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David Goettler On Summiting Everest Without Bottled Oxygen
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In this episode, Scott Johnston is joined by David Goettler. David is a member of the North Face Athlete Team, a professional mountain guide, and an accomplished alpinist. Fresh off of Everest after his successful summit without the use of supplemental oxygen, the duo discuss David's physical and mental preparation, embracing suffering, use of intermittent hypoxic training for preparation, and David's new approach for acclimatization this year that was a major factor in his success.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of the Uphill Athlete Podcast. I'm your host, Scott Johnston, co-founder of Uphill Athlete. These podcasts are just one of the many free resources we offer to inform and inspire mountain athletes. Today, I'm joined by David Gotler, fresh back from the scent of Mount Everest without the use of bottled oxygen. When I say fresh, I mean it. The man was on the summit one week ago today.
00:00:27
Speaker
Dave is a member of the North Face athlete team, a professional mountain guide, and an accomplished alpinist. He's been coached by me for about six years now, and we've been using the exact same well-tested training methods that you found in the books and in the training plans that we sell.
00:00:43
Speaker
So you can take some heart that they've been well proven.
Mental Preparation and Acclimatization Strategies
00:00:48
Speaker
Today we're going to discuss some things about his mental preparation, how that was different this year than in previous years. Also going to talk about how important it is to be able to embrace the suffering in order to succeed in this kind of a climb.
00:01:03
Speaker
We're going to talk his use of intermittent hypoxic training in his preparation. Also a new approach that he used this year for his acclimatization program. It seems to have set him up really well for success. So these and many other topics come up in this, the first conversation we've had since he arrived home in Spain just 24 hours ago. I hope you enjoy the chat. Thanks.
00:01:31
Speaker
Welcome home. Thank you. Yeah, she feels good to be home. And actually, I mean, I spent half the day on the couch sleeping. I got yesterday back home.
00:01:49
Speaker
was and kind of from on top of the summit fatigue comes now the travel and jet lag fatigue so it's kind of like it's a really kind of empty space I am at the moment but but feels good to be back home and
00:02:07
Speaker
especially in sick kind of sea level air here in Northern Spain, which is really nice and humid and because yeah, like this time I somehow didn't manage to don't get the kind of kumbu cough or the high altitude cough and it's pretty bad this time. Yeah. Yeah. I can hear it. I can hear a little bit of the kumbu cough. Yeah.
00:02:32
Speaker
Yeah, I might already kind of say sorry for the listeners who kind of have to listen to my coughing here and there. Well, thanks for agreeing to join me so soon after you got home. I thought it's great to get to see you and talk to you so quickly after the expedition and the climb. I want to hear all about it.
00:02:55
Speaker
I'm sure lots of people are interested in and hearing how things went for you this year sounds like yeah No, I think it's a good is a good opportunity or a good way to do it because normally we always connect afterwards and then I tell you everything and then afterwards we do a podcast recording and Doing it the same time. I think brings really a lot of
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah, like fresh and authentic insights to it.
Comparing Climbs and Managing Expectations
00:03:23
Speaker
And it might be even easier for us both that we don't have to stage again this kind of recording and the same questions.
00:03:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, where should we start? From start at the beginning, like when you arrive there, do you want to start from the summit and work backwards? I didn't know. One thing I'm really curious about is
00:03:49
Speaker
the comparison of this year to last year with Killian and then the year when you got so close to the summit and had to turn around because of the crowds and getting cold. So at some point I want to have you touch on that kind of comparison.
00:04:04
Speaker
I mean, I think in general, this comparison thing is a really dangerous topic, which I figured out also. And I was lucky enough that I worked a little bit with, and you know that I worked this year, leading up to the expedition with a mental coach, with a friend from Germany, who is a professional mental coach. And we touched on that, luckily, because exactly it happens that you,
00:04:30
Speaker
that when you have these goals where you go again and again, you start to compare so much from like how you felt the previous year, how you felt the year before, how I felt last time on the South Summit, how I felt like, you know, like
00:04:46
Speaker
i am going running or moving around in the corner and when when the comparison is is kind of below the expectations or below what was happening the year before immediately it kind of can can i totally the kind of the i pull you down like mentally and and from the motivation and from
00:05:09
Speaker
from like yeah like you think like oh my god last time it felt so much better and now it feels so I mean how can I ever ever reach my goal this year and and this happens really actually a couple of times and and so this comparison thing is on the one hand
00:05:27
Speaker
It's really good because you kind of compare and you learn and you kind of see what works better, but it's also this kind of dangerous element to it on these kind of repetitive kind of attempts and you go again and again and again.
00:05:46
Speaker
Yeah, I can definitely see that I guess I wasn't meaning maybe so much the performance as just like overall experience But I see what you're saying about the performance and actually I've you know in it with training more traditional athletes I've known coaches. Let's say who were training runners on the track and they're doing interval training leading into you know, some important race and They're slow
00:06:14
Speaker
And a coach will lie to them with the time and say, oh man, that's so much faster. You're looking really strong. And yeah. And so that's what I for sure needed sometimes there. I would have needed you sometimes there and say like, actually, you're really good right now. That's totally crushing it. And yeah.
00:06:33
Speaker
Well, the psychological component of all of these type sports is I think every bit as important as a physical preparation. And I think especially for these really long duration type events where you're essentially, you know, they're all about suffering.
00:06:52
Speaker
And it's like enduring the suffering, you know, for this, for hour after hour, it's so easy for it to get into your brain like, oh, this is terrible. I hate it. It really hurts. I'm going, going so slowly. And then you can talk yourself out of it. So what do you, what do you do? I mean, you're, I mean, especially climbing Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen is going to cause you to suffer a great deal for many hours.
