Saucony 2009 - Nate Jenkins

Over the last few days I have completed my first few workouts at Altitude. My first was five repeats of a flat loop that I hadn’t measured the distance of but was guessing was a bit short of 1k. It turned out to be between 905m and 970m depending on which map I looked at. I did the reps in just over 2:45 with just under 2 mins jog rest after each one. It actually only felt a little different then sea level. I had no idea how fast I was going and I did notice little differences like when running into the wind I got winded very quickly. But I kind of thought even running for effort I might just crack and run way slow after one or two efforts but actually I was fine, running 2:46 to 2:48 on every repeat. I also thought I might need a lot more time for recovery but I actually felt like the 2 minutes might have been a bit much. Now I was probably only running 4:50 mile pace or so and I felt like I was flying and I was working pretty hard so I’m not saying there was no difference at all. I’m just that I can run for effort as long as I accept that the pace won’t be the same up here.

The second workout was another story all together. I decided to do 3x3 miles on a point to point trail with a light circuit for break, calling it rest would be misleading, between each rep. The trail was a net drop in one direction and a climb in the other, but really not bad, I was figuring 10 seconds or so difference, maybe 20 seconds, tops.

The first rep was a downhill rep, but it ended up being into a pretty strong wind. Which I wasn’t happy about but I kept telling myself would be good because it would make the reps equal in difficulty.

I had set my goal at running the reps in 16:00 which is about what I would have aimed at for 5k blocks of the same workout at sea level and which I figured would be pretty easy. I was though the first mile in 5:13, and breathing like a horse. The good news was I was a bit fast, the bad news was that a 5:13 would be walking at sea level and I was hammering. I settled in a bit too much in the middle mile but didn’t really recover. I ended up splitting 10:44 and then finishing at 16:04 basically on goal pace. But it wasn’t easy. Not an all out war but not the nice tempo jog I was hoping for either. I did the circuit in just under 2:40 and was off in the other direction, uphill now. I was a broken man the effort was ok through the mile but I was slow, 5:26 and when I went to drop the hammer I just died, nothing in the tank and I struggled mightily coming in and decided that it would be my last rep, I ran 16:47 uphill. But again I doubt it was more then 10 or 20 seconds slower then the down rep in terms of difficulty, which means I was running much slower. I was pretty tired and struggled through the circuit in about 2:50. To be honest a lot of the trouble I had was more frustration then being actually wrecked but still it was not a good go and was definitely my first tough dose of what running at 6000 feet can be like. This is a workout I’ll be revisiting often over this cycle of training and I’m really looking forward to seeing how I adapt. But no matter how it goes I don’t think I’ll soon forget gasping and floundering past two miles in 11:11 on my second rep!

I think a lot of my struggle was due to not yet being adapted to running up here and again I think I was frustrated and I that if I had done a 3^rd effort I would have on the downhill been able to go a bit faster then I did on the second rep. But I wasn’t able to get up the fight to do it. It is hard to get motivated to run hard for a 16:30 3 mile when you are used to running a minute faster for 5k’s with very little effort.

So after such a bad performance you would think that I might be upset or not enjoying my choice to come to altitude. Actually it is quite the opposite. I have felt pretty good up here the last couple of weeks and I was worried that I might not be a real responder to altitude. I have a theory, with absolutely no scientific backing, that low responders are such because basically they were born with most of the adaptations that high responders make when they come up here. Well since I was having such an easy go of things I was worried I might fall in my theoretical category. Having a real rough go to let me know I had a lot of adapting to do really built my confidence that being up here is going to attack some of my weak spots and help me make some big improvements. Also I was very excited that I had no hip or hamstring discomfort or problems during this effort which is a big step in the right direction and along with some other things tells me that the crazy stretching routine I have been on since about 10 days before USATF indoors may actually be working. If that is the case it won’t be too long before I can return to the event at which I’m actually competitive, the marathon.