Getting ready for a high-altitude 1200 k

[KittyG]

Hi all. I'm from California with 25,000 RUSA k's to my credit and 2 PBP's, a pair of Cascades, a Rocky Mountain, and GRR as my 1200k's done. I keep coming back to do "just one more". I have never done a 1200k at high altitude, however. I know some of you from the Bicycling LD forum, but I pretty much quit posting there.
On my calendar for this year's folly is the Colorado High Country 1200k. I live near sea-level and have no high-altitude training available until mid-June and the CHC is in early July. Most of it is above 6000 ft and the route has some long grades that go up to 10,000 ft. I am not a fast rider either. My average time on the rides mentioned is about 88 hours. I do get in good sleep breaks, good being about 10-12 hours total or 3-4 hours each night of the ride.
Any ideas, other than purchasing the "high altitude sleep chamber" or selling everything, quitting my job and moving to Lake Tahoe, to help me get ready for this?

[Rowan]

Can't help with the practical side of things (except quit the job, move to Tahoe and start training).

Timetabling might be an issue. If you can get to the area several weeks beforehand and acclimatise, you may well be in a position to start the ride somewhat better prepared than if you get there the day before.

I know that when I moved to Alberta for six months (2800ft above sea level at Red Deer, halfway between Calgary and Edmonton), it took a while to get used to the altitude (seeing I came from a sea-level location). The first time there, I started a tour with Machka, and she left me for dead out of Red Deer as I struggled to get any energy out of my legs to pedal. Things did settle down a bit, and we did stuff like various passes in the Icefields Parkway later in the tour without me suffering. And those passes were nowhere near those in Colorado in terms of height.

We did the Last Chance out of Boulder, but I don't think the altitude there is much of a factor.

Some people from California keep saying it's not all flat there, and there are mountain ranges to the east. Perhaps getting out there and concentrating on ride the high passes regularly also will be a requirement in your training.

[Sekhem]

Hi Kitty
Welcome to Colorado. I hope CHC will be a great experience for you! It's a beautiful ride and yes altitude was a significant problem for some of the folks who rode it last year. I staffed the overnite control in Walden on the third day and encountered a few folks who had some problems.. I work at the medical school in denver and we have an altitude medicine grp on campus and so I've been lucky to hear about the latest research. so to paraphrase:
As you've noted, comming from sea level to Colorado is an issue. The most common issues that people see are folks who come here to ski for a day. They arrive at the airport and go straight up to altitude. Those folks can experience fatigue, headaches and nausea, disorientation and sleep isssues. But those folks typically head back to Denver (5500 ft) and the symptoms go away. You are doing 2 things that have the potential of creating some more significant issues- you're remaining at altitude and youre exercising. Bad combination. Medically important symptoms tend to occur after 48 hrs at altitude- most importantly pulmonary edema and CNS issues (brain edema). The thing about acute altitude sickness (AAS) is that there seems to be a genetic componebnt to people who get sick so it's impossible to predict if you are going to be at risk. The research shows that folks who are susceptible can reduce the severity of AAS by acclamating in Denver for a minimum of 48-72 hrs before going up to altitude (and for people comming from sea level, altitudes that can trigger AAS is around 6600 ft- not much..) and remember that exercise increases both the risk and severity of AAS so while you're in denver, keep your riding to a minimum (brief, recovery level). The other bit is that ibuprophen seems to be effective in reducing the symptoms of mild AAS. But remember that ibuprophen (or frankly any NSAID) can be contraindicated in endurance atheletes (but for unrelated reasons) so use w/ caution.
The most important thing you can do both before and during the ride is HYDRATE HYDRATE HYDATE. Stay away from alcohol. Make sleep a priority ( many of the riders found that they were not able to sleep well at the controls at altitude- I would give some thought to how that might affect your riding.). Other riders complained of unnusual nausea on the ride (again I would consider this in your planning).

as far as preparing for riding at altitude on the training side- it's hard to provide suggestions since it depends on your age and other factors. I've heard 10-21 days thrown around as the time period to allow for aerobic adaptation. But hey, I live here and riding at altitude still wacks me untill i've been at it for a while. I'm guessing that doing max effort training as part of your normal training routine may be helpful. But then I meet riders at who arrive at the airport, jump on their bikes and ride up to 12k on the same day with no symptoms or problems. So bottom line, it's difficult to generalize what will happen to you.

good luck w/ your preparation. contact me off line if you have other questions about CHC.

