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For those runners that travel extensively for competition (or even the occasional trip to a new area), there is often a concern about how changes in altitude will effect performance. Although there are no "absolute" rules, we can draw some general conclusions based on FAA and Air Force research.
Most reasonably fit individuals should be able to tolerate any change in altitude within sea-leval to 5000 ft without suffering any meaningful loss in performance. Reason being, the change in the partial pressure of Oxygen (O2) within that band has a negligible affect on your bodies ability to absorb O2. I won't go into the technicalities of partial pressure etc, but realize that as the partial pressure of O2 decreases (as you increase altitude), your bloods ability to absorb oxygen decreases. The body eventually will adapt and create more hemoglobin to make-up the short fall. That process is known as acclimatizing which is term very familiar to mountaineers, but most runners do not have time.
However, within the 0-5000 foot band, the change in partial pressure is negligible and most runners should not have trouble with the "altitude". More common, when runners change altitude and experience performance problems, the likely culprit is change in humidity and temperature.
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3 comments:
That's good news for me and bad news for my dad. Our 50K race in july will start at about 8 or 9 thousand feet, and soar to 11 thousand feet. He's coming from AZ (700 ft) while I live at 4500 ft. We will go up the day before though to try and acclimate the best we can.
Good post by the way.
Well actually, that is not so good for you :). When I say 0-5000ft, I mean that in absolute terms, i.e. sea level to 5000 feet. Going from 4,500 to 9,000 may be problematic. The partial pressure of O2 drops dramatically as you get over 5,000 feet. I live at 5,400 feet, but if I tried to run at 9,000, without adjustment, that would be problematic.
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