00:07:17
Speaker
What kind of mental games are you playing when that's going on for you? But I mean, in general, I kind of are good in embracing this suffering. I mean, everybody who is in this kind of sports, I think this is like one of their big traits that we kind of can embrace this suffering. And for me, I try to break it down always in these kind of smaller steps.
00:07:46
Speaker
For example, when I go from base camp to camp two and I just say, okay, now first reaching the crampon point, then like this kind of arc, like the part in the ice fall, which I really don't like and which is dangerous. So just concentrate on that and go through that and don't think about beyond kind of what comes tomorrow, what comes the day after tomorrow when summit day is.
00:08:11
Speaker
And just like now we concentrate and we make it to camp one or or beyond this kind of dangerous part and that's all I'm thinking about. And so for me that works really well to to to kind of break it down. This is one strategy. The other one is that I
00:08:29
Speaker
that I always envision myself like what comes after the suffering like I am how how great the moment must be like on a sunny day to come on like I know now it's tough and and there were passages and later on we can touch on that which are we were really
00:08:46
Speaker
really taking so much energy like mentally and physically out of me and just suddenly because the snow changed a little bit and and so I just considered okay just just just go to the next point and then remember how how amazing it must be to once you kind of reach the summit or once you reach this tower summit from there it might be like really easy
00:09:09
Speaker
is even if I know from there it's again like a really difficult endeavor to get to the main summit and so on so I trick myself in these and then I often also really force myself to just think about something completely else like let my thoughts kind of
00:09:28
Speaker
go to a totally different area feel like sinking and just let over because the climbing there is often it's super easy and it's just intuitive so I can it's like running and
00:09:45
Speaker
in a lot of way where you don't have to concentrate all the time on the movement. It's not like rock climbing where you are forced to really think about the movement where you hold and all of this. So you can let your swords also really go to totally different places for a while and that's also what works really well.
00:10:09
Speaker
Can you tell us what sort of things that the mental coach helped you with? I mean, I know on the physical side what we've been doing, and we didn't do anything crazy different than we've done for the last, what, how many, six years or something. Every time you've been going off on this kind of a climb, we prepare essentially the same way with only small variations. But this year, with the mental coach, that's a whole new element.
00:10:37
Speaker
I would assume you found it useful from what you've been saying, but were there some things that the mental coach taught you that you would like to pass on or you could pass on?
00:10:47
Speaker
Yeah, for example, like what I said before with this kind of comparison that we said, I really need to try very hard to just stay in the moment. I don't compare it to my previous years. And I just like stay in the moment, stay like, yeah, like be really like just
00:11:11
Speaker
concentrate on the next step, concentrate on the day, and it doesn't matter if there's a day which doesn't feel as good as compared to last year, if my time is slower from base camp 2 compared to last year or 2019 or something like this, it's okay.
00:11:31
Speaker
what I have to work with this year and doesn't matter if it's half an hour later, it doesn't mean that I don't be able to sum it. So this was the one thing, the other thing which I have a lot of struggle or which is my kind of weakness that I really love to control everything and I love to be in control of
00:11:58
Speaker
of, yeah, like, you know, from training, I think I'm very structured. I love to keep every training session we put in. I
Accepting Uncertainty in Mountaineering
00:12:06
Speaker
love to execute it exactly. And I'm the guy who kind of, if there's an hour I run, in the end, it's two minutes around my car to make the hour really full, which is like a pointless, but it's like, okay, let's keep it like as structured, as controlled as possible.
00:12:23
Speaker
And then on expedition, you know, you've been yourself, there are so many factors which we can't control. And that I accept this, that I'm okay with it. And especially going back there at the now, the third time, I had the feeling that the pressure from myself is
00:12:45
Speaker
is way bigger than before. I was not anymore this kind of innocent kind of first try. You suddenly, you can fail again. You know that it's very likely that not all puzzle pieces kind of fit perfectly together. And
00:13:06
Speaker
And being prepared for that was a huge part of my mentor-coach kind of work, and it helped me. And I had this, for sure, I had this dip set when suddenly this year, it started super early with summiting, and they put the fixed ropes in very early.
00:13:27
Speaker
and a lot of people went like always oxygen and so you sit there and damn and was thinking like oh my god I'm not even ready with my acclimatization and I would love to go as well and you need to be patient and you know okay it's on the one side it's good that everybody already goes but hopefully there's coming this weather window and then there was this
00:13:49
Speaker
this time when I decided, okay, I'm ready and should I go or not? And in the end, I had the feeling it was more a coin toss of choosing the 21st or waiting for later 25th or 26th of May for my summit attempt.
00:14:07
Speaker
And I mean, luckily I choose 21st because I couldn't ask for a better day. But in retrospective, I'm almost a little bit scared and afraid like how close it was that I would have chosen the other day because I said like, maybe it's actually looked like a better window at one point. So it's
00:14:29
Speaker
It's this kind of work where I really struggled to give up the control and also accept this kind of uncertainty and this was really good to work with.
00:14:44
Speaker
I you are a person I know that likes to control things and you are a person who likes to like you said to run around the car for two minutes to make sure you get that hour in so I can and in the mountains do take that control away from us there's very little we can control one you know the one thing we can control is our fitness and that's the thing we really focus on because and it
00:15:10
Speaker
Because if we have a control over that and we know the fitness is good, at least you can put your mind at rest about those things or that thing and be able to handle the other variations and changes that might come along. But it sounds like there was a little bit of luck here picking the right coin toss.