[Rowan]

good luck w/ your preparation. contact me off line if you have other questions about CHC.

Actually, no, can I/we ask that you post questions on this thread and discuss further because undoubtedly there will be others of us interested in doing this ride into the future, and any reference points we can generate in this thread will be extremely useful. Plus, it's a topic totally different from the traditional ones we discuss here.

[thebulls]

Hi all. ...On my calendar for this year's folly is the Colorado High Country 1200k. I live near sea-level and have no high-altitude training available ...

Hi, Kitty,

I used to live in southern California, Long Beach. Many weekends, we would drive up into the nearby mountains, e.g. Mt Baldy to go hiking up Icehouse Canyon, around 5000 to 7000 feet. There were usually cyclists riding up the approach road.

I see that nearby you is Mt. Diablo at around 3000 feet and a couple of hours away in Stanislaus Nat'l Forest there are a bunch of 5000 foot and higher mountains. So you could do a bunch of day trips to the mountains and ride at altitude to help yourself acclimatise a bit. I used to always get headaches from the altitude but found that if I made sure to drink some water and hang around the trail head for half an hour before starting to hike that it helped some.

Good luck on that Colorado 1200, it sounds like a lot of fun.

Nick

[KittyG]

Thanks for the really good ideas. I do plan to go to Boulder about a week in advance of the ride. And once I'm done with the school year, I can go up into the Sierras for a week up above 6000 ft. I hope it will help. I'm 57 and I'm sure I will need to do some specific training at altitude.

[The Octopus]

1. Kitty-- So cool to see you here. Welcome!

2. Here's my thoughts from doing some high-altitude skimountaineering and backpacking. Never ridden at any higher elevation than you see on the Gold Rush, and that ain't all that high -- what's Janesville, 6500 feet?

--Climb high; sleep low. Take a look at where your overnights are. Be more concerned about that than however high it is that you're going during the daytime when you're riding through those 10K passes. Sleeping at 10K starts to be a big deal for a lot of folks that live at sea level, unless you're acclimitized. But sleeping at 6K or 7K, especially if you've been at Denver/Boulder for a week before hand (which is 5K to 5.5K) should be no beig deal at all.

--The rule of thumb in the climbing community was (and it still might be, for all I know), that at these pretty low elevations we're talking about here -- you're not going much over 10K -- you can go up about 3,000 feet per day. So if you've been sleeping at 5000K comfortably you ought to be ok sleeping at 8K the next night. Again, rule of thumb. Not gospel.

--Go slow. Forget how fast you usually climb. Listen to your body and put out that magical effort that you can sustain "forever." If you're anaerobic, slow down. Stop. You'll get to the top eventually.

--Hydration FTMFW. At altitude, the air is dry and the UV radiation is intense. Water. Sun protection. Keep the sun off your head and neck. Don't desicate out there. A lot of what people think is an altitude problem turns out to be a problem with being cooked in the sun. A lot of self-diagnosed "altitude sickness" is hydration and nutrition related.

--Unless God hates you, HACE and HAPE are not things you have to worry about at these elevations. Yes, there are reported cases of both below 10,000 feet. You could be one of the unlucky ones, sure. But of all the things to spend metal energy on, this stuff isn't it, in my opinion.

--Most people I know who have had trouble at altitude flew from sea level, rented a car, drove up to some trailhead, and then proceeded to cluimb some huge mountain in one shot. Going from LAX to the summit of Whitney, or SFO to the summit of Shasta, isn't too bright. Doesn't sound like you're planning on doing that. You'll be fine. Train well, have a great ride, and be sure to give a report on it here.

