For the long Fourth of July weekend, I was lucky enough to
fly back to Colorado for a few days.
The trip is not an easy (or cheap) one to make, so I am not able
to make it all that often except for Christmas or Thanksgiving. I haven’t been there in the middle of
the summer for years, so I was really excited to be able to go hiking in the mountains
and do other Colorado summer activities. Flash was not exactly thrilled that I
was going to be missing the first long training run with him, but since it was
just an 8 miler, I figured it wouldn’t be so bad by ourselves (unlike a 17 or
20 miler). We decided to keep up
by texting each other our runs and distances over the weekend.
Now, I’m sure that some of you have heard that Denver is
also called the Mile High City, because it’s located at an altitude of 5280
feet. Growing up I never thought
that much about the altitude, except when I had to add in extra flour for
baking. When I was a swimmer,
though, we would go on travel trips to sea level meets, and I remember feeling like there was a huge amount more oxygen down there (like I was Popeye
with a lot of spinach). I once read that people who grow up at
high altitude actually have a greater lung and heart capacity; think about the
sherpas who live in the Himilayas and are able to climb without oxygen tanks
(not that Denver is quite so high- ha).
There are even Olympic athletes who come to Colorado Springs to train
because it makes their peak-condition bodies even more efficient. Having lived on the East Coast for
several years, however, my body has slowly gotten used to the higher amount of
oxygen, and so it sometimes takes a couple of days for me to acclimatize when I
get back home.
I flew into Denver on Thursday afternoon, and I had to get
a short 3 miler in that day according to my training schedule. My brother, who is a Dartmouth Varsity
rower, was more than willing to head out with me for a short run. Our house is located really close to
the Highline Canal, which is a long dirt trail along a low canal that goes for
dozens of miles and is occasionally shaded by cottonwood trees (where my dad used to train for his marathons). That first run felt just fine- we went
at a moderate jog, chatting along the way, and I didn’t feel like I was having
trouble breathing; but I also wasn’t really pushing myself because I wanted to
let my body adjust to working out with less oxygen.
My eight mile run on Saturday was a different story. I got up early to avoid the worst of
the summer heat, and my mom rode alongside me on her bike to hand me water
bottles so I wouldn’t get dehydrated (especially in the dry Colorado
heat). I felt fine at first,
starting out at about 30 seconds slower than my half marathon pace. After a couple of miles, though, I
noticed that my chest felt somewhat tight, and my breathing wasn’t as easy as
it could have been. I knew that it
wasn’t my fitness level, because I did a 10 mile run last week at a comparable
pace in DC. I had to fall back on
my running experience and remember that most of the time, physical discomfort
while you are running is temporary and eventually you will hit another
“high.” I did hit a stride on the
back stretch, and ended up picking up my pace toward the end. It hurt a bit,
but I finished out the run in only a minute slower than Flash did back home in
DC.
One of the other great things about being home is that I am
able to do a lot of outdoor activities that are unique to Colorado. On the Fourth of July, we headed up to
Guanella Pass in the Rockies for a hike.
It was a perfect cross-training day for me: hiking steep inclines at
10,000 feet across snow drifts to Alpine cirque lakes was a welcome change from
spinning class. I noticed when I
got out of the car and started trekking up the trailhead that my body had to
readjust to even less oxygen, but soon I felt fine as my body acclimatized.
It’s an amazing feeling to be up that high, with only the music of the wind in
the background and the cool mountain air whipping down from the peaks across
the still-iced lake. Even though
the air is thinner up there, I sometimes feel like it’s one of the few places I
can truly breathe.
Apart from training, I got to hang out with my siblings, who have also each embarked on healthy lifestyles similar to my own in different
ways. My little sister, who is
only 16, has already been a vegetarian for a year (though like me, she still
eats fish), and my brother is very committed to eating healthily ever since he
joined crew (he eats small amounts of complex carbohydrates, and lots of lean
protein).
Even though we all grew up in the most fit and active state in America,
I feel that in the past year or two we have all encouraged each other to be
healthier and to fuel our bodies well. As my brother has said, people ask him
(as they ask me) whether he “is allowed” to eat certain foods, and he just
responds “it’s what I want to do, not
what I have to do.”
Obviously, I didn’t go to Denver just to “train at high
altitude,” but I’m sure that it is going to add to my overall fitness. It’s the same concept as adding hills
to your normal runs, speeding up at intervals on the treadmill. I noticed a difference while I was
there, so I must have fallen into a fitness complacency for the past few weeks
(yes, even when I ran 10 miles).
There are always new ways to push yourself to an even greater capacity,
and to reap the benefits in the long run (pun intended). I’m excited to see how fast I feel on
my first run back at sea level!
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