What is a sports drink? A sports drink is essentially water with stuff dissolved in it. Some drinks have lots of different kinds of stuff dissolved in them, some of which just waste space. There is only so much room to dissolve solutes in a drink. As a result, drinks with fewer ingredients can …
Forty CTS Athletes are gathering in the Chamonix for the 2025 Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) races, including the winner and runner up from the elite women’s Western States: Abby Hall and Fuzhao Xiang. I have attended UTMB multiple times to support athletes and it’s always a highlight of my year. As in previous years, …
I am never riding the Leadville 100 again. Don’t get me wrong, I love Leadville. I’d recommend it to my friends, help them train for it, and I’m sure I’ll be back to crew for CTS Athletes and friends in the future. But 1,100 miles on that course, eleven times up Columbine and Powerline, is …
Running injuries in ultramarathon training and racing are not going away. That’s a sobering fact, but the numbers don’t lie. On the training side, up to 70% of runners will become injured every year and lose at least one day of training. Racing is just as injurious. For every 1000 hours of ultramarathon racing, there …
Mental fatigue is an expected component of ultramarathon running, but there are strategies athletes and support crews can use to lessen the negative effects of a tired brain. What Mental Fatigue Looks Like in Ultramarathons We’ve all seen the scene play out. A runner’s crew enters an aid station with enough gear to supply a …
All athletes face days when they just don’t feel like training. That’s normal. Figuring out what to do about it can be trickier. Should you ‘suck it up’ and force yourself out the door? Should you acknowledge the feeling and take a day off? Or is what you’re feeling a sign of something more …
Of all the successes North American cyclists have earned at the Tour de France, only one US rider has ever won the final road stage on the Champs Elysees. Yes, Greg LeMond famously won an individual time trial that finished on the Champs to win the 1989 Tour by eight seconds over Laurent Fignon, but …
How do you follow up a 2024 season highlighted by victories at Western States Endurance Run (in the second-fastest female time on record) and Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc? For Katie Schide, it was to win the 2025 Hardrock 100 in her debut appearance and break the counterclockwise and overall female course records! Hardrock …
One of the key storylines from the Tour de France this year (and the past few years) is the extreme carbohydrate intakes in the pro peloton. Elite cyclists and their teams have reported intakes of 100, 120, and even more grams of carbohydrate PER HOUR. This is a lot higher than the standard recommendations …
Fuzhao Xiang has a strong chance of becoming the first Chinese athlete to win one of ultrarunning’s most prestigious races: Western States (WSER) or Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB). Her stellar performance at the 2024 WSER was the third-fastest female finish (16:20:03) in history. Athletes endured a hotter race day in 2025, …