Feature


PHOTO© SUE MORNING
Members of Disabled Sports Eastern Sierra riding along Hwy 203, at nearly 8,000 feet, at the
start of the Sierra Cycle Challenge, a three-day fundraising bike ride.
The Theory
Q and A with Terrence Mahon, coach and president of the Mammoth
Track Club. When we travel from sea level to
Mahon oversees the training of some well-decorated runners here in Mammoth,
high altitudes, say above 7,000 feet,
including Olympic competitors Deena Kastor, Ryan Hall and Meb Keflezighi.
our bodies naturally develop inefficient
physiological responses, which brings
Do you work with the HPL or SPORT in testing your athletes?
into question acclimatization. The idea

The Mammoth T
is that the body takes time to get used to
rack Club (formerly Team Running USA) has worked with the
SPORT Hospital since its inception. Our athletes do their sports science tests, blood
its surroundings, especially those in the
profiles and sports rehab while training in Mammoth. All the doctors at the Mammoth
clouds. Doctors have varying opinions
hospital have been extremely helpful in keeping our athletes, healthy
as to how long this process can take.
, fit and moving in
the right direction towards their goals.
It’s safe to say that any visitor from
L.A. or Orange County who stays for
What is notable to you in your dealings with high altitude training and your athletes?
3 to 5 days will leave right when their
I have learned that high altitude training has been able to help every athlete
body is just getting acclimated. So for
that we have brought up to Mammoth as long as we were smart with their training.
an athlete to actually reap the possible
Altitude training is a scary thing for a new athlete and there are a lot of places where
rewards of high altitude training, he or
one can make mistakes almost unknowingly
she needs to be there for an extended
, being thorough with understanding the
physiological stresses that altitude training causes is very important. Once we can learn
amount of time, say a month at least.
what an athlete’s altitude baseline is (as compared to sea level training) then we can
The same respect for time has to be
start to make adjustments off of that model to incrementally work them up towards
given to an athlete who trains at altitude
higher levels of fitness. The altitude training response works very well when we have
and expects to compete at sea level. It
a long enough time to implement the program and are patient with how we add in this
is understood that the body acclimatizes
stress to their current training regimen.
so when traveling back to sea level
there is a window one should respect in
It’
order to benefit from the high altitude
s evident that you take very seriously your athletes and their personal responses to
high altitude so it must be a blessing of sorts to have such facilities like the HPL and
training. Within 8 to 12 days the body
SPORT at your disposal?
can completely revert back to its beach
High altitude training is an added training stress on an athlete’s body
loving days so it is wise to make sure
. As such, we
need to take altitude's effects into consideration in regard to training volumes, training
the competition is about 5 to 7 days
intensities, training densities – as well as the changes in rates of recovery for all of
after leaving altitude.
these different factors. Altitude training allows one to run faster than sea level at shorter
distances, but slower at longer ones. All of this needs to be addressed when bringing in
a new athlete to altitude. Much like any other training stress altitude has an adaptation
factor and one will improve while training at altitude with a well-developed program.
Originally from Long Beach, writer
W
Peter Vescovi has been in Mammoth since
e have a variety of athletes in our group and they all adapt to altitude a little bit
different. By using such elements in training like heart rate monitors, sports science
November 2008. He is fascinated with our
surrounding mountains, and he loves skiing,
testing and current blood profiles then we can tailor each one’s program to create the
hiking, backpacking and writing.
proper workload that they can handle. ◆
36 July | August 2009 Mammoth Sierra Magazine
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