Training Essentials for Ultrarunning 2nd Edition - Chapter 1 | Koopcast Episode 109

trail and ultra runners what is going on what's happening welcome to another episode of the KoopCast as always i'm your humble host coach Jason Koop and this episode of the podcast is a little bit of an unexpected one i didn't plan to do this but in response to the overwhelming response that i have received from my recent book training essentials for ultra running the second edition i wanted to do something special for the listeners as you longtime listeners will know i just released the second edition to this book and it has been a project that has caused me any number of gray hairs and a lot of sleepless nights and one of the aspects of those gray hairs and the sleepless nights was caused by the audiobook which i decided to record myself this was a project that just about everybody in the publishing space advised me not to do they told me that this content does not go over well in an audio format that you'll never make money on it people won't download it and on and on and on and you know what after going through the project and putting it into the space for just a just a few days honestly just came out as i'm recording this a few days ago i'm really happy that i defied that advice and i went with my gut and put this thing out in an audiobook format and so as a special treat

for the listeners this podcast is going to be the entirety of chapter one of the book and one of the things that i'm particularly proud about when putting this book together is that it's not just a simple read of the book it's not just simply me behind a microphone reading all the words that are in the book it's actually an enhanced audiobook where i go to great lengths to interview domain experts in the sports science world and the coaching world on relevant topics as they fall in line with aspects of the book in addition to that because the book is a very it's a very visual creature there are a lot of charts and graphs and things like that that tie a lot of the content together all of those charts and figures and tables are available for free as a digital download to anybody not just if you buy the audiobook but it's for free for any for anybody on my website jasoncoob.com forward slash book and if you happen to use the audible version of the audiobook you can actually access that entire digital packet directly from the app which is pretty cool so thank you guys to listeners first and foremost like i said the response to this book has been absolutely overwhelming i can't even put it into words we're going to get right into it here it is it is chapter one of the second edition of training essentials for ultra running welcome to training essentials for ultra running how to train smarter race faster and maximize your

ultra marathon performance second edition by Jason Koop jim rutberg and corinne malcolm read for you by Jason Koop dedication this book is dedicated to my late friend david clark david was someone i had the great privilege of coaching and someone i owe a debt of gratitude that i will never be able to repay i speak for the entire ultra running community when i say david we miss you to pieces your unique concoction of heavy metal zen buddha life philosophy was truly one of a kind and i will forever miss our never-ending meaning of life conversations that we have had on the trails over the years although you left this earth far too early rest assured that your legacy of love and compassion for all living creatures will live on and having a legacy like that my friend one that transpires past your own life that is something we should all aspire to you taught so many so much about how to live life how to love yourself and how to fight like hell for others in need i'll see you on the other side of hope past my brother i miss you chapter one the ultra running revolution as this audiobook finds its way into your eager

earbuds i will be well into my third decade of being a professional coach during that time i've worked with thousands of individual and very different athletes i've helped guide marathon runners cyclists triathletes ultra runners mma fighters motorsports athletes such as nascar motocross and formula one drivers various winter sports athletes and a host of other athletes looking to develop their endurance some of those sports were familiar to me as a lifelong runner i had a background in the traditional distance events and could readily adapt into other sports like cycling and triathlon running cycling and triathlon also had rich histories of peer-reviewed physiological research as well as books like the daniel's running formula and the lore of running to draw upon in working with any moderately fit marathoner i could use a combination of my previous running experience the scientific literature and other coaches guidance to comprehensively inform training thankfully as a young coach i was in an environment that forced me outside of sports that i was familiar with and that has made all the difference as i transitioned into the ultra marathon world you learn the most when you're outside of your comfort zone and let me tell you that working with mma fighters and nascar drivers was way out of my comfort zone first off no one would

