The jury is still out on what type of altitude training is best; there’s live high train low (LHTL), live low train high (LLTH), intermittent hypoxic training (IHT), and other permutations and combinations. There are many articles on the subject, but I thought this article, titled Altitude training effects: is altitude training a waste of time and money? summarized the research very well. They even have machines that simulate altitude that you can purchase for home use, but they cost thousands of dollars! So, just for fun I decided to give LLTH, but on the cheap. This workout only cost me a few bucks in gas.
Since I live at 2,000 ft above sea level, that is essentially living low. But if you drive up Bogus Basin road you can get up to 6,500 ft above sea level. So I threw my bike in the car and actually drove up to Bogus Basin Resort. I know, I know — only wimps who aren’t in shape, drive up the road! Heck, I’m one that mutters under my breath when a car goes by with bikes on top, while I’m riding up the road. Even when we mountain bike Sweet Connie, we park at the bottom and then ride our mountain bikes all the way up to the Eastside Trailhead. But I probably shouldn’t be so judgmental, as I can’t expect everyone to be in the same shape Heather and I are usually in. And now today, I was one of those gas wasters myself!
I drove up because I wanted to do a short, but intense workout at altitude. If I rode all the way up, I’d probably have little left for the intervals I planned. So I drove to the lower lodge and did intervals on the section of road between the Nordic ski center and Pioneer Lodge. This is actually one of my favorite stretches of the climb, with hairpin turns and incredible views. My goal was to do four 4-minute VO2 intervals.
I started by riding up the whole stretch of this road as a warm-up. It only takes about 11-minutes at an easy pace and I got to figure out what sections of the road would be best for the intervals. Typically, the steeper, the better for keeping the wattage up. I then rode down to the bottom and turned around and started my intervals. The first two were decent, as far as wattage goes, but my legs were really burning. I thought that was odd since I thought the limiter would be my lungs due to the altitude. By the third one, I couldn’t hold the appropriate wattage anymore and I bagged it after only 1:32. Then I decided to do a threshold interval.
So I went back down to the bottom for the fourth time and started riding at my threshold wattage. It felt pretty hard at the beginning, but after a minute or two, it got better. The interesting thing is my HR really started climbing…even higher than when I did the VO2’s?!? I kept plugging away and sprinted to the top by Pioneer Lodge. I managed to get my HR up to 191 which is pretty high for me. My max is around 194. It probably was due to the altitude, but I was surprised I could get it that high when I didn’t’ feel fully recovered from the past few workouts. I did sprints on Friday and yesterday I’d categorize as a “long” ride. The other interesting thing was that I didn’t feel like I was sucking wind, it mainly felt like my legs were suffering. Interesting…
With Thanksgiving Point Classic next weekend in Utah (about 5,000 ft above sea level), I hope I can gain some benefit from this workout. I doubt only one session will make a difference, but I do plan to do this more frequently so maybe it will help me in the long run. If anything, it will help teach me how to ride through the pain! The other option I’d like to try is LHTL, but it would cost more money. I could rent a condo at Pioneer Condominiums for a few weeks then just ride down to the valley to do my workouts. I think the condos go for $450 per week, so if I do it for the three weeks most studies recommend, that’s a lot of dough. So I don’t think I’ll be doing that anytime soon!