Upping The Stakes: Live High, Train…Like Hannibal Lecter?

How important is sea level training if you live in the mountains?

Written by: Kevin Beck

The Boulder Center for Sports Medicine lies at the western edge of town, in the shadow of Flagstaff Mountain. It is regarded as one of the top facilities of its kind in the United States. A glance at the newspaper clippings posted in the waiting room informs visitors that world-class runners, cyclists and triathletes darken the BCSM’s doors as often as hipsters in skinny jeans wander into the Starbucks on Pearl Street. At 9:00 on a Monday morning, the place is already busy, with clients ranging from middle-aged people in cycling garb to senior citizens maneuvering about on crutches. The BCSM is as much a rehab center for the masses as it is a haven for endurance studs.

I am greeted by Rob Pickels, one of the exercise physiologists on staff. Pickels leads me to the room where he spends most of his day, a large open space laden with all manner of exercise equipment and ancillary devices. “That’s where most of the action is,” he says, gesturing toward a men seated on a bicycle and being attended to by one of Pickels’ colleagues. The rider is being custom-fitted to ensure maximum efficiency and power when he rides outdoors. Pickels, the Ithaca College record holder in the 400-meter hurdles, is himself is on crutches, having fractured his hip two months earlier in a bicycle crash. It hasn’t dampened his enthusiasm. He leads me to a far corner of the room, where an unpretentiously ordinary treadmill sits.

“This is it,” he says. He lifts a transparent face mask, familiar to anyone who’s ever needed oxygen in an ambulance or similar setting, from its housing. “We cut holes in it so that people can breathe more easily.” The mask is connected to tubing that disappears into a console on the adjacent wall that holds a flow-rate meter and stopcock. “This connects to a general oxygen supply in the building. We set the flow rate at 15 liters a minute, they choose the speed and they’re good to go.”

The deal is this: Boulder does not lend itself to a true live high/train low scheme. Although 5,300’ is modest by high-altitude standards, getting below 4,000’ means ranging a lot farther than most people have the time or inclination to pursue. Instead, when it comes time for the high-speed repetitions or tempo runs runners have to mix into their training in order to protect their racing fitness, they come to the BCSM and use supplemental oxygen to mimic sea-level conditions. It is, in effect, the inverse of how people who live at sea level and sleep in hypoxic tents go about their training business.

I ask Pickels if non-elite runners make use of this set-up. Yes, he tells me. Not a great many, but more than a few. I remind myself that I’m in Boulder and drop the thought.

FILED UNDER: Training TAGS: altitude training / Boulder Center For Sports Medicine / Cycling / intervals training / live high train low / Pete Pfitzinger / Running / Speed Work

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