00:15:33
Speaker
For sure. On the other hand, I think also we can control then once we made this decision or we did the coin toss and we started, we can then control how far we want to push ourselves out there and how
00:15:54
Speaker
and I saw like this year again in the Himalayas on other mountains as well where people just don't accept I think in a way the kind of limitation we have there especially like if we're talking about then to the set of rules we apply ourselves like if we go without oxygen, if we go without a shepherd support, if we serve sufficient there and all of this kind of
00:16:21
Speaker
set of rules we choose by ourselves that in nowadays on these mountains because they're moving this kind of incredible huge variety of people with different set of rules and often
00:16:38
Speaker
we get a little bit kind of distracted, I would say, in the way that I see other people, they go without oxygen, for example, no Sherpa, but then they're surrounded by people who go with Sherpa and oxygen. And these people can push way longer. And for myself, I have the
00:17:00
Speaker
I need to be in control when I turn around. It doesn't matter what happening around me with other people. And this, I think, gets more and more dangerous and challenging, if you want to say so, on a mountain where a lot of different styles move at the same time.
00:17:22
Speaker
I could see that happen. Yeah. And were there any, I don't, I haven't heard, were there any accidents this year? Any really bad situations that you know of? No, not, I, on Everest it was surprisingly, surprisingly good and safe. But for example, on an Epona two guys got really like in massive trouble and got rescues and they have like,
00:17:49
Speaker
massive frostbite and lose their hands and fingers and toes and nose and everything. In general, I had the feeling there were quite some frostbite issues all over the Himalayas.
00:18:08
Speaker
Because
Trends in Everest Climbing and Honesty about Supports
00:18:09
Speaker
the season started everywhere so early, I think a lot of people were not really ready with their acclimatization. And then the people with oxygen, they already started before their summit go bits. And so the people without oxygen, they were kind of like drawn into that in a way.
00:18:34
Speaker
Have you seen, now that you've been there three times, have you seen an increase in the number of people that are trying to climb it without the use of supplemental oxygen?
00:18:46
Speaker
I think that like this year especially there were for sure quite some people who were trying trying without and again here we need to I would say difference between this kind of different style without oxygen and because there were for example the day I summited there were
00:19:07
Speaker
um two other guys who tried without oxygen by the head there they called it the bodyguards with them so they were shared with them who had who had who had and i spare oxygen and mask for them and in case they need it and they've always used it um because i think this is i mean uh i think yeah it's
00:19:30
Speaker
it's a quite common thing now to try it without oxygen but have this kind of body cuts with you and then you might always, I think almost always fall back to them because if you have this kind of temptation so close that you use it and you have someone who is also really highly interested in giving it to you because they are your guides and they know if they give it to you
00:19:58
Speaker
You make some of it and you're way safer. You end up in the end using it. It's kind of like having a top rope. Yeah, exactly. I was teasing someone who's a very well-known climber, well-known to you and me, whose name I won't mention.
00:20:22
Speaker
who wanted to climb Everest with oxygen. And I told him, you know, that's kind of like grabbing the draws. And it is, it is. But I understand a lot of people still want to do it that way. And as you and I have talked a great deal about this, you know,
00:20:39
Speaker
There's no rules in these sports. Exactly. People make up the rules they want to use, and that's perfectly fine. But people, I think, do need to understand that the rules make a huge difference. Whichever kind of rules you accept or decide to use, that makes a very big difference.
00:21:01
Speaker
For sure, and this is my time over, I did just a post about it and I just advocate that we become more honest in it and that we proactively talk about what things we used on the mountain, because we all who move there know exactly what
00:21:21
Speaker
small pieces make a huge difference in how this kind of achievement comes together. And for example, for me, I stated clearly, I used the fixed ropes, which are put up by shepherds. I used the ice fall shepherds on oxygen, and I use, I benefit highly from the track, which is always there. I never more or less had to break a trail there on Everest.
00:21:50
Speaker
and the fixed ropes, they make it so much safer to get back down the loads of face, for example. So I used it. But on the other hand, I carry all my stuff by myself. And that's, again, it's such a huge difference if I come back after the summit bid to the last camp where my tent was, my small single-wall tent,
00:22:11
Speaker
I had to start to melt water. At first, I'd go somewhere, get some ice or snow, melt the water. It takes like an hour to get the water, then drink something, then put down the tent. Then I went back to camp three. I pitched it up again in the night. Just to pitching up this tent there, it took me ages. And I was really like, I was crawling because I was so, so tired. And it was, and suddenly I have to force myself
00:22:40
Speaker
every step i'm kind of okay it now put together these two poles like the inner poles for the tent put them in so you put them in then you're like oh my god okay this is done then you crawl in then again you need to start the stove melt water if there's a shepherd who has you know your hot water ready when you come to a camp you and you never have to take down your tent or put it up it makes a huge difference and it's not that one is better or the other it's just like
00:23:08
Speaker
All these pieces add up in the kind of effort and how a series is something is going. And this is the only thing I think I would like to... Yeah, that we talk about more honest and open and just don't mention these things because we know what difference they make.
00:23:33
Speaker
Yeah, totally. When I think about my experience on K2, and now the mountain is guided and ropes are fixed on it, it's a completely different experience than it was almost 30 years ago.
00:23:53
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, I mean, I heard now that for the summer season for K2 they issued 300 permits. I mean, 300 people on K2. Can you imagine? I mean, you know, the route there, like there's not even the space. I don't know like how they will do it. There's no place for tips.
00:24:08
Speaker
really 300 people but it's insane and yeah it completely changes there and with the kind of amount of people with the amount of oxygen the logistics they have there and still you know I don't judge in the way that you know
00:24:26
Speaker
For the people who are there, it might be the biggest adventure and the best day in their life if they summit it in whatever way. But I just want that we kind of speak more honestly about the difference in style and not put it always under the same umbrella of like, hey, that's 8,000 meter peak climbing and that's more or less all the same. It's not. It's like completely different disciplines.
