Elevation running for flatlanders (Read 971 times)

I'm headed west next week to Wyoming & I see Clancy is headed to higher places too. Does anyone have recommendations on how to make running at higher elevations less painful for those of us that live MUCH closer to sea level? When I went to Colorado last summer, we were between 7,000 - 13,000 for several days. It was difficult on horseback! And going from our camp to the meadow several hundred feet away where our horses & mules were was almost a death sentence. Any advice on how to make the experiece a little easier would be great. I really would like to continue running every day that I'm there, as I'll be gone for about a week & will lose several days in drive time. Thanks, Eryn

I am registered to run the Pikes Peak marathon this Summer. The marathon starts in Manitou Springs, at an elevation of ~6500 feet. Over the course of the next 13.1 miles, it climbs to 14000 feet, for an elevation gain of 1 1/2 miles. That is, the half way point is 1 1/2 miles higher than where we started, which was already over a mile above sea level. Of course, I live at about 450 feet, and occasionally run as high as 950 feet. Silly me. Silly foolish crazy me. Anyhow, we plan to go out about a week before the marathon. A week is not enough time to acclimate, but it should help. During that week, we plan to spend a lot of time at the highest elevations we can, exerting ourselves as much as we can tolerate. The first day, we plan to run a mainly downhill half marathon (slowly...very slowly) that starts pretty high up there. During the week, we will do some jogs and hikes up high. The other local runners who did this last year found that they were much better acclimated for the marathon than in prior years when they just went right out. Check this site out for some info on elevated running http://skyrunner.com/run.htm

Don't be impressed...it is easier to register for a marathon than to run one. I figure if I tell people about it, there will be more pressure on me actually to run it.

My wife and I ran the Steamboat Springs Marathon two years ago, while training we were told that the longer we were out there before the race the better. Based on that, we arrived about one week before the start, staying with my father in-law. My wife had to drop at mile 14 because of an injury and I developed, what I found out later to be, high altitude sickness around mile 16 or so. I was able to finish, but was pretty miserable. Anyway, I talked to several people afterward and was told that if we couldn’t get out there early enough to let our bodies adjust to the higher altitude, then we should have gone out as close to race time as possible. That’s just my experience and what I was told. Good luck.