By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning I have spent the past six weeks crewing for Timothy Olson as he attempts to set an FKT on the Pacific Crest Trail. As of his stopping point on Sunday, July 11, he has 11 days, 8 hours, and 25 minutes to reach the northern terminus and …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning As the summer racing season is in full swing, many trail and ultrarunners are taking to the challenge of overnight FKTs, 200 milers and other trail adventures spanning more than 48 hours. These longer ultras present a unique challenge of managing alertness and wakefulness as time passes. …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Throughout the history of ultrarunning, the Western States Endurance Run has served as a litmus test, or key indicator, of the state of the sport. Researchers, coaches, athletes, and fans look at the longitudinal data about finisher rates, the number of silver buckles awarded for sub-24hr finishes, …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning This year’s Summer Olympics was scheduled to be a hot one. Tokyo, already known for hot and humid summertime conditions, would have been (and probably will be) hotter than the previous three Olympic host cities (Kakamu et al. 2020). Athletes, coaches and sport scientists will do almost …
By Jason Koop, Head coach of CTS Ultrarunning Ultrarunner Timothy Olsen recently began his quest to set the Fastest Known Time (FKT) on the Pacific Crest Trail (track Timothy’s progress here), and I am part of the merry band of crazies supporting his effort from start to finish. For about the next eight weeks I’ll …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Over the past 12 months, I’ve slowly been siphoning some of my savings into Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Up until that time, I’d been largely uninformed and unconcerned with this part of the financial sector, chalking up the whole space to something that resembled Monopoly money …
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) …