00:24:55
Speaker
And it's K2 in particular. Like you said, there's not many very good tent locations, campsites. No, not at all. There's no flat places. I'm really happy I stay the summer here in Spain and in the arts. And I just, I can't imagine having 300 people go through that black pyramid area and not have someone get hurt by the rock ball. It's so dangerous there. Wow. And will we? It's crazy.
00:25:21
Speaker
When I was in 1995, when I was there, there had been 100 people summit K2 by 1995, and there had been 50 killed.
00:25:37
Speaker
Yeah. So it was a different kind of experience then. But I hope it's safer. Maybe they've knocked all the loose rocks off of that black pyramid. I don't think so. And the bottleneck will be the same as well. Yeah, sure.
00:25:55
Speaker
Were conditions similar? I know that as you do very well, big mountains conditions change obviously from week to week, day to day. How did the three years conditions compare for you and what did those changes in conditions require you to do?
00:26:14
Speaker
I
Changing Conditions on Everest
00:26:14
Speaker
mean, the conditions were more or less always the same. And maybe this year they were a little bit better, especially on the, I mean, starting down the Kumbo Icefall was this year, I would say a little bit more dangerous. And it's really just like a nasty, nasty place where you want to move fast through. The route was maybe a little bit more direct, but there was this,
00:26:40
Speaker
huge fields of like popcorn they always call it so it's this kind of like smaller but very loose kind of area and pieces which always kind of change and and then
00:26:55
Speaker
the load surface itself was actually because we had always a little bit of fresh snow was nicer because it was not so black ice because I had I remember one year where it was really a lot of black ice and then it's kind of it's more tricky and this year this was quite nice to go and then the summit bid
00:27:21
Speaker
was changed really from day to day because I saw from other people who were summiting before that it was all the way really nice and hard and when I did it the day, the first part was really good but just under the balcony and like a little bit above, there was a little bit of kind of fresh snow in
00:27:46
Speaker
And even there were people in front of me, the track was that you really kind of slide through a little bit with your crampons in the track. And whenever this happens, it's insane up there how much more energy and how much you get out of your rhythm and mentally how exhausting it is when you suddenly have this kind of slide through step.
00:28:12
Speaker
And oh my god, I can tell you, I never thought this can be such a kind of exhausting experience when such a small thing suddenly changes. And then also towards the South Summit, there were some passages which were
00:28:30
Speaker
like little bits through the rocks. And again here, like when you, when the difference between having like a nice kind of boot track and the steps are nice and solid and you just can have your rhythm compared to this kind of loose rocky parts where suddenly you have to make a big step and then you kind of have a small step and you need to really concentrate where you put your front points in and it's only for like 10 meters, 20 meters.
00:29:00
Speaker
But immediately, you get so much slowed down, you lose so much more energy up there, it's insane. And then the conditions from the South Summit to the Main Summit were this year quite dry and there were quite a lot of rock.
00:29:20
Speaker
other guides were there for many years or quite often and guiding it, he said they told me like it was pretty rocky this year from the conditions and for me was okay because I was really alone there which was absolutely magical and I don't know, I was so lucky that I had this, there were people coming down from the South Summit when I arrived at the South Summit and then from the South Summit to the main summit
00:29:50
Speaker
And back to the Hillary step, I was completely alone up there. And then afterwards, they were coming some very, very late other shepherds with clients all on oxygen on that day. And so there I saw then other people. But being alone with the travelers over and back was really like such a gift. I couldn't ask for more because waiting there for people
00:30:20
Speaker
to move there. I mean, I had it 2019. I turned around because there were so many people and it's long and really technical in a way for a store high. And I was very happy that I just could concentrate on myself and move there over these passages. And so yeah, so there it was quite dry if you want to say so, but when it wasn't snow, there was at least like a really good trek.
00:30:52
Speaker
I've forgotten the name of the little mask you've been wearing. The air trim. Yeah, that's right. The Swedish air trim. Yeah. And I've had a number of people ask about the air trim. I've started using them with some cross country ski racers 20 years ago in cold conditions when they're training and even sometimes in races when it's very cold to keep them from burning their lungs.
00:31:18
Speaker
And so why don't you talk a little bit about your experience with those? I think they're very useful. I mean, I have this stupid cough now, but normally, since I used it, I never had this cough. And it makes such a difference. And I think it's so useful. And people are always like, now they comment on when they see the picture, hey, but you use oxygen. And I'm like, no, this is this kind of air trim mask. And it's this kind of, it creates this
00:31:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's above the looks, I always say, which doesn't kind of freezes right onto your mouse and nose. And it creates this nice, hollow space in front of your mouse and nose. And it just makes the air a little bit warmer, a little bit more humid, and that makes all the difference. And you can change these filters for different kind of resistance and
00:32:11
Speaker
I don't have like, yeah, I have one of these port filters in there, which is, but I don't feel particular, a lot of difference in between the different filters, but just put one of the filters in and for me it's absolutely, I would never go without one of these masks.
00:32:30
Speaker
And do you see other people now using them? Because I've had a lot of folks ask me about them in the past few years since they either saw you or maybe I talked about them in a podcast or an article, but are you seeing more use of them?
00:32:44
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I see now a lot of people using them and yeah, I think it's absolutely worse to get one. And for me, it's the combination. I always sleep with a buff on because for sleeping, it's a little bit too uncomfortable and not nice, but I sleep with a buff on over my nose and my mouth. And when I move during the day, I have the air trim mask on.
00:33:14
Speaker
But from what altitude or do you do this on any cold day regardless of the altitude or do you normally switch to the air trim at what elevation?
