 That is Breckenridge ski resort in Colorado. I am heading back to Quandary Peak today, a 14,000 foot mountain in Colorado. And yes, I gotta be efficient today, very, very efficient. So I will be filming, of course, but a storm is rolling in this afternoon, although it's nice and warm today. So it might be a rain-snow mix. Anyway, I gotta be efficient and we're gonna do our best. We're gonna do our best to recruit some red blood cells, some true grit, and get this baby done. All right, ooh, it's a doozy. It's a doozy. Next week is the race. So this is basically my last hard effort before the race. So anyway, all right, here we go. Next week's race, it's called America's uphill. And it's in Aspen, Colorado. It's a vertical K race, so 1,000 meters of climbing over, I think just over two and a half miles. And basically it's runners versus Nordic skiers. Like, you can either do skiing or you can do running. Isn't that, I've never been in a race before where there's literally a, it's a Nordic skier, I think it's called Nordic, or no. Is that cross-country skiing? It's the skiers that have skins on the bottom and they basically can climb up hills very quickly. Well, in this parking lot at the base of Quandary near Breckenridge, a skier just left the parking lot and he looked pretty fit, looked pretty fast. I'm gonna see if I can catch him in, yes, I think we're gonna take out the Arctic Claw 300 up into this mountain and see if I can catch this guy. Just to see like how fast does a skier move uphill compared to a runner, crazy. It's just crazy. All right, let's lace up, come on. Blood cells are coming in. Come on, red blood cells, come on. Oh, baby. Woo. That last, that last 15 minutes was one of the harder 14 or pushes I've ever made at the top of a mountain. Oh, the wind, the wind. Oh, family, okay. Oh, that was good. I'm glad you could come along the journey for that. You've been up here before though. This is just, it's pretty remarkable views on Quandary. Okay, I'll tell you the vert, the overall time and the distance back at the studio. Another box arrived. Uh-oh, what is going on here? It's a little small. It's a little small to be a running shoe box. We're gonna open this up tomorrow. I'm sorry, I just, I don't, I wanna save it for tomorrow. Come back tomorrow. We will open this box up together. Fascinate. If you have a guess, go for it down below. All right. And before we get to those red blood cells, a quick shout out to Marty. Marty is the 1,000th runner to join up in D'Amore Global Running. That's incredible, 1,000 runners. Just think, if we all got together and we will do a virtual run somehow at some point, but if we all got together in a park and had a starting line, we would be a pretty, a force to be reckoned with on a start, like think of a, if you've been to a race where there's 1,000 runners, that's a lot of runners. So it's amazing and it's literally every continent. Maybe, gosh, do we have anybody in Antarctica? Let us know down in the comments if you live in Antarctica. That'd be amazing. So shout out to Marty for being the 1,000th runner and this is insane. Listen to this. And I'm not gonna pronounce this correctly. Apologize. Mitsuhiro Uema from Japan. Mitsuhiro Uema is part of D'Amore Global Running. What is he doing, ladies and gentlemen? He is running a marathon every day for a hundred days in a row. What? That's, and guess what? He's part, okay. So I, every now and then I check the leader board on the D'Amore Global Running group and basically it accumulates and I think it's working again now, by the way. I wasn't working yesterday, but it basically shows like how much all of us are working and striving for our goals in mileage or kilometers. And I noticed a couple of days ago that Mitsuhiro Uema from Japan was like at 150 miles for the week. And I was like, wait a minute, that's a lot of running. What is going on here? And so I did a little dig in and sure enough he's doing this, I don't know, personal challenge. Anyway, Mitsuhiro, congrats, he's at like day 90. If you see this video, get in touch with me. I would love to interview you live for everybody to hear the story of why you are doing this. 100 marathons in a row every single day. That's amazing. So kudos to you. All right, and moving on to red blood cells. And again, as you know, I'm a history guy. I didn't study biochemistry or anatomy, but bear with me. So I feel confident in the science that I'm gonna communicate to you, but I'm sure, I'm sure there's some scientists out there who are much more well-versed in the depths of science than I am, so definitely give more information down below in the comments. Okay, red blood cells, what do red blood cells do? They carry the oxygen through our body, okay? So when we breathe in oxygen through our respiratory system through our mouths, into our lungs, it then gets transferred to red blood cells. So if you think about it, huh, if I have more oxygen in my muscles, in my organs, I'm going to be able to perform better as an endurance athlete, right? All right, does that make sense? So red blood cells can actually be, I'm just gonna use the term recruited, yeah, I'm just gonna use the term recruited at higher altitudes. And to help explain this point, look at this, ladies and gentlemen, I came prepared today. All right, so this is C level down here. This arrow pointing up is altitude, going up in altitude. This says barometric pressure up here, also called atmospheric pressure. And basically these little blue dots represent oxygen in the air. So the closer you are to C level, the more atmosphere there is above the oxygen. Therefore, the oxygen molecules get compressed down closer and closer, the closer you get to C level. And then as you go up in altitude, they start to spread out, okay? And that is why, that is why we just see, I'm doing this left-handed bear with me. That is why the further we go up in altitude, up a mountain, in an airplane, there is less oxygen because the oxygen is spreading apart because there's less atmosphere pressing down on the oxygen. Does that make