[Carbonfiberboy]

Going up high for as long as you can manage it will help tremendously. Every time I climb Rainier, driving up from sea level, I'm amazed at how much better I am for spending just a day and a night at or above 10,000'. After summiting and coming back to 10,000', I feel like I could run, whereas on the hike up I felt weak. In your prep, I'd advise sleeping high if you can, but then sleeping low during the event as 8-legs advises. A short guide is here:
http://www.princeton.edu/~oa/safety/altitude.html

[The Octopus]

One other random thought.... Take a look at the pitches you've got to climb. How steep is this stuff? How long's it go on for? Ok. Assuming those pitches were at sea level, how would you be climbing them? With your current set-up, would you be able to get up without standing?

I'm a huge fan of climbing out of the saddle. I do more of it than most.

Standing is not an efficient way to climb. You're asking the muscles in your legs to support your body weight in addition to moving the bicycle up the hill. I can get away with this down here where the air is thick, but it might cook my goose up at 10,000 feet, even on the relatively mild 6%-ish grades you're probably going to see on the HC 1200.

If you like to stand like I do -- and if your gearing is such that you *need* to stand to clear some pitches -- then think about how that might need to change when climbing at altitude.

[Jamesw2]

I lived near Boulder for about 9 years. At 200 pounds and smoked cigarettes at the time I could manage the Peak to Peak Hwy at 9500 feet. It wasn't pretty. If it were my plan i would go to Fort Collins to train for a few days (weekend trip) Rist Canyon, Carter Lake, Horsetooth Reservoir. All close to town.
A short steep pitch past the convenience store at Carter Lake

Traffic and the air is better in Ft. Collins

Here is a web site that has training videos from Colorado with power ratings http://www.cyclingvideosonline.com/
http://www.cyclingvideosonline.com/_.../Colorado.html

My suggestion is to have a bail out gear because if you over do it you really cant recover . Your body goes cold . Expect morning sun, and wind and t-storms in the afternoon.

[berner]

I live 46 feet above sea level but I've been on backpacking trips to Colorado to hike on the continental divide at 10 to 12,000 feet. My preparations consisted of hiking in New Hampshire at 5000 feet several weekends in a row. This was not ideal but the best preparation available to me and worked well enough. The first few days were painful but one week later, 10,000 feet was the same as 100 feet.

[positron]

Colorado Med student here, howdy!
Ask your doctor about Acetazolamide, a drug frequently used to prevent altitude sickness in anyone rapidly going from sea level to ~9000 feet or above.

The medication is also known as Diamox, and it inhibits the enzyme carbonic anhydrase, which will serve to slightly acidify your blood pH. You start taking it a couple days before ascending, and then during the days at high altitude.
When people come up to altitude, they become hypoxic and tend to hyperventilate (breathe fast)- the hyperventilation increases blood oxygen, but it decreases CO2 in the blood- you blow it off. This raises blood pH, since Co2 is an acid, which can cause the symptoms of altitude sickness. Your body will fix this by peeing out bicarbonate, but it takes a few days. Acetazolomide basically starts the process early so you're adapted before you get to altitude...

Obviously, talk to a doc about it and your personal medical history, but this medication should not be used by anyone with with sickle cell anemia, G-6-PD, or sulfa drug allergies.
it also tends to drop potassium levels in the blood, so youll want to eat bananas or avocados (which have way more potassium than bananas BTW) to prevent muscle cramps etc.

useful drug, might be perfect for your needs, hope this helps!

[Richard Cranium]

I live near sea-level and have no high-altitude training available until mid-June and the CHC is in early July

There may not be any reason for being concerned about the altitude.

Traveling 1200k by bicycle is a difficult feat in any venue. Since you have already successfully trained your body and adapted to cycling continuously for extensive periods of time - perhaps forum members should be asking for your "secrets."

Although I haven't investigated the topic recently - I would offer this somewhat anecdotal advice regarding exercising at altitude.

My experience, which includes intensive exercise at altitude, would suggest that there is no concrete evidence supporting particular optimal regimens for athletic prowess related to extensive day-long aerobic activity.

As you already suspect, "living at altitude" is probably the only reasonable way to acclimatise.

[shiftless]

Hello Miz Kitty It looks like everyone has some good ideas.In the short term you could campout on the top of Marky's mountain.I also try to get as aerobicly possible in the mean time so I don't have to work as hard at altitude.Donny and I will have a similar problem in July,2 days between 7000 and 12000 ft and 240 miles.I'm sure we will see you before then at Starbucks.