PEAKING FOR ALTITUDE, HEAT AND TIME ZONES
13 min · Full library · written lesson, video in production
After this lesson you can build a day by day arrival plan that handles altitude, heat and jet lag as three separate problems with three separate timelines, instead of hoping to feel normal by day four.
The Technique
- Treat the three stressors as separate clocks that happen to start on the same day. Altitude adaptation runs on the slowest clock and the early days are the worst ones. Heat acclimatisation is faster and responds to daily exposure. Circadian adjustment moves at a rate of roughly an hour a day and depends almost entirely on light timing. They interact badly: altitude disturbs sleep, disturbed sleep slows circadian adjustment, and heat work while sleep-deprived at altitude is a reliable way to arrive at your objective already flattened. So plan each on its own timeline, then look at where they overlap and decide which one gets priority. Almost nobody does this, which is why the first three days of most trips are wasted.
- Understand what altitude actually does to you and plan the ascent profile around it. Less oxygen available per breath means your ventilation rises, your heart rate at any given effort is higher, your fluid losses through breathing and urine climb, your appetite drops and your sleep fragments, particularly the first two nights. The convention for sleeping altitude above roughly 2500 to 3000 metres is to raise where you sleep by no more than about 300 to 500 metres per night, with a rest day every third or fourth day, and to accept that day altitude can exceed sleeping altitude as long as you come back down to sleep. Note the rule is about where you sleep, not where you ride. If your itinerary flies you straight to a high village, build the first two days deliberately light and treat them as part of the plan rather than as lost days.
- Acclimatise to heat with daily exposure rather than hoping. Heat adaptation involves sweating earlier and more freely, a lower heart rate at the same workload and better plasma volume, and it responds to repeated sessions where core temperature actually rises and stays raised. The working recipe is around forty five to sixty minutes of continuous moderate work in the heat, most days, with the intensity kept low enough that you can complete it. The conventional timeline puts most of the adaptation in place within one to two weeks of near-daily exposure, with the earlier changes arriving first and the rest following. It decays within a couple of weeks of stopping, so top up every few days once you have it. In an Australian winter, a hot room, extra layers, a sauna after training or a hot bath after a session all work as heat sources when the weather will not cooperate.
- The stacking order, light timing rules, and the hour by hour arrival plan
- 5 more technique steps
- The 5 mistakes that undo it, with fixes
- The drill that builds the reflex
- The safety non-negotiables
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