Tim Cohen joined our BETA program, hoping to improve his half marathon/marathon time through altitude training. Prior to altitude training, he was regularly running tempo miles in the high 6:40s. After 5 weeks and 9 sessions in the altitude room, participating in the Altitude Booster program, he says a 6:30 mile felt comfortable and now his tempo runs typically consist of tempo miles in the low 6:20s. In fact, during his final test, his pace improved 17 seconds per mile. At the end of the program, he dropped 5 minutes off his previous half marathon PR in 2017 to achieve a 1:30.32. He looks forward to an equally impressive marathon time at the Chicago Marathon in October.

“The experience in the Altitude Room was a lot of things. Challenging, fun, and just plain hard at times. The first interval of my first session I immediately thought ‘what is happening in my legs?’ After the first 90 seconds it felt like I was on the 10th mile of a half marathon. While the training stayed similarly difficult as the intervals progressed I could tell that my body was starting to acclimate. By the last block of the training I knew my body was adapting. Furthermore, my first tempo intervals running post the program were exponentially better than when I started the training, almost a 20 second improvement!”