When I give training talks, I can inevitably count on being asked, “How long should my longest run be?” When I get this question, I usually retort with, “Why do you need a long run?” Silence ensues. The silence stems from the fact runners rarely think about why they need a long run. And even more specifically, …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning When I first started coaching ultrarunners in the early 2000’s, one of the things that I lamented most was the lack of specific research on the sport. Other endurance sports I worked with (marathon running, cycling and triathlon) could base their best practices on decades of …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning One of the entertaining, and educational, parts of my job is filtering through all of the latest and greatest gadgets athletes can use to track or improve performance. In the pre-Kickstarter days, this would mean unsolicited packages arriving at the office for us to unpack, test out …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning In Training Essentials for Ultrarunning, I wrote that elite ultramarathon athletes have three things in common. First off, they are tough. Nobody wins a race that lasts several hours or days solely with sheer luck, fitness or genetic talent (although the latter is one component that all …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Sleep matters for a lot of reasons, and may even matter as much some of your training! For starters, the physiological repair and growth that actually makes you better happens when you rest, but predominantly when you sleep. It improves motor learning (learning a new skill) and …
By Jason Koop Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning If I did not despise our culture of finding the latest and greatest ‘hack’ to improve performance, the title of this article could very well be ‘8 Hacks for the Ultimate Ultramarathon Performance’. Fortunately, I have more sense than that. The fact of the matter is that …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning In a recent post I talked about the unique nutritional challenges ultramarathon runners face because of the length of the event, distance between aid stations, changes in the environmental conditions, fatigue leading to poor decision making, and food or flavor fatigue. I have spent so much time …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning One of the things I love about coaching ultramarathon athletes is adapting the standard recommendations and best practices from the coaching industry into an ultra-specific context. All too often, the recommendations we see aren’t geared for us. They are geared for the weekend 5k crowd, the gym …
By Jason Koop Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning When I first met my wife, Liz, she was training for the Durango Half, her first half-marathon. Like many before her and since, she had picked up one of Jeff Galloway’s books on running. She had dutifully started her training with a single mile, then two, …
By Jason Koop CTS Coaching Director Author “Training Essentials for Ultrarunning” All athletes would be well served to take at least a four-year view of their training and goals. Sure, athletes will have goals and events within the coming 12, 9 or 6 months, and it is necessary to get ready for those events. …