00:33:22
Speaker
No, I use it really like once I hit the combo and once I kind of go like Namchabasa or higher, I always have one, when I move, I always have my air trim mask on and I always sleep in the night with my bath. And even here in the albs in winter, I use now the air trim mask when I do long skimo days or when the air is really cold and try as well here. I use it also here at home.
00:33:52
Speaker
I mean, it's a pretty good, now we're doing a pretty good advertisement for Airtrap. I know. And I have to disclaimer, I'm not sponsored by them and I just buy them online. So I really, this is always, I think like a good kind of sign that something is really working and it's okay, you know, it's not.
00:34:12
Speaker
It's not expensive and it's a small thing and makes a huge difference for sure. I'll put a link to the, I mean, there's only one place in the US that I know that sells them, but I'm sure they're available in many other places in Europe. Yeah, I always tell the people they should go on Google and I ask Google to kind of where they get them in their kind of country or location. But I'll put the correct spelling in the show notes so that people can find it. Yeah.
00:34:41
Speaker
So what were your, again, third experience, first success? I mean, last year, the heat was a big problem. The year before, the crowds were a big problem. This year, the stars aligned and everything worked out very well. But I have to say, I also learned from my other experiences.
00:35:03
Speaker
before you said like where should we start and maybe we should just start from the beginning and which is also a good example where I'm quite happy also kind of you know the one coming back to what I said before with this comparison that I did something the start I did completely different so I couldn't compare how I failed before
00:35:26
Speaker
because I didn't when normally as you know or the listeners know maybe from others I always go to Chukom right away then Island Peak is my first kind of acclimatization peak and I run around there so I have we both have all these times like how far it takes me going up Island Peak and how fast I go from I don't know like Namchi to Chukom on the second day and this kind of stuff and this year lucky me I
00:35:55
Speaker
decided with my girlfriend that we go first for a nice trekking to Mera Peak, which is from you go to Lokla and then you go totally the other direction. And I was never on Mera Peak. It's a 6400 meter high, really easy trekking peak. So we went there. And for me, this was all like a first. So I didn't have any comparison with times, with like how I feel and everything. So
00:36:25
Speaker
This was actually one of the best things I think I could do because everything was fresh and new. This was the start of my expedition.
00:36:41
Speaker
And it couldn't have been better. I mean, going to Mera Peak, the landscape is amazing. I could sleep at 6400 meters after, I think it was, or no, I went to the top of Mera Peak from the kind of base there on my fifth day after
00:37:02
Speaker
after Lokla, so pretty fast and in a way aggressive, but the difference also compared to all the other years was that I was trekking with my girlfriend to Kare, which is the kind of the village on the foot of Mera Peak, and this trekking was really totally like
00:37:27
Speaker
Yeah, like slow and super, super easy. We had long days, long tracking days, but very easy. And this was, in general, a huge difference to compare the last years, where I always was kind of running around in the combo and also getting to Chukum, as you know. And I was wondering if this
00:37:54
Speaker
was one of the kind of actually lessons I learned for next times that maybe it's, I mean, I'm curious to know your opinion to it.
00:38:09
Speaker
that because on the mountain itself on Everest, I never have any kind of fast switch fibers working there because everything is so slow. So if I now train like in the lead up in the acclimatization process and go running around there where I definitely then use my fast switch and fibers way more,
00:38:33
Speaker
And maybe this is something which is not really beneficial to it. And now I was tracking always super slow, but for long days. And I had this one day where I moved fast up and down Mera peak in like one push up and down for sure. But, but compared to the other years, this was the big difference. And then when I was also alone in, in the combo and my girlfriend left and I was focusing on Everest and going there up and down and.
00:39:03
Speaker
being in a ferry chair. I also never really kind of, you know, I never ran down from a base camp to ferry chair. I was just walking fast, but I never had like a running movement because I thought actually I don't feel it in a way. It was more like a feel thing for me this time. And I just wonder in general if this is something you think might be actually like a good thing
00:39:32
Speaker
to change this for the future as well. It's
Acclimatization and Training at High Altitude
00:39:37
Speaker
something that I normally recommend to people that we coach and or people that I talk to about this. I believe the acclimatization period should be conducted at an intensity that is ridiculously easy.
00:39:54
Speaker
because you're not acclimated and it's very easy to push too hard during the, and I think during that acclimatization period, and I remember last year when you were there by yourself getting ready for Killian to arrive, one day you were feeling super good and you decided to go do some hill sprints.
00:40:15
Speaker
I remember we talked right after that and you went oh my god i think i might have ruined my trip you just one little workout for an hour that normally you would do at home and not have any problem with. Kind of.
00:40:31
Speaker
Trashed you put you or you were worried it kind of pushed you over the edge Luckily you managed to recover, you know took several days though to recover from that and I had this similar experience one time with with Steve in Tibet and we were trekking into a base camp and Steve got really sick on this one particular day and it was raining and nasty we were down still low elevation and
00:40:58
Speaker
And I said to Steve, hey, you know, you can't carry that pack, you know, just let's drop your pack here. I will, you know, I'll go ahead. We'll go ahead and I'll come back and get your pack. And we weren't even at a particularly high elevation, you know, maybe
00:41:15
Speaker
4,500 meters, something like that. And so we went to the camp, I set up the tent, got Steve inside the tent and I ran back to get his pack and then really hurried to get back so I could get out of the rain and maybe start helping him. And I was trashed for like four days after that.
00:41:36
Speaker
And so that made me, and I had a similar experience with other people, let's say on Denali, where, you know, I was with people who were not as fit as I was, and we were, I was on the west buttress route, we were going to climb the upper part of the west rib.
