I had coffee this morning with a friend who just returned from a late-summer cross-country drive. He stopped overnight in Raton, a town in New Mexico near the Colorado border, and visited the local branch of the gym franchise he belongs to. He set the treadmill at his usual pace and incline and started walking but was alarmed to find that he became winded almost immediately.
He mentioned to another exerciser how easy it is to become deconditioned. She asked where he was from, and when he replied "eastern Pennsylvania," she pointed out that Raton is located nearly 7,000 feet above sea level, and it takes some time to get used to the thinner air at such a high altitude.
He was immensely relieved.
This story solved a mystery that has been niggling at me since 1978, when I was in the French Alps with about 20 other students, sharing a chalet during Christmas break. One night some of us were cooking a spaghetti meal for everyone, but there was one problem: the big pot of water took FOREVER to boil. People kept coming into the kitchen wondering when dinner would be ready. Now I know what the problem was: the altitude!
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