I-day Acclimation

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I know some people posted on here coming a few days early to help their child acclimate to the altitude prior to BCT. My child wants to be home as long as possible so we plan to fly to CO on 6/26 giving him really only a day. I assume this isn’t an issue as the academy gives the kids time to acclimate and many kids come in day before. Right?!
 
We arrived the night before, as did many basic cadets. He was fine. Did it take time to acclimate yes, but that's understood.
 
It is not an issue. USAFA takes the altitude into account and limits physical activity at the beginning of BCT.

We also flew in the night before from sea level and saw a lot of incoming cadets at the airport.
 
It takes more than a few days to acclimate anyway (Assuming your coming from somewhere close to sea level). I would suggest drinking a lot of water starting at least a few days before you head out.
 
As a high-elevation dweller, I agree with the advice above. A few days won’t be enough to make much difference. The best antidote to high elevation happens well before Day 1: Show up in the best shape possible! Also, get used to hydrating heavily; your stomach and bladder will thank you.

When DD attended USAFA Summer Seminar, she witnessed many flatlanders vomiting into trash cans during PT. She said the workouts weren’t particularly hard — just a lot of kids who weren’t in very good shape to begin with.
 
My son has been in Colorado Springs since July 8th, 2022. It took him 2 months or so to get acclimated to altitude. But like MidCakePa said, not being in shape will not help at all, and that was a big factor for some Preppies. Drink a lot of water, all the time. Being there 1 or 2 or 5 days before will not make a difference, it takes weeks to get used to it.
 
MidCakePa said:
As a high-elevation dweller, I agree with the advice above. A few days won’t be enough to make much difference. The best antidote to high elevation happens well before Day 1: Show up in the best shape possible! Also, get used to hydrating heavily; your stomach and bladder will thank you.

When DD attended USAFA Summer Seminar, she witnessed many flatlanders vomiting into trash cans during PT. She said the workouts weren’t particularly hard — just a lot of kids who weren’t in very good shape to begin with.
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My kid is a flatlander, but an absolute unit - very fit strength and cardio. We got there for baseball workouts two days ahead of time to try our best to acclimatize him a bit and he still ended up being one of those kids hugging a trash can after running. If you're in poor shape it's not going to be great for you no matter what, but being fit is sometimes a double edged sword because you push like you're used to doing at lower elevations even though you're not fully acclimatized. I've bagged some 14ers in CO and I usually count on 3-5 days before any workout-level exertion above about 7k - heck, even brisk hiking can still be rough during that time for fit folks. And about a week for anything in the 12k-15k altitude, so long as you are doing purposeful acclimatization (spending shorter periods of time at increasingly higher altitudes). Hypoxia may not affect everyone as dramatically, but it's essentially a roll of the dice even for flatlanders who are fit. YMMV
 
So I live in a sea level state and work 2 weeks per month on the front range of Colorado. It takes about 7-9 days to really acclimatize at a minimum. When working out on an exercise bike I usually see a 10% drop in my ability to perform during the first few days and it drops down about 5% overall with respect to power output.

So all the discussions of arriving 1 day vs 2 days vs 5 days etc is moot. Do whatever suits you and your family and I'm sure the cadre aren't expecting all star athletic performance in the first few weeks.

The hardest part of the acclimatizing to Colorado is dehydration. It is hard to develop the habit of drinking the amount of water that is needed.
 
As a CO physician, 14er hiker/climber, Leadville 100 rider/runner, etc., I completely agree with increasing FLUID intake when coming to high altitude, but NOT just water intake (see below). That actually contributes to folks getting symptoms of altitude sickness (headaches, shortness of breath, etc.) to the point that they may experience high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) or cerebral edema (HACE; brain swelling), though those usually only occur above 8.5k feet elevation.

The dryness of CO leads to more evaporation from breathing and sweating than lowlanders are used to. They don't recognize that they are actually sweating more, because it instantly evaporates. But remember, sweat includes electrolytes (salts) that need to be replaced.

The altitude of CO leads to low oxygen, which causes an increase in breathing (even at rest), that leads to blowing off more CO2 than normal. THAT leads to what we call respiratory alkylosis...in short, your body's chemistry is completely thrown off. And one of the many consequences is that fluid leaks out of blood vessels and into the surrounding tissues. That's why your hands swell when you go to higher elevations. But your brain is also swelling (contributing to headaches, nausea and vomiting) and your lungs are swelling (contributing to shortness of breath). And the decrease in your blood volume makes you dizzy.

All of this is to say that just drinking water leads to more leaking into tissues and diluting the remaining electrolytes in your body...throwing your chemistry off even more. So, drink SPORTS DRINKS or other salty drinks. It helps to correct your chemistry and the salts help to hold fluids in your blood vessels. Gatorade, Powerade, etc. are your friends. I personally recommend folks carry a bag of Skratch with them and mix it in their water bottle at all times. You'll know you're doing it right if you're peeing as often or more often than normal.

Lastly, all of this only corrects after your body increases the amount of red blood cells in your blood (which is a response to the low oxygen). That takes the weeks to months to occur and for your body to settle into the new norm. Along the way, the incredible metabolic demand of generating blood contributes to the sense of tiredness over that period of time. As other have said, it doesn't matter how many days before I-day you arrive...days are only drops in the bucket of what it takes to fully acclimate. Arrive according to what works for other reasons.
 
We planned for 5 days early as sea level people. One of the reasons was because of flight chaos (last year). We wanted to make sure the cadet could get there and rest and hydrate. (See above post with hydration/sports drinks) Due to flight changes we only got cadet there three days early. Some cadets had very long flights with lay overs and some arrived to I-day late due to flight issues. I don't personally think it is worth the stress of cutting it close if you must fly. If you are there a bit early, you can both get a feel for the lay of the land, see Garden of the Gods, have a nice dine out and rest especially if you have to adjust to a time change. And it's nice to meet other cadets before I day at the planned event, the ice cream social, which was a great tension breaker.

They are certainly not relaxing the first few days but it isn't the hardest part physically.
 
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We decided to take a little vacation so we arrived 7 days before I Day and spent 5 of them up in the mountains. The kids went white water rafting one day, lounged in the hot spring pool in Glenwood Springs for a couple and the rest of the time was spent doing general sightseeing. It was a great time. We arrived in Colorado Springs two days before I-Day so he could relax as much as possible. The day before I Day there is an ice cream social for the incoming class. It gives them a chance to meet other cadets. Very nice.
It was great to have that time together before dropping him off. I had hoped getting there early would help him get use to the altitude and I thought spending time at considerably higher altitudes would help speed up the process. I later found that was not accurate but in the end he was fine. As someone above said they will ease them into it.
 
Another item that I forgot to mention is the altitude training mask, my son started to use it kind of late, but if you start to train a couple of months before going to Colorado Springs you are going to be doing much much better.
 
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