00:41:54
Speaker
And I thought we were going easy and it turned out that they were like in zone three, you know, pushing really hard to keep up. And I didn't realize this and they that one particular one day getting to 14,000 feet.
00:42:12
Speaker
when it seemed like an easy day to me, completely pushed them over the edge and they were destroyed and we actually had to go down. They couldn't continue. So those two experiences have really stood out to me about how important it is to take it very easy. And easy is relative, of course. Like that day on Denali was easy for me, but it was way too hard for these other people. And in the past, when you have been over there,
00:42:41
Speaker
I've just kind of thought oh, well david knows what easy feels like and so but now we now you really know what easy feels like over there, you know an easy at 6 000 meters is different than easy at sea level I mean you have to kind of you know adopt a whole new kind of mentality of how hard hard to push yourself and my theory and I have no basis scientifically for this but
00:43:08
Speaker
My theory is that when you push yourself up out of this aerobic zone, even a little bit, that I'm not sure it has a lot to do. Well, maybe it does have to do somewhat with the fast-twitch fibers. I think it's more of the fact that you're somewhat hypoxic.
00:43:26
Speaker
in that environment and so you're going to be producing more lactate even at low intensities and you know that's why I think what the mistake that people make when they're thinking about training for high altitude you know I often get this people say well
00:43:44
Speaker
I know I'm going to be breathing really hard and my legs are going to be really tired at altitude and I can't move. So I better do a lot of hard interval training, you know, high intensity training down at sea level or a low elevation where I live. And I said, yes, it feels like that at 7,000 meters.
00:44:01
Speaker
but it's not the same thing because you're not moving very fast. So it's like, you don't need that high intensity training except for what, this is something I want to touch on too, is the ventilation training that you have been doing that I think has been helpful. But going back to this real quickly, I think there's just not enough oxygen to support high intensity work.
00:44:23
Speaker
But the physiologically it's having a similar effect in terms of I think producing lactate. That's why your legs get so heavy and burning and you're breathing hard. So I just feel like we have to scale way down in terms of our
00:44:43
Speaker
sort of even our just our feeling about the intensity let alone the heart rate and all that and I know that when let's say you know it's very common for cross-country skiers in the summer or in the early part of the fall before there's much snow at low elevations to go to have high elevation training camps on glaciers or in places where there is like early snow in October November and usually those are at high elevations and
00:45:12
Speaker
They're training all summer at relatively low elevations. And when they go to those high elevation training camps, whether it's in July or in November, they have to reduce their training intensity. Zone one and zone two and all that moves down 10 beats at least. Because if you go take the same heart rate zones from sea level to, let's say, 2,000 meters,
00:45:37
Speaker
and start training there within a few days or a week, you're gonna be exhausted. So I learned that lesson in both these areas. So again, I wish I knew exactly what was going on physiologically, maybe somebody does and they can write into us and tell us what's happening.
00:45:54
Speaker
But certainly, my experience is, and now you're verifying this again, even for someone as fit as you and as fast as you, that taking it super easy during the acclimatization period, I think pays enormous benefits.
00:46:10
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. And the thing was, I had this time the feeling that I was somehow really altitude efficient. Like my body was, I didn't had this kind of feeling of
00:46:28
Speaker
incredible strengths in a way which I had some years before which which I think was at some points it was a little scary to me that I didn't fail this kind of you know this kind of sixth gear and and and have this strength like uphill and I can just like bang push but but somehow I had the feeling my body was
00:46:51
Speaker
so much more efficient with using the little oxygen there is. And also on the summit day, for example, the difference between 2019 was really significant in the way that I felt so less kind of like mentally and cognitive kind of affected by the altitude. I was way more kind of present, if you want to say so. I felt really like
00:47:20
Speaker
In 2019, I was really surprised how difficult it is to concentrate, how difficult I really needed to get all my souls together and force myself to think what's the next step.
00:47:40
Speaker
kind of in a flow state up there really and and and I was totally like oh so when I see my my recordings from up there with my camera my my my sentences are really normal in a way and and don't like any kind of I have other recordings from a broad peak for example where where where we
00:48:04
Speaker
We have sentences where everybody thinks like, what the heck, they are totally kind of gaga and what they talk about. And there I was really, I was alone and I was like totally, yeah, present in a way. And I was always really, okay, do I make it from here to there and back? Like, how do I feel? Let's check with myself and all this kind of stuff.
00:48:28
Speaker
So I had the feeling for some reason, and I may be kind of, yeah, put it back. One theory is that I just like through all this kind of slow tracking and never really pushing myself like crazy in a fast movement mode, that my muscles and my body was just so much better trained to work exactly in this kind of
00:48:57
Speaker
pace, which then up there is the one you have. It's not that I need it to move fast, which of course is sometimes way more fun to move a little bit faster and you run down and you jump. But in the end up there, it won't happen and you don't need it there. So yeah, that's my theory. Well, theory or not, we know it works and that's, I think, what's important.
00:49:21
Speaker
Yeah, that worked this year for sure. Like I said, for me, the summit day was incredible because I was alone there.
00:49:37
Speaker
It's really, I think, such a rare occasion that you get this weather, like almost no wind, you're up there alone. And the way down was for sure hard, and I experienced this kind of, you know, like I walked 10 steps down, then I sit down, and then I kind of was freezing, and then I was
00:49:59
Speaker
was kind of forcing myself and saying, okay, come on, do another 10 steps. And you kind of really slowly find your way back there. But I went to camp four after the summit. Then I did a, I don't know, a three hour break there in camp four, melted some snow, drunk something. And I didn't have my sleeping bag in camp four because I left it in camp three because I,
00:50:25
Speaker
the day before, like going to the South Pole, I knew I would arrive there midday and then I wait until the evening and then I start. So I don't, I said, I don't need my sleeping bag up there. So on the way back, this also was a good motivation to get down to camp three and the lower you get down the better it is. So I then walked like and started in the late afternoon, going down from then after the summit camp four and then
00:50:55
Speaker
arriving. I'm pretty late in in Chem 3 but then it's kind of you just like move and you just do your things and then I slept in Chem 3 and then the next day I went back down to base camp.
