The Air Up there

Mexico City is at 2240 meters of elevation, which according to my calculation is 7,392 feet.
IMAGE. There is about 25% less oxygen here, and it killed me on my runs I’ve run.

Elevation -- % of air compared to sea level
Sea level -- 100%
5,000 feet (1524 m) -- 81%
10,000 feet (3048 m) -- 66%
( source)

Here in Mexico City, you can just go run on the streets. The cars would either scare you to death or plain and simple run you over. There’s a nice little town lake type trial that runs in between the traffic lanes of the avenue that leads to our neighborhood. It’s 2 miles to the end of it (access to the main highway) from where I live, so I’ve just been running that back and forth. Kinda boring, but it’s what’s available so I’ll live with it.

On Thursday I ran my required 4 miles, and after 2 miles I wanted to die. I bonked. My legs had no give, my chest was burning, and I just wanted to stop. I kept going at my regular easy pace, but man it was tough. Felt like I was running Motive with no GU’s and had 1 mile to go. 4 Painful miles… 34 mins.

There are quite a few people that run this decomposed volcano rock trail. Mostly retired men, and housewives out for their daily stroll, or to run/walk their dogs. Sun came up at 7, I was out running by 7:40.

On Friday, I had high hopes that my body had generated more Red Blood cells and it would work better. I had another 4 miles to run, and it felt a tad better, but it was still tough. A simply 4 mile run felt like 10. 32 and a half mins.

Today, Sunday was my required long run 10 to 12 miles. How fun!; 3 there and backs! It felt hard to run the 12, but I did it. 1hr 27 mins. There were surprisingly many runners out enjoying the 46 degree weather. Substantially more real runners. You can tell just by what people are wearing. A few runners belonged to running groups (same ‘Running Group’ named shirts). No amateurish sweat pants and matching sweatshirt, and their demeanor was more of a training run look than the leisurely Sunday stroll. Several people had long sleeved race shirts from the 5K races they’d run. Sure, plenty of strolling people, but it was nice to recognize a few people that were out for more than a couple of miles too.

The 12 miles were rough. I GU’d at around 6.5 miles. I needed it bad.

Best part of the run, was this dog running behind his middle aged owner who was running with two of his friends. All in their late 40’s, early 50’s would be my guess. Anyway, the dog was a longhaired black lab type mutt. He was trailing the guys by 10-15 feet. The trail is intersected by many turn around for cars, and they all have big 2 foot tall by 6 foot long and 3 foot wide planters with 1 foot ledges. The guy pats the planter and gets his dog to jump up and lie down on the ledge. He tells pooch to lie down and stay. The dog stayed and rested there as the guys continued running another few hundred yards to the end of the trail and back.

Right around 11.5 miles, 1hr 32mins

Get me back to Sea Level running, please!