Notes on altitude

In reading through my journal over the last couple of months, I found it interesting at my notes on adjusting to the thinner air here. At this time, I pretty much forget about the fact that I am living "a mile high" and that my starting point for my rides is 500 feet higher than the high points of any of the regular rides I did in the Bay Area. Mt. Hamilton is the highest point in the Bay Area and it is several hundred feet lower than where I live now.

I don't consider myself anything but a cycling enthusiast. I am not fast---and I don't ride "hard", but I ride daily. What happens at elevation is you don't get the normal amount of oxygen in your blood and so "pushing" yourself requires more than muscle---it requires AIR. It takes about 3-4 weeks of slow integration to be able to thin your blood enough to get a muscle workout. When we arrived, I pushed myself right away, and felt like I was having a heart attack. This was in part due to my out-of-shape condition of living in New England in the winter and in part to the thinner air.

The good news is that once you get passed this point and can push yourself in the thin air, you do get stronger. It's very subtle. I didn't notice it until I rode up Mt. Hamilton a few weeks ago. With the oxygen rich, sea level air, I could push bigger gears for extended periods of time and not suffer. It's pretty amazing. Maybe like a natural form of EPO.

I also noted that what helped me adjust here was Bayer aspirin. When we first moved here and I messed up by pushing too early, I started taking Bayer aspirin everyday, and I think it helped thin my blood. Also, eating was a challenge and so I took Alka Selzer for a few days. For just visiting here---these things are not necessary. But if you are on a training program---or exerting your body at all---these two simple, over-the-counter (and UCI legal) things really help speed up the adjustment time!

Even my athlete husband---who is NEVER out of shape since he braves all kinds of bad weather---needed time to adjust to the thin air. (So it was more than just me being out of shape).

It's also interesting that if you just spend a couple of days at altitude, and then go home to "sea-level" air, it's not as big a deal. The recovery time is what your body needs. And recovering in thin air is what gets lost. Human bodies are pretty amazing. I don't even notice the thin air anymore---