00:51:11
Speaker
Can we talk a little bit about the use of the hypoxico training you've been doing? And if you're finding that, do you think that's been helpful? It seems like it has in these past few years.
00:51:28
Speaker
And I think it's different than the kind of use of hypoxico that most people are using, which is to sleep in a simulated high altitude atmosphere. So do you want to give us a little idea of what you've been doing and how you're using that?
00:51:45
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I like we figured for us out or that for me it works the best if I'm when I'm here in Spain, I use it just as like an intermittent kind of training method. So that means like I go in the treadmill and run for an hour.
00:52:02
Speaker
with the hypoxic system and just train with that like my my breathing muscles and and that's that's the main kind of benefit sleeping in it I tried a couple of years ago and and we saw that for me it just sabotaged my recovery and and so I don't and and I would then need to die
00:52:27
Speaker
back with my normal training which for me I think is more beneficial to train properly when I'm here. So that's the only case where I use the hypoxico when I'm here in Spain at sea level and then I do this intimate training. On the other hand I have to be honest and fair that in Chamonix I use the natural altitude there
00:52:53
Speaker
and to get like a pre acclimatization like this time i slept a lot of nights in huts which are like three thousand four hundred three thousand six hundred and i tried during the day move around four thousand meters go climbing there on a mob la ditacul or on
00:53:14
Speaker
on Bright Horn in the Monteroza receive, so that kind of replaces my hypoxic training where maybe others who don't have the mountains close, like I have there in winter, they then sleep maybe in the tent.
00:53:34
Speaker
But I think, yeah, again, everybody has to be aware that it takes something out and it sabotages in a way your training or your recovery. And you need to take this into account.
00:53:53
Speaker
It certainly is a delicate balance, I think, in terms of recovery when you're starting to sleep at high altitude, whether it's natural altitude or artificial altitude. I'd like to expand just a little bit on this use of the intermittent hypoxic training to explain to people who aren't familiar with it,
00:54:18
Speaker
Then so David's saying that he's running on a treadmill at sea level breathing a hypoxic air mixture from the hypoxic code generator that he has next to a treadmill and we started playing around with this just a few years ago and it
00:54:36
Speaker
he had the initial feedback I got from him was that it seemed like when he arrived at altitude, it helped. And it seemed to help with maybe not acclimatization, but just the effort of moving at altitude. And my theory, again, with no science to back this up, and really you being the only person that I know that has used this idea, although I think Killian has used it as well.
00:55:08
Speaker
My theory is that it conditions the breathing muscles like David just mentioned.
00:55:18
Speaker
conditions those breathing muscles so that they become fitter in a way. But the only way you could condition those breathing muscles in the same way, because obviously you'd be breathing a lot harder breathing a hypoxic mixture than you would a normal sea level air mixture at whatever intensity.
00:55:39
Speaker
you could do this by doing hard interval training at sea level and get the same sort of training effect for your breathing muscles, but then you would also get a big global fatigue load from that type of high intensity, hard training. And as David's pointed out, you don't really need that kind of high intensity training for 8,000 meter climbing because you just can't move anywhere near that sort of speed.
00:56:05
Speaker
And so what we, my theory again being that, okay, this gives the same sort of aerobic benefits to those breathing muscles, which from what I've read can consume about 20% of the total blood volume during hard work.
00:56:22
Speaker
And if those muscles are more aerobically capable, just like we're training your leg muscles to be, then they're going to be, you know, they're going to be fitter. They're going to be able to work harder for longer with less fatigue. And breathing is, as for people who haven't been at these extremely high elevations, it's a lot of work to breathe.
00:56:43
Speaker
And so if we can do anything to improve the efficiency or just like I said, the fitness of those breathing muscles, it seems to pay off. So again, maybe we'll, somebody will do a study on this and tell us we're full of shit and it doesn't work at all.
00:57:01
Speaker
Maybe, but another kind of totally only anecdotal kind of similar experience is when I lived in Munich, I was swimming a lot and I had the feeling
00:57:20
Speaker
going to an 8,000-meter peak with a lot of swimming, like pool swimming and doing breathing pyramids. And you come from swimming, you have a swimming background as well. And I had the feeling that this is also something which really helped me and I felt really good on these expeditions where I did a lot of kind of
00:57:40
Speaker
had a lot of pool time and I think it's the same effect maybe in a way and maybe for people who don't have the hypoxia generator but they have a pool very close by this could be a good way to experiment and swimming in general is a good like recovery activity but there you train as well really well your whole freezing muscles and I think yeah has a pretty similar benefit to it.
00:58:09
Speaker
Yeah. Especially if you're capable, if you have, if you're a decent swimmer and you can do, like you said, breathing pyramids, where maybe you start off with one length of the pool, you breathe, you know, every stroke or every other stroke. Always on your right side. And then the next link you breathe every two strokes at the next link, you breathe every three strokes. And of course, if you can do flip turns, then you have to hold your breath each flip turn. And so you are really training those muscles with kind of a hypoxic stimulus.
00:58:39
Speaker
Because yeah, and I mean I remember I did this kind of three five seven Five three kind of breathing pyramid kind of and then this every seven stroke for like two lanes the first time I did it I was like drowning more or less
00:58:56
Speaker
I totally, I was like, oh my God, I will die. And then over time, over the kind of, yeah, training cycle, suddenly I could do it. And this is, yeah, like I think you must train really well, your whole breathing muscles and how your body really operates also under this kind of lack of oxygen or limited oxygen. And this all benefits as well for altitude.
