Boulder 70.3

Not not necessary. There is a lot of evidence that you actually want to go up either really late, like the day before the race or really really early, like 3 weeks before and not in between.

I ran track at the University of Wyoming at 7200 feet above sea level.  Our coach had a PhD in altitude training.  He never went too nuts on the whole altitude thing.  He had his own equations for adjusting performance for altitude and said the NCAA adjustments for provisional qualifications to the National meets did not do enough to account for the difference in times so he always took his team to a meet at sea level so they would have one race on a level playing field with the rest of the NCAA athletes, but other than that it was pretty much a thing where you have more stress on the body at higher altitudes than you do at low altitudes so you have to train harder to be ready for the race.  

I graduated from a High school in Eastern Oklahoma (the humid side of Oklahoma) and so I was back and forth between 300 feet elevation-100 def F- and 85% humidity and 7200 feet-80 deg F- and 25% humidity .  It was always easier to to go from the humidity to high altitude than it was to go from high altitude to humidity. So people really should be more worried about racing in a hot humid climate than at high altitude, but I see questions over and over again about altitude but have never seen someone say they are worried about a destination race because it is going to be in a location that is more humid than where they train.  :-)  

I did a destination Marathon in 2010 that had the starting line at 7800 feet.  I was training at 300 ft elevation and was worried that I would feel like I was sucking rocks through straws trying to get air while running that Marathon. One thing I did pick up from much University of Wyoming coach was that you have to run further at sea level to get in the same training benefit at high altitude so added 10% to the volume of my Marathon training over what I normally did for races that were at low altitude.  I also had a week of vacation with family leading up to the race.  We when camping in the mountains at 6700 feet.  I didn't have any problems with the altitude at all on race day.  Spending time at high altitude more than the week or two before the race won't be much help.  My recommendation is to find an on-line altitude converter to see what the difference in race times would be from where you train to where you will be racing and add a proportional amount of volume to your training volume.  Then if you have the luxury of training the last two week at race elevation do it. If not just go and race.  

 

Edited by BlueBoy26 2016-12-13 2:19 PM

Good information here! Thanks. It's an interesting approach to increase my training distances so I will look into that. I'm coming from Chicago which is traditionally humid in the summer so maybe that will help me out a bit.

Everyone will react to altitude a bit differently. For some, it will have a marginal effect while it can cause very serious issues for others. The other big factor with Boulder is the heat. IM Boulder (now in June) has taken place on that August weekend the last few years and it is HOT. There really is no shade to speak of on any portion of the 70.3 course, and the temps can easily range between 85-95 degrees. That's bound to have as much or more of an impact as altitude. That said, Boulder is an absolutely amazing town with plenty to do and many great restaurants. It's one of my favorite places to hang out in the summer. Best of luck!