By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Let’s face it, for many athletes it’s been a long time since you’ve had the opportunity to toe the start line. And, as races are drawing closer, athletes’ anxiety about their fitness is building. They look at their training logs through a lens of opportunities lost. The …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning With the summer racing season right around the corner and many races actually looking promising to come back on-line in 2021, runners are starting to pay more and more attention to their training. Some are building back fitness from some extended downtime, others that have not …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning It feels a little strange to write about how to handle the heat when it’s still April. But, as I scrolled through my athletes’ comments on TrainingPeaks over the weekend, it’s obvious that athletes are contending with short term bouts of warmer conditions. This initial challenge, when …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning In a perfect world (or at least my version of it) all endurance athletes would have a coach. Sure, this sounds self-serving considering that I make my living in the profession, but the fact of the matter is professional coaches (and other professionals that work with athletes) …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Over the past year, Fastest Known Times (FKTs) and virtual or in-person Last Person Standing (LPS) running events have grown in popularity. Although they gained notoriety because of the pandemic, I think these race formats will continue to draw athletes and eyeballs for a long time. …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning During one of our recent coaching meetings, one of our coaches brought up a scenario of an athlete who lives in the Midwest who is training for a 50-mile race with 8,000 feet of elevation gain. For this particular athlete, she might only be able to …
Bad weather is one of the most consistent sources of adversity ultramarathon runners face. Maybe you’ve been fortunate to train and race in mostly good weather conditions, but if you’re in this game long enough you’re bound to face challenging conditions. Training through the winter in mountainous areas or high latitudes means cold temperatures, snow, …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Over the weekend, elite ultrarunner Ruth Croft won the coveted Tarawera Ultramarathon in course record time and in the process, beat out the entire field of men and women. As is the case whenever a female ultrarunner bests the entirety of the field, the age-old debate …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Most of us are limited by time, and somehow cram ultrarunning training into our busy lives. Taking an hour at lunch or waking up an hour earlier to get a run in is more often than not the way most normal people with lives, jobs, and a …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Interventions in sport tend to borrow and steal lessons from other disciplines and redirect them in pursuit of improved performance. Take, for example, a pair of compression socks or pneumatic compression device (like the Normatec boots). These devices were originally developed for patients with poor circulation stemming …