"You just can't breathe like this in the valley"

[Raptor]

That was my comment to a fellow rider on the Wasatch Crest (10000 feet,
nearly) a couple weeks ago. We're both doing about 100 breaths/minute
at the time. I seem to remember having to "train" my chest muscles a
little bit after moving to Utah from South Dakota way back when. Some
of my valley-hugging friends can't seem to breath as fast as needed to
suck enough air at altitude to keep going.

Does anyone else notice how long it takes to fill your lungs after
you've acclimitized to altitude, and return to (or visit) sea level?
Every time I try to inhale deeply at lower altitudes, it it takes a long
time to fill the lungs. It took me a while to figure out what was up
with that, and I've decided that there's just more air to move in and out.

I'm working on calibrating my lungs to get a rough measure of altitude
based on air volume. "[Inhale] ... It feels like we're at about 6000
feet."

--
--
Lynn Wallace http://www.xmission.com/~lawall
"I'm not proud. We really haven't done everything we could to protect
our customers. Our products just aren't engineered for security."
--Microsoft VP in charge of Windows OS Development, Brian Valentine.

[JD]

Raptor > wrote in message >...
> Does anyone else notice how long it takes to fill your lungs after
> you've acclimitized to altitude, and return to (or visit) sea level?

Nope. I only notice that I get winded less quickly and regain my wind
much faster at lower altitudes.

JD