Altitude training

Well, that was interesting.

First let me explain what you’re looking at. This is no random room with a bunch of treadmills. Rather, it’s the altitude room at Chicago’s Well-Fit training center in the city’s West Town neighborhood. What’s that you ask? One of only a handful like it in the United States, the room is essentially a chamber, where they suck the oxygen out in an attempt to simulate what it’s like to train at different levels of elevation. The room is filled with treadmills and bikes, and is used for people like me, who live at sea level, but are training for an event that takes place high up. With a starting elevation of over 17,500ft, I guess you could say the Everest Marathon qualifies. Today, I went for the first time.

First impression: That was hard! As soon as you walk into the room it hits you: the lack of oxygen. Set at a simulated elevation of 14,000 ft on Sundays, no sooner did I hit the start button on the treadmill than I started felling light-headed; my eyeballs popping so hard I thought they were going to come out of their sockets. Mind you, I was walking at only 1.5 mph! Slowly, I caught my breath, drank some water and started to raise the incline and speed on the treadmill.  Every small increase brought a renewed sense of light-headedness. Each time it took a minute or so to wear off.  About ten minutes in I began to wonder if maybe I should have started on a different day, when the room is set to a much lower elevation. Oh well. Too late now. Time to hope my red blood cells still have some residual “memory” of 23 years spent living at altitude in Mexico City.

Guess what? They do. Or I’m just really lucky.

It was the slowest “workout” I’ve ever done. Two miles walked at 3.5 incline over the course of one hour. And yet, I burned just as many calories as I would have, doing twice the distance and incline in a non-oxygen restricted room. I’m told if I do this twice a week for six weeks before I leave it will improve my performance once I get to Nepal. I have no idea if that’s true. What I do know is, I’m grateful to have this opportunity. Because whether training in the altitude room really does improve my cardiovascular fitness or not, it will have given me a realistic sense of what to expect once I arrive, and how to cope with the symptoms of oxygen deprivation when they do, inevitably come.

UPDATE: APRIL 7TH

Three weeks in, It’s feeling, if not easy, easier. Finally managing to get the speed and incline up and even build some HIIT intervals into my training. Yay!