We’ve been wondering what effect altitude would have on us, even though the organisers of this year’s Huairasinchi have promised that we will “only” be going as high as 4400 masl.
The airport outside Quito lies at a modest 2400 masl, and it wasn’t the altitude that made us struggle to drag a bike box and a couple of large bags each to the bus. Nor did we feel anything special up in Quito, at 2800 masl, although we did take the lift up to our hotel room.
Today was to be our first proper test. We cheated a bit and took the cable car part way up the hill, to about 4000 masl. Our goal was one of the tops on the volcano Pinchincha, just outside the city.
From the top of the cable car the incline is quite gentle and we talked about running a fair bit at the start. Nope… immediately we had a strange feeling: heavy breathing and a heart that couldn’t decide whether to exit via the throat or just beat it’s way straight out through the chest wall. We toned down our ambitions to slow jogging the few parts that went downhill and walking the rest. That worked rather well and as we passed 4400 masl we were keeping a good pace, not too short of breath and no sign of the much feared headache.
The last bit up to the top was steeper and now Wendy started lagging behind. However, after some discussion as to whether it’s better to go slow and steady or take breaks, we managed to crawl our way up to the top (the answer: no point taking breaks because you’ll be walking slowly anyway).
Down again went considerably faster, although Wendy’s reaction to the height persisted.
We met three lads on their way up who asked whether there was far to go. Half an hour maybe? Jo Inge answered that it would probably take rather longer than that: we were about half way and had spent a little over two hours on the trip up. After a while it became clear that we were speaking to none other than Colombia Vidaraid, ranked number 2 in the world and more used to most at wandering around in high mountains…
Now Jo Inge has had a good long soak in the jaccuzi and Wendy has spent a while under the duvet and we are both feeling much recovered.
More pictures from the trip:
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