High Altitude Workout Training - Part I

High Altitude Workout Training (HAWT) as the ladies of the tri camp have designated it.

Debi and Hartely were incredibly kind enough to host a tri training camp at their cabin in northern New Mexico. Last year we had a “Race the Train” ride where we try to beat the Cumbers & Toltec train to the 10,022 foot continental divide. We had so much fun last year that we did it again this year except we threw in a run and an open water swim.

The weekend started early at with a half day of forced vacation. I was told early Thursday morning “either you use it or you lose it” so of course, I used it.

Fellow outlaw Orlando, my son and I drove the 2.5 hours to Chama and arrived at the cabin around 8:00pm, received a warm welcome and a table full of sandwich fixings, roast chicken and fruit. We promptly stuffed ourselves in preparation for the weekend’s activities and anticipated caloric deficit.

DP, hubby and twins arrived later that evening around 11:00 pm just in time to save me from impending doom in the jingo game that Debi and I were playing.

The next morning started off at a relaxed pace. No reason to get up early and run, the mountains are cool and it was late August so we got to sleep in. Everyone had different runs scheduled. Mine was about 18 miles but I figured I could cut it down a few miles because I was running hills and we were at 8000 feet. We all ran down to the paved road form the cabin, at the bottom everyone headed up the hill except me, I headed down. Now, down hill is not as easy as you would assume, especially at 8k feet! The first 6 miles of the run is a net loss and my legs and lungs were feeling it. It seems that I just couldn’t catch my breath and I chalked it up to the high altitude but by mile 5 I realized that not only was the altitude getting to me I was also having some asthma issues, funny how the altitude masked things. At the turn around point I used my inhaler and wow I could breathe! The run up the hill promised to be long and painful, and it was. By mile 11 I was spent and ended up taking a little walking break, which really helped. I pushed on past the road leading to the cabin and ran the rest of the way up the hill, another three(ish) miles to the end of the paved road to my turn around point. What a great feeling to start running down hill again!

My total run time was 2:39 for 16 miles at about 8k feet with an ascent of 2600 feet. I’m not sure my Garmin is lying to me or not about the 2600 feet, it just doesn’t seem right ( I think it's too much), but I don’t have a way to verify it. When I got back from the run Hartley was making breakfast and we had a great time talking about our individual runs.

Picture of me after the run. Yeah,I think it’s the gayest picture I’ve ever taken but hey, maybe the socks had something to do with it?

Swim workout Part II: