Attitude and Altitude

Attitude:

After my recent success at embracing the crapiness of yoga, I thought I would try to apply this “life lesson” to other activities I dislike. One such activity is running in the heat. Sara sometimes teases me about the fact that I come back from pretty much every run during the summer totally defeated and declaring “that was the worst run ever!” Even though I say that every day, I pretty much mean that every day. I DESPISE running in the heat. Living in Houston, this means that I despise portions of almost every day for about a 4-6 month period every year. Certainly room for improvement there... Which brings me to Altitude.

Altitude:

One thing Houston is decidedly lacking is altitude. I live in an area of town known as “The Heights,” which means that while the rest of the city is about 20ft above sea level, I live in the rarefied air up at about 40ft above sea level. This is fine as long as you never want to run anywhere other than at sea level or never want to be even remotely competitive if you race anywhere else. Not that I have any delusions of being competitive, but sometimes I get frustrated by the idea that people that live in higher elevations are essentially getting some aerobic benefit “for free.” They get to be inherently fitter than me just by living somewhere. It is like a free performance enhancing drug….that is legal (and don’t we all want to be able to be faster without working at it)! That makes me jealous. But then I read this; an article from the New York Times that expounds on the benefit of training in the heat and compares that to altitude training. Stop the presses! If there is one thing Houston does have it is HEAT (just ask anyone that has ever lived here or visited between the months of May-September). It turns out that many of the physiological responses to altitude and heat are similar. You can get some of the benefits from training in the heat, and maybe even slightly better benefits. And then it occurred to me: Stop dwelling on how much you hate running in the heat and how bad your performance is….. and think of it like altitude training! There are runners in other places that spend every spare weekend headed for the high country trying to get in altitude training, but for 5 months of the year I get a free unlimited supply of heat (fake altitude) right outside my door. It is funny how that one mental association (heat = altitude) has changed my outlook on summer running. After 7 years of dreading summers and complaining about my crappy runs in the heat, I now find myself looking forward to my runs in the heat. It may not be quite the same or come with the majestic views of snow-capped peaks, but it isn’t all bad either. And, I think it really gets to the heart of what it is to be a runner in a big flat city (an urban flatlander)…. The idea that the “mountains” are here, we just have to use a little creativity to see them!