I’ve done some wild things at altitude: I completed a half marathon at completely over 10,000ft, I paced my friend up to the Mt. Whitney Portal at the end of the Badwater135, I showed up from Phoenix to Ouray, CO and paced my friend up a section of a mountain to over 11,000ft. But living in the ABQ at 6,100ft?…sweet baby Jesus it is kicking my ass. I knew I needed to start slow with activity just from the decrease over the last month…no dumb ass ego injuries here. So I did a little here and there and while it was hard, holy moly, it’s all so hard. I did speed work that wasn’t so speedy and almost vomitted twice. Recovery time is astronomical from puny workouts. I still get winded doing basic chores. I took to the google yesterday and learned this is normal when moving to altitude…turns out it can be much more difficult than just showing up to a race and then leaving. I’ve learned it can take 2weeks to 3months to acclimate to daily life and up to 1year to get back where you were physically with workouts…womp womp. But I guess as is always in life you just have to start somewhere. Aside from the difficulty in running etc my nose is disgusting and I’ve only been here 15days and have gone through 2+ giant boxes of tissues, my heart rate is high, my lips cannot have enough chapstick, my skin is so dry and scaly, my mouth is perpetually thirsty no matter how much water I consume, and I just generally feel like the grandpa from ‘Texas chainsaw massacre’ who sucks the girls finger from the end. I woke up this morning and had a watermelon Nuun first thing before breakfast or coffee😂🙈
Today was Sunday and normally I’d be doing a double digit trail run but today I settled happily for a 5.5mile hike (about 1/3 run which was really fun). It took me 2H24M (I couldve chugged along more but I did stop for a lot of photos and to just enjoy what I was seeing) and had 1,309ft of elevation gain…1000ft was before I even hit 3miles so I’ll call it even right now. I did the Tramway Trail which was a wonderful idea; I didn’t see anyone until well after 2 miles. Most people who park in this lot are going to ride the tram, not hike. The few people that I did encounter were super friendly and I love that. And the views! The views!
After returning home I took Bandit for a walk and managed to make a new friend who invited me over for dinner tomorrow…win! Also, this is the sunset 1 hour after the last photo of the sunset was taken above. I love that the sunsets last so long here.
On that note: as I start new employment, I hope I don’t pass out from log-rolling a patient and I hope I can at least get acclimated to daily life soon…in the meantime I’ll enjoy the views 🙂
half marathoning my way through grad school 