The last time I raced Hardrock 100, it delivered a lesson on the value of downhill run training. The high-altitude race is notorious because it features an average elevation of over 11,000 feet and includes more than 32,000 feet of climbing and descending. Every race is a learning experience. The Hardrock Downhill Story To provide …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning The scene at the Twin Lakes aid station during the Leadville Trail 100 is interesting. The small town serves as the aid station at Mile 40 (outbound) and again at Mile 60 (inbound). It’s equal parts haven for tired athletes and late night rager for the crews. …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning 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 …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning When I originally wrote the first edition of ‘Training Essentials for Ultrarunning’ in 2015, I wanted to create a work that could bridge a gap I perceived in the ultrarunning space. At the time, there was a gap between using anecdotal accounts to drive training and …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Every few years, a narrative emerges that some particular level of exercise is bad for long term health. Sometimes the stories focus on the amount total volume, or the peak of intensity, or some combination thereof. And when those narratives come around, the collective athletic community takes …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning It seems like for the last several years, female athletes have been told to tailor their training, nutrition and even the way they recover towards their menstrual cycle. Apps like Wild AI and books like ROAR have done quite well in the commercial space, leading to specialty …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning For what seems like an eternity now, we’ve been warned about the potential for age to detrimentally affect muscle mass retention. Recommendations aimed at older athletes have become so ubiquitous you could go across any of the major endurance media outlets, from Runner’s World to Ultrarunning Magazine …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Abby: ‘I feel like I’m just on the rivet‘ Jason: ‘That’s OK, just keep pressing’ Abby: ‘OK, I’ll do that’ This was an exchange I had with Abby Hall, an elite athlete I have had the pleasure of working with worked the past four years, while crewing …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Earlier this month I had the honor of crewing and pacing one of my athletes at the Bigfoot 200, which is first leg of the Triple Crown of 200s. Two-hundred milers present a different set of stressors and require different race strategies (as discussed in my …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Given the same ingredients, trained chefs can create a wide range of dishes. The same is true for trained coaches; we use the same basic training principles and workout ingredients to create training programs for different athletes across a range of sports. Periodization–the ways coaches organize training …