Hello!

I have a competition this weekend in Colorado and I'm concerned about the high altitude because i've heard it can mess up your skating. has anyone else dealt with this before? any tips?

I've never skated at altitude, but every skater I've known who has done so prepared by doing back-to-back runthroughs of their programs.

The highest land level I've skated at was in Calgary, Alberta during the 2007 Adult Canadians. If you get there early, do double run throughs of your program, drink lots of bottled water (it has oxygen it), eat bananas or anything with potassium for energy. Use Crest tooth paste if you have to buy a travel size.

I got poisoned with Colgate travel size tooth paste and thought it was an intestinal infection during Adult Canadians. (Note here in Canada the English only labeled Colgate travel tooth paste was spiked with some kind of windshield washer or other like fluid and purchased from the Orient. Make sure your tooth paste has either both French and English or English and Spanish on it or says made in the US. If it doesn't, don't buy it or use it.)

Don't Party the night before you competition. Don't do interviews with the media before you compete on competition day. Wait until after competing in all of your events. (I learned this one because it caused me to get up 3 hours early on competition day cutting my sleep time down to 5 hours. by the time I got on the ice sick, I was ready to melt into the ice and sleep. I don't know how I passed my interpretive test during the competition.)

On the warm up for your event flight, don't do every jump, spin and piece of footwork you have in your program. Just do some stroking and edges to get use to the feel of the ice. Do a waltz jump, one toe assisted jump and one edge jump to test your skate blades so that you know that the screws are tight. If they aren't, go into your skate bag or get your coach to do so, and tighten the screws. Better yet, check your screws on the bottom of your boots the night before your competition. Then you can use those jumps just to up your confidence. Do one simple sit, one camel, one forward spin and one back spin to warm up your wind ups and spin entries.

While your waiting for your turn to compete, stretch, drink water, check your laces and talk with your friends/coach about anything but skating. Tell a joke.

Most of all, "Just Have Fun!"

Listen to your coach's advice. He(she) probably has competed at altitude before and knows a thing or two.

Now only if I could remember to do what I wrote here.

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Can't help but we'll be at the State Games too!!! Good Luck !!

DD coach had her doing back to back run throughs and we are leaving tomorrow so she'll have 2 days to get acclamated before she competes. The SGA web site said to drink lots of water.

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Luckey

Altitude will make you fatiqued more easily, but usually you will get over that in a couple of days. Hence, the best way is to go a few days early and practise there before the competition. Other suggestions like doing back-to-back run throughs of your program at home would help in terms of building up stamina, but it won't prepare you for the thinner air at high altitude. Take for example those who climb Mt Everest - they will still take a few days to get acclimatised, even if they train up their stamina at home.

But don't worry, it won't mess up your technical skills at all. ;-)

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There is a lot of difference depending on just how high you are.

I skate, basically, at sea level. I've heard that some people regard the Lake Placid rinks as a high altitude, however, I've never had a problem adjusting there.

On the other hand, I used to visit Breakenridge CO on a regular basis. The town of Breakenridge is situated at about 9100 ft above sea level. By the way, the indoor rink there is a beautiful single sheet facility, it wasn't crowded but they didn't have much freestyle either.

At that elevation, there's nothing you can do to prepare. Even though I was semi used to elevation, I would still skate seemingly normal for a minute or two and then spend the next 3 or 4 minutes trying to get oxygen in my lungs.

Of course CO is many different elevations. I think the normal comfort point for most people would be at about 3500-4000. After that elevation becomes a significant issue. Other then the periferal preparation of drinking more water, etc. [ a lot of sleep!] there's nothing you can do to prepare in a day or two. It takes two to four weeks for your body to make the physiological adjustments to higher altitudes.

I've only had experience skating at the Mountain Cup, at Villard-de-Lans which is only 1,000 metres and probably doesn't count. I live at sea level, though, so do notice the difference the first couple of days. The only thing to do is to make sure you have time for practice ice when you are there.

I did once skate in Boulder, Colorado, and was aware how out of breath I got, but that was many years ago now, and wasn't a competition.

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Mrs Redboots
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My personal experience from skiing at high altitude is that:

(a) When I ski at high altitude (sleeping at 1800 metres; skiing up to 3000 metres) for at least a week once a year, my altitude tolerance at these levels seems to stay topped up. However, when I once didn't ski for two years, on my next holiday, I was really out of breath just walking to the ski lift, carrying skis.

(b) Aerobic fitness makes a huge difference.

(c) ITA a base station of 9100 ft (2900 metres) is very high indeed. Some people don't even like sleeping at this altitude. If you are going to be skating at this elevation, I'd recommend a few days acclimatising, if you can manage it.

Calgary was my first ever competition and I too was worried about the effects of altitude so I traveled to Calgary on the Sunday before my event (on Thursday). I worked my tail off (on the ice) for two days, had an easy skate the day before my event and did fine. (Ok, I didn't skate well but it had nothing to do with altitude )

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Dianne
(A.O.S.S.? Got it BAD! )

I skate at 5200 feet or a mile, and I skated at 8500 feet recently, stay hydrated, just drink water. Generally it's good to start doing back-to-back run throughs about 4 weeks out of the event so...you might be a little late on that. Try not to think about it...don't go and do 5 practices in a day trying to prepare, won't help. A lot of it depends on your pre-exisiting conditioning, if you can easily do a double run through of your program don't worry. If you can't, I'd front load the program.

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I have the good fortune of living half an hour from Whistler (955) so I drive up there to skate once a week. This meant that I was able to make the transition to Villard de Lans, Oberstdorf and Calgary with minimal hassle.

And Rusty, I saw your program - you skated GREAT

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