Kara Goucher and the Nike’s Oregon Project

On Monday (April 20th, 2009) Kara Goucher became the first American woman to finish in the top three in the Boston Marathon in 16 years, which is a great achievement.

Kara belongs to a project by Nike, called Oregon Project, lead by Alberto Salazar.  This is a group created in 2001 to promote American long distance running, using air thinning technology. By living in altitudes with thinner air, where less oxygen is available, the body increases its production of oxygen-carrying red blood cells. When these athletes compete at lower altitudes, the extra red cells  supply their muscles more efficiently with oxygen, making them faster than their competitors.

Lance Armstrong, is also a believer in air thinning technology and was one of the first ones to try it in cycling.

Wired magazine wrote an excellent article in 2002 about the project. You can read it here.

The Los Angeles Times in 2007 also wrote an interesting piece on air thinning technology that you can read about here.

So it seems that the experiment is working at least for Kara. Although Ryan Hall, who  is not part of this experiment, also did really well (3rd place).