sense? And therefore, the human body is absolutely incredible. It knows this is happening. And okay, basic, okay, you ready for this? I came prepared. What happens is that our kidneys trigger a protein called erythropotin, EPO, all right? I don't even know, I don't know how to say that, but we're just, it's called EPO. You've probably heard of EPO. Maybe not in the greatest, and we're not gonna get into that tonight. But this is the protein that the kidney produces, which releases more red blood cells into our bloodstream. Not only are there more red blood cells, but they're bigger. So, and this happens, this happens when we go up in altitude for living, for training, just for being alive, okay? This is happening and we don't even know it. And this is why if you come visit Colorado or you go to the Himalayas, or you go to the Alps or wherever in the world, or the Andes down in South America, you have to adapt to the altitude or else you'll pass out. You can get really sick really quickly. And so again, red blood cells carry oxygen. If we are training at altitude, our body is naturally creating more red blood cells through the kidney, through this protein, and then depositing it into our bloodstream. And that is how we are able to carry more oxygen to our muscles. And this is why all the endurance athletes for the Olympics train at altitude, especially right before the Olympics. And then usually the Olympics are near sea level or right at sea level. And then they come down to sea level. And based on the research I've done, when you come down to sea level, you will retain those red blood cells that you've produced for 10 to 14 days. Isn't that fascinating? And then after 14 days, the benefit begins to go away, okay? If you're training for a race, you wanna be in that 10 to 14 day window. Okay, moving on real quick. I live at 5,280 feet above sea level. That is why Denver is called the Mile High City. Today, I went and trained at, well, I topped out at 14,000 feet above sea level, which is interesting. That's basically half the height of Everest. And that just blows, I got Everest, that just blows, like the Himalayas, you are on another level. It's amazing. And so I don't want to dishearten everybody who lives at sea level. Okay, I did a little research. Slide Mountain in the Catskills in upstate New York is 4,100 feet above sea level. Brasstown Bald in Georgia is 4,700 feet above sea level. Timbs Hill in Wisconsin is 1,900 feet above sea level, okay? And why do I bring these elevations up? Based on the research that I've done over the years, 2,000 feet above sea level is basically the bottom of the railing as far as getting a benefit from training at altitude. Like 2,000 feet is good. It's not great, but it's better than sea level. So if you live near the ocean, I would say get on Google and start looking up places that might be closer than you think that are around 2,000 feet above sea level, okay? And then 5,000 feet is preferred, 7,000 to 8,000 feet above sea level is considered the money shot. So Flagstaff, Arizona, I believe is like 7,800 feet or 7,500 feet, and then you can go up higher from there. And then obviously Boulder is a big place to train because you live at 5,000 feet, or 6,000 feet, but then you can easily get up to 8,000 feet above sea level. What was the other one? And listen, I'm not as familiar with, in fact, I wanna ask, if you live out, this is not the question of the day. If you live outside the United States and I was coming to visit you, where would I go train to get some elevation gain and some altitude training, okay? So let me know down in the comments if you're in Singapore, if you're in Mongolia, I don't know if anybody's watching in Mongolia, but if you're in the Scandinavian countries or if you're in Morocco or wherever in the world that you're watching, and yes, the Great Rift Valley, right where the Kenyans train, that goes, it's like right at 8,000 feet. So I just don't want to dishearten you. If you live at sea level, like listen, you can still seek out elevation. You might have to drive just a little bit and just to recap, listen, I love training at altitude, you know that. But if you live at sea level, you can work on your speed, okay? Cause you've got more oxygen to work with. So it's give and take, it's give and take. And I was not gonna bring this up, but I'm not afraid cause we're a YouTube family here. I do not, I don't believe in altitude tents. I think it's, I don't want to say cheating, but I think it's cutting corners. I don't know. And that's a controversial subject, but I just feel like it's really in that, walking the line in that gray area of blood doping. You know, it's like, it's just like using something that is not all natural. I don't know. Anyway, I just want to put that out there. And I don't want to open up a huge can of worms. I'm very open to having a constructive dialogue about that down in the comments, but I'm just not a believer. I don't know. I'm not a believer in it. I think we should either seek out altitude if we really want it or again, use the natural surrounding, the natural landscape around it. And that keyword for today has gotta be red, right? Red blood cells down in the comments. Thanks for hitting it up. And the question of the day, have you ever trained at altitude? What was it like for you? Was it good? Was it not? Did you get sick? Like what happened when you trained at altitude? And if you haven't trained at altitude, that's okay. What is the highest elevation that you've ever been in or ever been to in your entire life? Like, have you ever, maybe you've have been to the Himalayas or the Andes or maybe it's just your, like if maybe it's a big hail by your house. Like I don't know, like share about your experience with elevation, that would be amazing. And that is it. Again, thanks for bearing with me on the science. Hopefully I did an okay job there, explaining it for all of you. And I'm excited about red blood cells. It's a good thing. It's a good thing in 2019. Sick beauty, work hard and love each other. See you tomorrow.