00:59:24
Speaker
Well, I'm going to have to leave soon because my wife's putting on a race today and I have to go help out. But before that happens, I want to talk a little bit about what you normally do after an expedition, like how much you rest and what you're doing during this recovery period.
Post-Expedition Recovery and Training
00:59:45
Speaker
Because I think there's a lot of misunderstanding. A lot of people think, oh, I've got to jump right back into training immediately really hard.
00:59:52
Speaker
Whatever, but what's your plan now? And what's your normal? Like you know our our normal Agenda is always I come back from an expedition and then we have this at least two weeks where we don't put anything in the calendar and and we don't plan anything and and in these weeks I
01:00:14
Speaker
I still go on a run, I do activities but I don't have any kind of numbers to hit and especially now I feel
01:00:31
Speaker
for sure more fatigued than I normally felt after especially the expedition where I don't make it to the summit and so now for sure I will take it easy but I still try to slowly move and to
01:00:51
Speaker
really ease very gentle into, for example, running and stuff like this. And maybe I will start a little bit with the road bike because it's, again, it's a bit easier on the body. But for sure, it's super important to take your time and don't start right away.
01:01:17
Speaker
And I often suggest to people that they do the kind of activities that they enjoy, that maybe they had to sacrifice and give up while they were in a really strict training program before whatever the big event is, Everest or some big race. And I often did this with the skiers that I was coaching at the end of the ski season. They should take a month and go surfing and kayaking and rock climbing and all these things that they were not able to do while they were training.
01:01:47
Speaker
but that they enjoy still being active, but the focus is not on training, the focus is more on recreation and I think you need a mental break, especially after something as stressful as what you just did. It required a great deal of mental effort and I think
01:02:06
Speaker
You kind of need to give that your nervous system a little bit of a chance to recover too. And so I believe it's really important to have this kind of recreation period. Yeah, for sure. And I mean, I lost now six kilos. So I am, which is like 10% or something like this. So quiet. I think I was never so, so sin after an expedition.
01:02:33
Speaker
or like for only very rarely that it's like this. So definitely there, there you see that I, that I, that yeah, like it was quite, quite challenging and I lost some substance. And so for sure there,
01:02:50
Speaker
I think this will be probably kind of the first things when we start again that we kind of see where and like what do we do to prevent any damage and kind of then ramping up too much intensity which can like yeah it's very tempting to then go like too much running, too much training right away. So I think we need to be smart on that.
01:03:17
Speaker
I think strength, I like to start back with some strength training. You've lost muscle mass, so I think rebuilding some strength is a great way to get to try to dip your toe back into training without going out and feeling the need to run 60, 70 kilometers a week or something like that. Yeah.
Running and Its Role in Mountain Training
01:03:35
Speaker
I think that's another thing I want to point out to folks that
01:03:41
Speaker
the bulk of David's training is done running. Um, and I believe that there's, you know, even if we have, we, this is another whole nother podcast. I don't have time for right now, but we should talk about the year that you train for the marathon. Yeah. And, and just saying like, I'm, I'm a little bit playing with the idea that we might be repeat that one. Okay. There's another one that you like. Should we, should we give Iliad Kipchoge a warning that you're coming in for him on another marathon?
01:04:12
Speaker
Amen, yeah. But to sort of tantalize people about our next, we should talk about your marathon training and how it worked for you. We found that the year that David trained for a marathon and had a great race, it really carried over well into the mountains for you that next season. Yeah, very well.
01:04:35
Speaker
something i want to emphasize that you know one of the reasons we push running so much obviously there's certain people who can't run age injury that sort of thing so not it's not suitable for everyone but we have just found that running is an incredibly useful tool for mountaineers climbers and you know obviously for runners but um
01:04:57
Speaker
the transfer of the training effect over to mountain sports is tremendous and so if you can learn to be a runner it's a great thing. Oh for sure it is and it's fun and it's good to move to move in the mountains with the running movement. Yeah so well any parting words last thoughts for people?
01:05:21
Speaker
Well, I mean, I just think I just want to thank you. I just want to thank Apple athletes for for this kind of like incredible years of training and preparation. And now finally, it kind of pays off. And I think the the platform you created here in
01:05:42
Speaker
It's it's so amazing the wisdom people can find here and I feel this more and more when I now when I moved it lasted to two months in Nepal and on Everest so many times I had people coming up to me and say like hey you are David I was listen to a podcast and I know you from up last week and this was really so it's so cool to see the
01:06:07
Speaker
Yeah, the folks out there who are moving in the mountains are now so many of them are kind of have ties and to upper last week have gained knowledge. And so I just want to say a huge and big thank you to you to kind of believing in me for these years and giving me your wisdom and your coaching and your guidance and in general to upper last week. Thank you very much.
01:06:35
Speaker
Thank you. That's very nice to hear. It's certainly been Steve's and my intention all along to not create this platform to dispense this as much knowledge as we hopefully can But also to create a community of people who share the same interests and so like they can come to you and they say hey, you're David I know who you are and I
01:06:58
Speaker
So that's great. I'm pleased with that. It's a good and great community already and it will just grow. Yeah, so super. Well, thanks a lot David and maybe we should start thinking about this marathon idea. Yeah, let's give it like a week or so and then we kind of connect back. Perfect. Thank you Scott. Bye. Thanks for taking the time. See you. Bye.
01:07:27
Speaker
Thanks for joining us today. For more information about what we do, please go to our website uphillathlete.com.