Understanding training at altitude

and a little bit about my run on the famous Moiben Road

So what’s altitude training all about and why do the world’s best athletes train at Iten, here in Kenya, at Sierra Nevada in Spain, or Boulder, Colorado in the US?

Put simply the higher up you are, the less air pressure there is which means your body has to work harder when it comes to breathing, moving — and running. But as we’re such a clever species our bodies have learned to adapt to this increased work rate by producing more red blood cells. And that’s the golden ticket aerobic athletes take home when they return to sea level.

As the heart and lungs work harder to deliver oxygen to the working muscles, the rate at which you breathe is faster and feels harder. I’ve lived this — panting hard on ‘easy’ runs. My heart rate is baffling too – gasping for breath, it remains at 120bpm and I know I’m not running fast. Max heart rate is also 5 to 15 beats lower at altitude. This is a paradox of altitude training, heart rate can stay low, but effort can feel hard.

Hugo van den Broek, a former elite marathoner, Human Movement Scientist and coach, based here in Iten, sums this up in his brilliant blog sharing 10 tips for altitude training, when he highlights the ‘paradox of altitude training…when we try to go all-out, our lactate levels don’t reach as high as they do at sea level and the same counts for our heart rate.’

The purpose of my Garmin watch whilst I’m here is simple: to log the distance and track the route on Strava. At 2400m the key is to train by effort, and trust the body, which understands what effort means – pace is just numbers that don’t talk to the body. It’s a blessing that Emmnauel plans sessions in kilometres because, try as I might, I cannot get my head into the KM metrics so 5, 5.30, and 6 still don’t register or relate to my memory bank of what pace should feel like. Having checked I can see an easy 9.30 paced run at home is consistently between 10.30 and 11 here.

Athletes come here because our bodies adapt, and our mindset strengthens as we breathlessly push along the rolling dusty terrain of Iten. At higher altitudes, there is lower atmospheric pressure. As my body struggles to transfer oxygen to the blood, the air feels thin and I feel tired quickly. But the good news is that the body works out how to manage this demand by increasing the number of red blood cells, which are more efficient at transporting oxygen to the muscles.

And it’s not just about the blood cells and flow of oxygen. Training at altitude can also boost VO2 max — the amount of oxygen reaching the working muscles. And the body’s tolerance to lactic acid, which leads to tired muscles when you exercise, also improves.

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Search the Moiben Road on Google and you’ll find you tubers, Instagrammers and Facebookers sharing their training sessions on this famous stretch, the training ground of many of the world’s fastest runners. It’s no surprise, that this iconic road for runners is what Emmanuel calls ‘the Berlin of Iten’ (Berlin being one fo the faster flatter marathons in the World Majors).

It’s a 21K stretch of road, with a picturesque hill as a backdrop, a village or two, cars, lorries and vans packed with pacers carrying bottles. It’s known for being flatter and the venue for the faster marathoners to check out their pace on 40K runs. There’s none of the rocky dusty paths, but it’s arid, open and harsh, and feels like an appropriate test for my runner’s resolve.

Today was my longest run so far at 25K, and Emmanuel had said it would give him a good idea of where I’m at for the marathon and continued training.

I decided to approach today’s run as a race, a half marathon or 20-miler. The typical training I would do at home in the run-up to a marathon. So I carb-loaded and rested yesterday, drank plenty of water and had another early night.

Emmanuel arrived at 6 am prompt and we climbed into the van in the pitch black. We had a driver and two more pacers with us. Tony’s pacer, and two for me!

I drank tea in the van and forced a banana down. The roads were empty of cars but even at dawn, the Iten runners could be spotted everywhere, flashes of reflective material and luminous trainers, zipping by in the darkness.

We arrived to see a throng of vans and cars parked up, ready to unload their runners onto the road then escort them, delivering water or picking up discarded jackets. The Kenyan way is to run without water, to keep moving, and to mimic race conditions as much as possible.

The plan today was to run 20K out and 5K back — the 20K was, a runner told me the night before, was a slight decline, dropping 100M to the 20K point. The 5K back would be climbing - moderate but after 15K it didn’t feel like that.

I set off quickly — but soon slowed down. I had for once set my watch to miles so I could have a reference I understood. I had hoped I’d run between 7.30 and 7.40 pace, my current half marathon pace. As I ran the first mile, ignoring my watch, I felt sure that was the pace I was running at. I was wrong… Nine-minute mile pace bleeped back — and a quick adjustment to my pacing strategy was made. Mile two was 8.40 and I told myself I’d try to stick to that and pretend it was 7.40 or less. The average pace after 15.63 miles was 8.49 or 5.28. I couldn’t have gone any quicker, and I was happy with my run.

I’m coming to the end of week four, with a sore ankle, and mileage in the tank. The next four weeks are about damage limitation and continuing to soak up this amazing experience. In a mindful moment today, I realised just how lucky I am to run these roads, with the very best athletes in the world bounding by. It is, an online running pal, Kev Murray said a ‘runner’s trip of a lifetime’.