By Chris Carmichael, Founder and Chief Endurance Officer Being a strong athlete and being a fast athlete are not necessarily the same thing. There are a lot of athletes who have great endurance and can maintain a hard and steady pace hour after hour. This is especially true late in the summer when athletes …
By Jim Rutberg, CTS Pro Coach, co-author of “The Time-Crunched Cyclist” and “Ride Inside“ 10x Leadville 100, 2x Unbound Gravel, 1 SBT GRVL Almost as soon as riders wipe the sweat and grime off their faces, they ask how they can go faster at the same event next year. This is part of the appeal for events …
Chris Carmichael CTS Founder and Chief Endurance Officer Summertime is fun time! Strong rides in the warm summer sun are your reward for months of training. But it’s not uncommon for athletes to make a series of summertime training mistakes that either cut short their fun or limit their peak performance. To finish the …
Open any training program from any running publication and you will inevitably see the following training structure: 3 weeks ‘on’; 1 week ‘off’. In normal training nomenclature this means you train hard for three weeks, take one week easy, and then repeat that cycle. Did you ever stop to think why this 3:1 structure emerged …
By Chris Carmichael, CTS Founder and Chief Endurance Officer Last weekend, I received an email from Strava with the subject line: “You don’t need to hire a coach.” I’ve been a Strava member from the beginning. I think it’s a great app for tracking activities, creating personal and interpersonal challenges, and connecting with other …
By Ryne Anderson, CTS Ultrarunning Senior Coach Training for an ultramarathon takes months and in some cases years of diligent and focused preparation. Most athletes are attracted to endurance sports because they have a love for the process. In the grand scheme of things, the race itself is minor in comparison to the hours, …
By Jim Rutberg, CTS Pro Coach, co-author of “The Time-Crunched Cyclist”, “Training Essentials for Ultrarunning”, and “Ride Inside“ Amateur and masters cyclists will swear up and down that “I’m not a sprinter” because they don’t have a finishing kick like Jasper Philipsen, Wout van Aert, or Mark Cavendish. But sharp, hard accelerations (aka: sprinting!) are a …
By Darcie Murphy, CTS Ultrarunning Pro Coach As a coach, a consistent conflict I encounter with athletes is a desire to achieve perfection while training for sports that reward adaptability. Some of this stems from the desire to exert control over a portion of their lives (e.g. training) when other aspects of life are …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Despite best intentions, many ultramarathon runners reach the final month before race day feeling wholly unprepared. Maybe life got in the way or you overestimated the amount of training you could commit to. Or you suffered an injury that cost you valuable training time. My CTS Coaching …
By Jim Rutberg, CTS Pro Coach, co-author of “The Time-Crunched Cyclist”, “Training Essentials for Ultrarunning”, and “Ride Inside“ The 2023 Tour de France was one of the most riveting editions in recent memory. Amateur and Time-Crunched Cyclists rightly marvel at the power, resilience, and speed of top pros, but typically find their training and racing exploits …