Using Sea Level
For The Altitude-Based Athlete
I want to bolt this onto John’s series on the Highs & Lows of Altitude.
As an elite athlete, I would cycle my use of altitude. For several years, my winters were based in Christchurch, New Zealand and my summers in Boulder, Colorado.
Southern Summer: While living in Christchurch, I experimented with going higher, using natural and artificial altitude.
Northern Summer: While living in Boulder, I experimented with going both higher, and lower.
Why, and how, might the Competitive Athlete use sea level exposure?
Unload Fatigue - the first priority for each trip to sea level is unload. Two nights sleep has a noticeable impact on my freshness. When the goal is recovery, get as low as possible.
Illness & Injury - let’s go one step further and consider injured or chronically fatigued athletes.
Where should these athletes base themselves?
Sea Level
Close To The Ocean
Access To A Forest
Temperate Climate (no heat, or cold stress)
Away From Crowds
Avoid All Social Networks
Use time at sea level to go “all in” on returning to health and remove the competitive environment. It’s too easy to “half train” living in a place like Boulder, or one of the other elite training centers.
Very High Intensity - the ideal recovery and healing environment is an effective place to rev the engine. Most years, my fastest run training was done in Christchurch (Zone 5). John and I shared that protocol in our Red Zone Running article.
Early Season Volume - springtime in the Rockies can be windy. If you find yourself constantly fighting Mother Nature then you might be spending more mojo than it is worth to stay up high. Every spring our team would schedule bike-focused training camps for an easy way to rack up volume.
Each location has its trade offs and travel is stressful. If you are an altitude-based athlete then it’s worth considering extended sea level blocks.
Next time I’ll share my favorite altitude workouts. John did an excellent job sharing how to ramp into a stay at altitude, see Training At Altitude. I’ll build on that section by offering your specific workouts you can incorporate.
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