Altitude training may take you to new heights

ATHLETICS: Irish athletes have been dabbling with altitude training with mixed results. Andrew Ledwith is hopeful it will pay off in the European Cross country Championship

LAST TIME I heard from Ger Hartmann, a few weeks back, he was in Killarney, putting the Kerry footballers through a day of sadomasochism. Or “prehabilitation”, as he prefers to calls it: Hartmann’s method of addressing injuries before they happen through a range of core-strengthening exercises, coupled with vigorous flexibility. I once took part in such a session and my abs haven’t felt the same since. It was like someone had punched me in the stomach, repeatedly, all day.

By chance, Moses Kipsiro, the Ugandan distance runner, was visiting Hartmann’s sports injury clinic in Limerick that same weekend. Kipsoro was second in the World Cross Country this year, and Hartmann invited him along to Killarney as a sort of model of prehabilitation. Despite his tiny stature and impossibly light frame, Kipsoro was able to sustain the exercises for several minutes, while some of the Kerry footballers struggled with several seconds. “And these lads think they’re fit,” Hartmann said under his breath.

I heard back from Hartmann a couple of times this week, only this time he was in Ethiopia, on route to Kenya, after putting the likes of Haile Gebrselassie, Tirunesh Dibaba and some of the country’s other top distance runners through that same prehabilitation session. Gebrselassie has now broken 24 world records, and Dibaba won the 5,000-10,000 metres Olympic double last year – yet despite all their success they’re always looking for a little extra edge, which is why Hartmann was invited over to head a physiotherapy seminar in Addis Ababa. They’ve been trying to get him over for years, having heard about his reputation for healing athletes in neighbouring – and rivalling – Kenya.

The seminar was a sell-out, and on the Thursday and Friday Hartmann staged an open training course, attended by 63 aspiring physios from across Ethiopia. “They stood watching me with absolute attention, on their tiptoes, for four hours straight,” he said. “Ethiopia and Kenya really are like night and day. Culturally, they are so different. But the Ethiopian athletes look at their running as a business, and are much more driven and organised than the Kenyans. And God, their hunger for knowledge bowled me over.”

With the business end of his trip over, Hartmann attended Sunday’s Great Ethiopian Run, where 33,000 aspiring distance runners raced 10km through the streets of Addis Ababa. One can only imagine how competitive that must be.

After Ethiopia, Hartmann travelled on to Eldoret in Kenya, where he stayed with former Olympic 1,500 metre champion Noah Ngeny, then to Iten, where he also put the likes of Lornah Kiplagat and Stephen Cherono through that same prehabilitation session.

It’s no secret the Ethiopians and Kenyans have taken distance running standards to a whole other level. The only question is whether their secret to success is training at such high levels. High altitude levels, that is, not just high intensity levels. Addis Ababa, at 7,546 feet, is one of the highest cities in the world, and the surrounding Entoto Mountains rise to 9,850 feet. There are similarly lofty environs around Eldoret and Iten, and for even the best Irish distance runners, who were born a lot closer to the Liffey Valley than the Great Rift Valley, this has become a mental obstacle as much as a physical one.

These days, it seems, the only way to beat the Kenyans and Ethiopians is to join them – not necessarily in Africa, but at some equally high altitudes. Several Irish distance runners have dabbled in altitude training, including John Treacy and Catherina McKiernan, but two years ago Martin Fagan took it a step further by moving, full-time, to Flagstaff, Arizona, which lies at 7,000 feet. Injuries aside, Fagan has enjoyed significant progress since, improving Treacy’s Irish half-marathon record to 60:57.

Last June, when Andrew Ledwith finished up a scholarship at Iona University in New York, the lure of altitude training also presented itself, and he found it impossible to resist: or rather, useless to resist. Ledwith had enjoyed a good collegiate career, finishing third in the NCAA Cross Country, and running 28.45.77, for 10,000 metres, but deep down he knew that to make it to the next level he’d have it to go to the next level – as in high-altitude level. Instead of returning home to Meath, he also moved to Flagstaff.

“That was the next step, definitely,” Ledwith told me. “I think Martin showed the importance of altitude, and what it can do for you. Look at all the major championships now, and unless you’ve been training at altitude, you really don’t have much of a hope of competing. You’re wasting your time otherwise.”

The problem with altitude training is that it takes several weeks to adjust; the oxygen level in the air is far lower than at sea level, therefore forcing the body to adapt by increasing the oxygen-carrying red blood cells. Eventually, provided the timing is right, running back down at sea level feels significantly easier. “It was actually fun the first six weeks or so, just discovering the difference,” explained Ledwith. “You’d start out doing a 30-minute run, and you’d feel like you never ran before in your life. You’re breathing hard. Your legs are burning. It’s just a whole different running sensation altogether. Then eventually you go out for a good run, and you’re wondering how you ever managed to adapt to that. And feel no ill-effects.”

After nearly six months living at altitude, Ledwith travelled home the day before last Sunday’s Intercounties Cross Country at Kilbeggan racecourse. Ledwith floated around the 10km course, eventually winning by 23 seconds. The ultimate aim, naturally, is the European Cross Country in Santry in two weeks. Ledwith is hopeful the benefits of altitude training will again pay off, but it’s far from an exact science.There is often a rebounding period, as Róisín McGettigan discovered earlier this year. She trained for a few weeks in Boulder, Colorado, and ended up doing more damage than good. Fagan, meanwhile, will continue to train in Flagstaff until the day before the Europeans.

Hartmann is not so sure this will ever be enough to catch up with the Ethiopians: “When athletes like Paula Radcliffe go to Boulder it can be a help, but it will never match breathing the rare air from childbirth, generation after generation.”