Day 4,510—First day of Altitude Training—

 

Start time: 4:31 a.m.

Weather: High 60s wind .4  mi/h, Humidity 80%

     I tried on the Bane-style mask yesterday. It has a spot to adjust the difficulty on the outside of the front. There are two settings, and they both go up to four. I looked at the directions, and it said that one controls how much air goes in and one controls how much air goes out. Thinking about how one of the issues is that you don’t breathe out long enough when you’re at high altitude to exhale enough carbon dioxide, then if you were to start breathing rapidly, you would get carbon dioxide poisoning. I had it on the second easiest setting, but after the first mile I changed it to the easiest setting. It was still so frustrating to get used to, and even though I wasn’t going that hard, I could hear myself trying to regulate my breathing, getting there, and then breathing too rapidly again. It was hard to breathe through my nose while wearing the mask, so I resorted to some mouth breathing.

        I thought about how odd I must look running before 5 wearing my highlighter-yellow shorts and this mask that makes me look like a Batman villain. I didn’t want to go too far from home, so I did more loops closer to my house, and I was looking at my watch more than usual, hoping I would be done soon so that I could take off this thing. When I was done running, I left it on until my breathing regulated again. 

It is super annoying to wear, but it could only help me for the race. I am going to be careful not to use it to the point where it makes me dread running. Right now, I am thinking I will only wear it on my short runs and try to push the intensity up, but at the same time, running in the morning is one of my happiest parts of the day, and I don’t want to screw that up by wearing a mask. I am happy to see what the big deal is and how people train for high altitudes, but I don’t like wearing anything over my face.