[brandon.eric.berg]

So I got tricked into signing up for my first ultra, the Devil on the Divide. I got the Luke Nelson beginner ultra plan to base my training off of. My question is about the base elevation of my training. I live in the Roaring Fork Valley and the base elevation around where I train is about 6k feet. While the race it self starts and ends at 10k and goes up to 13k at its height. I have access to 12k ft peaks and higher near me.

How much training should I be doing at higher elevations to acclimatize to the race conditions?

Topic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on May 9, 2018 at 8:13 am #9743

Brandon;
Was alcohol involved in this ‘trick’ 😉
Living where you do and having easy access to higher altitude training is good and you should definitely try to do a few of your weekly runs at 10,000+ feet especially the long ones. Spending hours there will definitely help on race day. Sleeping a bit lower should allow you to recover well from the higher training days.

Pure speed will not be such an important quality to train so the fact that you will be moving much slower at 12k on these training days is not going to coast you on race day.

Scott

[brandon.eric.berg]

brandon.eric.berg on May 9, 2018 at 10:18 am #9744

Also wWhile not specific event training how well does AT skiing translate over to preparing for the race. I’m not using it exclusively but I am trying to get out and ski some bigger mountains once a week or so and scheduling wise its overlapping with some of my training days.

P.S. No fuzzy juice was involved in getting me to sign up for the race.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on May 10, 2018 at 9:54 pm #9781

AT skiing is great general training but running puts a whole new load on the legs due to the eccentric contraction with each foot strike. It is easy for skiers who are coming off a big ski season very fit to get injured when they jump into running to long to early. You need to get some miles in those legs over the next few weeks. But doing a long ski day 1x/week is fine.

Scott

[hafjell]

hafjell on May 11, 2018 at 7:18 am #9809

@ScottJohnston Interesting. What would the reverse scenario of running consistently in advance of ski season lead to? Obviously you’d expect to much stronger on the uphill, but is there a benefit to running for downhill skiing, or is that just covered by the strength training in the gym?

[Steve House]

Steve House on May 14, 2018 at 4:33 pm #9878

Brandon,
This would be a situation where a hypoxic tent would help you acclimate to these (relatively) moderate altitudes of your race compared to your living/training elevation. That said, you also have access to plenty of altitude right around you too.

You should do anything that requires any kind of intensity at lower elevations for quality of workout. Long duration/low intensity (such as the skis) are perfect times to go up high in the mountains around the roaring fork.

Here’s the article about the normobaric hypoxic tents

Training, Oxygen Systems, and Hypoxic Tents

good luck,
Steve