By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning It’s Christmas week and that means your inboxes are likely filled with newsletters and advertorials trying to cajole you into buying more of the ‘the best gifts for runners’ and ’must haves for the trail runner’. Fortunately for you, I have some better more whimsical content lined …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Earlier this year CTS Athlete Coree Woltering set the Fastest Known Time (FKT) on the 1,200-mile Ice Age Trail. He decided to take up the endeavor with relatively little specific preparation, allowing himself just several weeks to pull all the logistics together, as well as get in …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Earlier this year as the pandemic locked down athletes around the world, CTS released our entire DVD workout library for free. The contents were a treasure trove of indoor cycling, strength training and stretching workouts, all produced well over a decade ago, far before athleisure was …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning If you stay in the ultramarathon game long enough, it’s a near certainty that you will have at least one DNF at some point along that journey. Additionally, while some of these DNFs are unavoidable, I will make the argument that many are caused, in whole or …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning One of the challenges to writing about training is that every subject could legitimately expand into a book unto itself. My shelves are full them; entire books on physiology, biomechanics, nutrition, periodization, performance assessment and analysis, sports psychology, stress relief, and yes, recovery. Arguably, what you do …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Races will be back in 2021. They might be different and maybe not all races will return, but mark my words now, ultramarathons will be back. Many runners with rollover entries from 2020 have copious amounts of time–now that they don’t have to wait for lottery …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning The folklore of ultrarunning is riddled with tales of hallucinations, out of body experiences, paranormal activities, and even an alien sighting or two. Given enough time and sleep deprivation, ghouls and goblins, devil and demons, witches and wildlife alike will inevitably come to life, haunting even …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning When Gordy Ainsleigh first finished the Western States Endurance Run in 1974, he did so by drinking from creeks and stashing quarts of Gatorade along the course. He had no softflasks, no handheld water bottle, nor a hydration pack to carry fluids to aid his quest. Heck, …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning This summer and fall I had one objective in mind: to finish the Nolan’s 14 route in Colorado’s Sawatch Range. Sadly, I struck out on all three of my attempts there, the last one ending in quick fashion as I dislodged a rock and took a decent …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Let’s face it, very few of you reading this article are professional runners. While we would all love to spend all day and night training, the fact is that most of this readership will have time constraints on their running. Most of the time, those constrains …