Training at elevation, racing at sea level

Triathlon Forum
1

Hey all,
I currently train in Boulder, but I’ll be dropping down to sea level for most of my races. In coming up with goal paces for racing, I’ve come to realize that I have no idea what’s going to happen when I drop down to sea level. Will my bike wattages stay the same, or jump by 10% at the same RPE? Do swim times drop or stay the same, given the same RPE, etc…?
I’ve read plenty of papers on the effects of elevation on speed, but I have seen very little “real world” data. For those of you who live at elevation, but race at sea level, what have been your experiences with race pace at sea level compared to training pace at elevation?

Thanks,
Doug

2

velocity on the swim will be equivalent to a fast long-interval workout, effort will feel pretty easy. I don’t know about the bike since I don’t use any telemetry, short fast runs at the end will still feel pretty hard, longer runs will feel easier at given paces. Run only, or duathlon opening runs you will feel like a god…fast pace no effort. I’m a fair bit higher than you - 7200ft - but I imagine you will get a lot of the same effect.

The biggest thing I notice is that for longer races it is pretty hard to go anaerobic.

3

I live at near 8000 feet. There are advantages and disadvantages for training at altitude. Overall things don’t really change that much, though. If you use RPE - you’ll be fine. If you bump your paces up a bunch as goals - you may be disappointed.

  1. Swimming - breathing seems a lot easier at sea level. Paces? Not sure as its not like you can follow pace in a race + wetsuit…I don’t notice a big difference when I swim in pools at sea level or here though…

  2. Cycling - I use a FTP at altitude and standard rough percents and it seems to work for me. Maybe my sea level FTP is a tad higher but not 10%.

  3. Running - I try and use a sea level race for v-dot and then race based on that. Seems like my v-dot is 1-2 higher at sea level - so paces would be about 10 sec/mile faster.

Its hard to know though as I rarely (if ever) race at altitude and comparing training paces vs racing paces is always different…

Dave

4

Hmm… well feeling like a god sure would be nice! I hope that happens!

It seems as if there’s no real general consensus, and its just kind of “go out, do your race, and whatever pace you end up at is your race pace”. I guess that’s what I expected.

I think I might do a little experiment. I’ll do some “measured workouts” up here in Boulder, and then go do the same “measured workouts” during my Wildflower taper at sea level. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s actually a speed difference between the two elevations, or just a HR difference between the two elevations.

5

For running at least, I find I can train my speed work to a desired sea level pace and then pretty well hit that pace, in the context of a triathlon. So last year I wanted to run x min/k at Clearwater, and I started doing tempo-brick runs after long bike rides that approached and then went slightly under that pace, for 5k-8k…it is easy for me to do that as I have a track within 3 minutes of the house. At Clearwater I ran a very, very consistent race right at my target goal.

I have experienced this other times also for duathlons, where I can train a pace up here and nail it fairly comfortably at sea level.

6

Nice! That’s the kind of info I was looking for. I’ll start incorporating that workout into my training plan.

thanks!
-Doug