The Importance of Altitude Training

"I feel like you are working harder than you ever have before, but you can't catch your breath," he says. "What you're describing very scientifically is exactly what I feel every year as I get to the turnaround point at Columbine." The altitude training has to administer a sufficient hypoxic dose for it to make an impact on runners' endurance and performance. For instance, they did a study of US elite and Olympic level runners who were able to achieve a 1 to 2% performance increase by spending time at 65 to 8,200 feet over four weeks.