By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Let’s face it, training can often be boring. You do the same routes and there’s only so many ways you can (correctly) contrive workouts. You wake up, run, eat, go to work, rest, rinse, repeat. Most people have some vague pattern of run hard one day, run …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning This past weekend, I spent some time coaching and observing runners at the Black Canyons ultras. Over the last few years, I’ve found this to be a good litmus test of how runners are approaching training for the upcoming season. The race is early enough in the …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning If you want a quick fix or simple answer to all of your training needs, stop here. Go somewhere else and read another article as I’m not going to offer that up today. Every month or so, a new study comes out comparing one interval type to …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning I had an article all penned out for this week’s blog. It was something about what to do when you get a cold, which is raging rampantly though the running world. That was quickly put on the back burner when I learned early Sunday morning about the …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning In December, a rather provocative e-mail came through my imbox and perked my interest. The kind of e-mail that makes your eyes bulge like saucers, sweat a bit under your collar and feel guilty for having read the contents within. I’m pretty sure my heart rate …
By Jason Koop, CTS Coaching Director, Author “Training Essentials for Ultrarunning” This week, Ultrarunning Magazine will start to release their highly anticipated Ultrarunner of the Year (UROY) and Performance of the Year (POY) rankings. The rankings are a good source of banter, as the myriad of trail, road and track performances have few common threads …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning As we’re about to embark on a new decade, I took some time to reflect on what I’ve learned over the last 10 years. I milled through my e-mails (complete with ‘Sent from my Blackberry’ signature lines), took a look at the now obsolete ULTRA Listserv and …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Earlier this week after I had deleted the umpteen-millionth ‘holiday gift guide for runners’ from my inbox, I got to thinking ‘there’s got to be something else runners really want’. Sure, a new pair of compression shorts, or the ‘only breathable and waterproof jacket you’ll ever need’ …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning For far too long, heel strikers have been ridiculed, mocked and laughed at in running communities around the globe. It’s time for that to stop. We’ve heard it all before. The rationales for a forefoot strike go something like this: “Our Paleolithic ancestors inevitably ran on their …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning As winter gets into full swing, many runners are stuck in this no-person’s land of motivation. Without an event to focus on in the near term, the desire to train wanes. You might skip a run here, cut a run short there or just not be as …