200 did bad so I guess I am kind of worried.

You should be fine, it will be really tough at first.

Also, you should go to altitude already fit and not show up as an out of shape slug expecting to get in shape.