On prior trips to Colorado, I generally experienced little to no altitude sickness. Biggest effects of altitude were poor sleep the first few days, especially when going straight to high places like Crested Butte, and generally just sucking athletically at altitude. Many lay references cite it takes 1-3 days to acclimatize to altitude. This is BS. Maybe you get over some of the acute shock effects, like low grade headache, but it takes much longer for hematocrit changes to take effect. A commonly used metric is altitude in kilometers times 11.4 days. We moved to 6650ft, or about 2km above sea level. We previously lived at about 100m above sea level. Our new home elevation would take about 23 days to fully acclimate to.
So I would expect to see a rapid bump in performance in the first few weeks at my new home. I can't say I noticed a dramatic change in that time. I did get faster, but it wasn't like a eureka wake up one day and holy smokes are things better kind of change. I was still dismayed by how much faster than me the local community was on climbs. To be sure, Durango is a humbling town for amateur athletes with undoubtedly the highest per capita density of national and world champions.
Winter came, and along with it Biblical proportions of snow. Alpine ski touring gear was acquired, lots of time spent at 12,000-13,000ft sucking wind in the San Juans. Research is mixed on benefits of training at high altitude. Some of the benefits are cancelled out by the fact you just can't reach intensity levels of sea level work. I skate skied a great deal too, typically at 7000-9000ft elevations. You couldn't ride, so what else are you going to do?
When trails finally started opening up in June and July, I found my times on foot and bike were generally faster than late fall after I was fully acclimatized. Some of my best bike race performances back east were in April after minimal time on the bike, but lots of time on skinny skis. I think many cyclists fail to appreciate how effective this type of cross-training can be. Many in Durango get this, including Ned Overend.
Summer progressed, and my times running and riding up town climbs continue to come down. Why? I wasn't really doing anything different. Acclimation should have been complete a year earlier. Can acclimatization have a long tail to it? Was I just learning the trails better, pacing better, etc? Maybe, but at my age, I would expect an initial acclimatization bump, then plateauing or even slow decline, not steady improvement 14 months later.
Here is chart of four climbs I regularly push myself on. There are several others, and they all look like this. Two are running, one short, one longer, and two are riding, one short, one longer. I brought the data over from Strava into Excel for analysis. Data starts in August 2018 when we moved to Durango to present. Excel computed the linear trend lines.
What is striking is the two running trends show about 20% improvement in running times over this period. This did not come during first few weeks of acclimatization. It started 14 months ago, but the trend continuous 14 months later. My weekly volume of foot activity has changed little since NH. Long hikes on weekends, one midweek run.
The two biking trends also show steady improvement over 14 months, but more in 10% range. Am I just trying harder? My cycling volume isn't any different than last fall.
One thing that occurred to me is my celiac disease diagnosis last fall. I've been gluten free (GF) for about 11 months now. Most recent blood work still shows elevated tTG-IgA levels, like 2x the normal threshold. This really sucks, as this is after seeing a dietitian a few months earlier to pull all the GF stops out, basically GF extreme diet. No corn products, no oat products, only foods produced in GF facility (call the plant manager if you are not sure!) kind of extreme. Antigen levels continue to come down, but not at rate GI doc thinks they should. Thus gluten is still sneaking into my diet somehow. Despite being GF for 11 months, I've not noticed even the slightest difference in how I feel. Except for maybe...
I've been drinking coffee from the same bean for many months. It is a bean from Guatemala roasted by 81301 Coffee Roasters. Love that coffee house. Anyway, I've been having more trouble staying asleep lately, especially hours 3am until 6:30am wake-up time. It feels like too much caffeine sleeping issues. Generally I avoid coffee after 1pm because of this, and I have two strong cups in the morning and half a cup after lunch. The other thing I noticed in past few weeks is my first cup in the morning has become more of a stout jolt. Like hits me hard in 10 minutes, jittery hands, etc. Things didn't used to be this way. It could be each Guatemala batch 81301 roasts has different caffeine content, as roasting profile can affect this. This bean is known to have high caffeine too, as another acquaintance noted. Then one night lying awake in bed, I randomly pondered if being GF has anything to do with it. Where is coffee absorbed? I Googled it when I got up. Small intestine. The small intestine is what closes up when celiacs consume gluten. Could my perceived increased sensitivity to caffeine be first sign my gut is healing? I could find nothing to corroborate this on the web.
But then I started thinking. Maybe my continued improvement in athletic performance is another indicator. There is nothing to back this up other than pure speculation. I don't have a control group of Hill Junkies. It's not like I was sick and anemic eating gluten, although one of my post diagnosis blood tests did show anemia, the first time I was every tested for it. There were the other markers that went overlooked for up to 20 years pointing to celiac disease, like elevation liver function enzymes (recent blood work showed just into normal range first time in 20 years!), and that pesky detail that I have the bone density of a 80 year old woman. The issue that led to celiac disease discovery was frail bone health. A diseased small intestine may not absorb vitamin D and calcium well. It many not absorb a large class of nutrients well. I may not have felt ill, but it is entirely possible (likely?) that it had some impact on my athletic performance. Could there have been more top step podium finishes over the years? Who knows. Regardless, I'm not going to look this gift horse in the mouth.
Much of Colorado is blanketed in snow now. The backcountry ski pics and vids are making me envious. Our corner of the state has avoided the last three storms. It's all good, as the riding is still phenomenal. Looking forward to getting on both the fat and skinny skis soon though. This bump-up in fitness will play well into that.
