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 …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Over the weekend I had the chance to crew and observe the Bear 100 in Logan, Utah. It’s a classic, low key old school 100-race. Being one of the few 100-mile races on the calendar in 2020, a lot of eyes in the ultrarunning world were tuned …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning I’m bullish on the future of ultrarunning. During a time where many ultrarunners are loathing a fall and winter devoid of racing, suffering from flailing motivation and a peering into the prospect that 2021 will be more of the same, I’m optimistic. If trail and ultrarunning were …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning For many years I have retained a copy of Mosby’s Manual of Diagnostic and Laboratory Tests that I fully admit was ‘permanently borrowed’ from an old coaching colleague of me. It’s a medical reference manual that is far above my educational pedigree. It’ll as dull as …
What goes up must come down. In the case of ultrarunning, coming down can be the more painful of the two. Running downhill leads to a lot of muscular damage (more on that later) and wrecked legs. As a result, some coaches spend a lot of time specifically focused on preparing an athlete’s legs for …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning Earlier this year I read thought provoking editorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine penned by professors Jeremy Lewis and Peter O Sullivan, both specialists in physiotherapy and rehabilitation. In it, they question the current treatment patterns commonly used for musculoskeletal pain (note the editorial was …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning With this year’s Pikes Peak Marathon in the rear-view mirror, and Matt Carpenter’s 1993 course record once again untouched, it gave me a bit of pause as to what made Matt so great in his prime. I’ve long admired Matt’s has accomplishments as an athlete and …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning With longer events such as FKTs, multi-day adventures and personal projects all the rage, many athletes are wondering what they can do to become better while being sleep deprived. We all know athletes who can seemingly run for two (or even three) consecutive nights without issue. Navy …