Base Painting

Altitude camp is a foundational part of the year for athletes whose races last longer than a few minutes. Some endurance racing teams are based at altitude and spend most of their year in places like Flagstaff (6,821 ft) and Boulder (5,430 ft). Others, like the Brooks Beasts are based at sea level, right near the sea, with sea in the name- in Seattle. For big chunks of the year, they’ll leave their homes and head to a home away from home in the mountains, where the air is thin and the distractions are few.

Every year, the Brooks Beasts pack up their lives in Seattle and fly south to Albuquerque, New Mexico for stints in the winter and spring months. Kayley DeLay is one of the newest members of the Brooks Running-backed squad. She’s an All-American steeplechaser who claimed NCAA runner-up honors while at Yale before finishing her collegiate career as a UW Husky. Following a year with the Dawgs, the Beasts signed her on in the spring of 2023. Kayley doesn’t know when or why they started going to ‘The Burque’ but she thinks it might have to do with some old ties to the University of New Mexico. Before joining the Beasts wolfpack, World Champion Josh Kerr spent his collegiate career as a New Mexico Lobo, but that was long after the Beasts began going there. Brooks Beasts longtime skipper, Danny Mackey said they tried Flagstaff and Park City early on, but Albuquerque ended up being pretty ideal for their purposes.

“The weather, and the ability to get to 6,500 ft and 4,900 ft. within a 20 minute drive”. And so Seattle’s team began their yearly voyages to the Land of Enchantment in 2013.

Photo of Kayley DeLay and Marta Pen Freitas post 5000m at the Dempsey by Zeth Peterka

The city sits a touch above 5,000 ft and its mostly dry and sunny climate provides a fine place for the growth of red blood cells- the tiny messengers that will carry precious oxygen to hard-working muscles when they scream for it during peak summer racing.

“There are fewer distractions in ABQ compared to Seattle, so the focus really becomes all about training. I don’t know a whole lot about the specifics of altitude but I have also heard that ABQ is at a suitable elevation compared to other popular altitude training destinations, where you can still get in some faster sessions and reap the “benefits without having to drastically compensate for the altitude.” -Kayley

During the Beasts’ most recent stint in the early winter months of 2024, Kayley took some of the down time to exercise her artistic skills and paint the scenes of places the team frequented in their stay. Naturally, coffee shops are recurring subjects. This first camp in the thin, crisp Southwestern air led her to a personal best of 15:05 in the indoor 5000m, and who knows what may come in the impending outdoor season.

“Camp is all about training and recovering. The team is split between a handful of houses, with 3-4 in each. If we aren’t running down by the Rio Grande or the UNM track or lifting at Elevate, then we are probably just at home, resting and recovering.”

What did Rocky Balboa do in his downtime during the training stint in Siberia leading up to his epic fight against Ivan Drago? Surely he wasn’t punching the air at the top of a jagged mountain spine for 18 hours a day. That’s a hard VO2 Max type effort! Even in the 80’s they knew that improvement comes during recovery. Perfect time for some watercoloring…

“The goals are to eat plenty and sleep lots so that we can train hard. This winter camp was my first experience training at altitude and was certainly challenging. There is nothing too flashy about training camp - it is just stacking bricks.”

Why not fill the rest of the time with an easygoing activity that provides some illustrative mementos of the block where big time results were nurtured. Its one thing to look through photos taken on an iPhone from the time and place where big efforts were stacked, but to put those thoughts and emotions into a work of art the moment they strike adds a few different layers of complexity to go back to. Every brush stroke visible on the canvas like a guitar riff in a Rocky training montage.

ABQ Home

This was my first painting from camp. It is the front of the house that we stayed in on Jamaica Drive. There wasn’t anything too special about the house but it was plenty nice. We likely won’t stay in it again but it was my first ABQ home, and I am glad I captured it. I had the tiniest room in the house but it had a large bed and a desk, which is where I did most of my painting. There was an overhead fan that I always had to stop the blades spinning with my hand and then pull the string from the very top in order to change the setting. But there aren’t many overhead fans in Seattle, so it reminded me of home. The house was dreadfully dark for being in such a sunny place and there were fake flowers in the yard which I found rather eerie.

Alleyway

I stopped at this spot when walking through an alley to get to Zendo Coffee (which is featured in a later painting). Albuquerque is beige and brown and a little orange so this building stuck out. I am not sure what the building even is. I never checked.

The Sandia Mountains

“Sandia” means watermelon in Spanish. The name is thought to be in reference to the pink and red colors of the mountains at sunset. The elevation of Albuquerque is higher the closer you go to the mountains, so we all live on that side of town (live high, train low). This spot is a short walk from our house. I love memorializing notable sunsets (I have had an Instagram since high school dedicated to this @kaleskies), and it was unique for me to do so through painting and through observation of the mountains.

Zendo Coffee

This is inside a popular coffee shop in downtown Albuquerque. The team went a few times this camp. There’s a lovely patio out back. I am looking forward to going back when it is warmer.