By Chris Carmichael, CTS Founder and Chief Endurance Officer Performance is never just about fitness, or even determination. Your performance in specific events often comes down to how you use your energy. Many cyclists are used to riding 2-4 hours, but rarely get the opportunity to go really long and stretch themselves to 6+ …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning, author of “Training Essentials for Ultrarunning” Determining fatigue and state of readiness has long been a holy grail for endurance coaches. Accurately gauging these aspects would allow athletes to push harder when they are more ready and back off when they are more fatigued. Among the dizzying …
by Jim Rutberg, CTS Pro Coach, co-author of “Ride Inside“ and “The Time-Crunched Cyclist” Normalized Power® (NP) is a valuable training metric used to account for the variability of power output during different types of rides and races. It is also used in calculations for other common training metrics, including Training Stress Score, Intensity …
By Adam Pulford, CTS Premier Coach, Host of “The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast” Adam Pulford is a CTS Premier Coach, worked with the TeamShoAir UCI Professional Factory MTB Team, Twenty16/Twenty20 UCI Professional Women’s Race Team, and Orangeseal Off-Road Team, and currently coaches 2023 Paris-Roubaix Femmes winner Alison Jackson (pictured above). The Spring Classics season kicks …
By Andy Jones-Wilkins, CTS Ultrarunning Pro Coach Every spring, as athletes ramp up their training for long summer races, I get asked questions about the best ways to prepare. Recently, an athlete asked me, “In preparing for a 100-mile race, what is the most important training thing to do, besides just running?” That last …
By Chris Carmichael, CTS Founder and Chief Endurance Officer The first things athletes should understand about missing workouts are that it’s 100% normal and it’s rarely anything to stress over. Meaningful training progress happens over the course of several weeks to several months. Individual workouts are important, but it’s the long-term accumulation and concentration …
By Chris Carmichael, CTS Founder and Chief Endurance Officer Often, the best thing cyclists can do is get out of their own way. I’ve been coaching amateur and elite athletes for more than 30 years. People have more access to quality training plans and performance data than ever before. But it takes more than …
By Chris Carmichael and Jim Rutberg (updated March 2024) Reviewed by Stephanie Howe, PhD (March 2024) Myths abound in all areas of training and nutrition. There are many misconceptions about the role of protein in recovery, the amount of protein endurance athletes need, and when to use specific recovery drinks. Here are a …
By Darcie Murphy, CTS Ultrarunning Pro Coach Fartlek runs are fun, challenging, and useful for ultramarathon runners. And, of course, ‘fartlek’ is just a fun word to throw into conversation. A Scandinavian term coined in the 1930s by Swedish coach Gosta Holmer, fartlek translates to ‘speed play’ in English. And ‘playing with speed’ is …
By Jim Rutberg, CTS Pro Coach, co-author of “Ride Inside“ and “The Time-Crunched Cyclist” You cannot expect to train the same way year-round and perform at your best in a specific season. Summer sports athletes build fitness in the winter and create performance in the spring so they can win in the summer! By making …