mistake me for a gearhead nor a combat sports athlete there's no chance at all i didn't know anything about those sports and had never done them personally which makes it pretty hard to improve athlete performance based on sheer experience these sports also had relatively little scientific literature to draw upon and few points of reference to inform training as a result i was forced to learn about the sports from the ground up so in order to figure out how endurance training could be applied to sports not traditionally mentioned alongside marathon running cycling or triathlon i developed the method of first meticulously learning about the sport before diving into the x's and o's of coaching i would peel apart the physiological and psychological demands of the sport using a combination of old school observation and best practices borrowed from similar sports as an example when our coaching team started working with nascar drivers we had never seen the inside of a race car never attended a race and didn't even know the basic rule structure so our first order of business was to attend a routine practice alongside the engineers pit crew and the rest of the support system required to operate a nascar team in order to gain some initial insight we rigged up the drivers with heart rate monitors and observe their breathing patterns over race radio to determine the cardiovascular stress during a race as it turns out their heart and

lungs are working just as hard as any marathoner so we designed training strategies for these athletes that leveraged proven training methods from other endurance disciplines we had them trained like marathoners and triathletes complete with intervals threshold runs and long runs we measured the temperatures in the car and inside the specially designed suits and quickly determined the conditions are similar to any summer day in the notorious death valley which as irony would have it would become another environment i became intimately familiar with as i became an ultramarathon coach as a result of all this latter observation and analysis we had them perform heat stress protocols in the sauna not too dissimilar to any athlete preparing for a hot weather event like the western states 100 or the bad water 135 and you thought all there was to nascar was to sit down and turn left the results we attained provided proof that endurance training techniques can improve performance and sports outside the traditional endurance sports reducing the physical strain on the drivers through improved cardiovascular fitness and heat tolerance improved their driving the drivers were better able to control their cars and communicate with their team because fewer of their physiological resources were dedicated to fighting the demands of the event all of these interventions were developed through observation and borrowing protocols from other sports a tactic that would serve me well as i entered

into the realm of ultramarathon coaching as ironic as it might sound now ultra runners were actually very late to the the table when it came to adopting and accepting coaching and it was not from a lack of me trying in the early 2000s i spent frustrating amounts of time trying to convince elite ultra runners that coaching would be a good thing for them ultra running is a complicated affair so in my mind it seemed clear that some professional guidance would do the sports elite athletes would do the sports elite athletes some good alas in those early years my pitches fell on deaf ears and i got laughed out of more than several meetings trying to convince athletes that i could offer them some guidance finally sometime around 2004 some of these elite ultra runners started to turn the corner and seek out professional coaching being that this was a new sport group to work with i did what i always did with a new sport i dug through copious amounts of research and looked for guidance except in this case there was little to be found the same year i started working with ultra runners there were exactly six research papers published on the subject no books on ultramarathon training existed and any guidance i could find had to be mined from blogs anecdotes in the infamous ultra list serve which was a message board for ultra runners the old timers will remember very fondly so absent any scientific guidance just like with the

aforementioned nascar drivers i went and i observed i went to races paced athletes spoke with those who were successful and started running ultra marathons myself all in an effort to understand the sport better i also borrow best practices from cycling triathlon and even cross-country skiing because in many cases the demands from those sports overlap with ultra running developing training strategies through observation and educated guessing works to an extent particularly when it's all you have and i have to say the athletes i worked with in those early years did far better than anticipated they thrived won races around the globe and achieved success that far outpaced their peers people started to notice so much so that a cottage coaching industry for ultra running coaching sprouted and blossomed which was in stark contrast to the early 2000s when i was routinely laughed at for suggesting such a proposition as the sport grew and elite performances improved the pace of research into what constitutes ultra marathon performance increased all of this was good for athletes better information led to evolutions and coaching practices across the entire sport and more information for athletes to use on their own but still it was scattered i wanted a way to consolidate it all i wanted something that would present the training methodologies i had observed and curated side by

side with emerging research i wanted something that could synthesize best practices the art of coaching and emerging science to provide a comprehensive guide for ultra marathon athletes and their coaches and for the first 15 years i coached ultra runners this amalgamation of science and practice failed to emerge the first edition of this book was written in large part to create the book i wanted as a coach and an athlete i sought to create a reference that would inspire inform and guide ultra runners and coaches along their individual journeys i wanted to create a book that i personally would have turned to when i first started working with ultra runners much like i used the jack daniels running formula and the lore of running early in my coaching career and by any measuring stick that effort was a success ultra runners all along the spectrum from novices to the elites finally had a book that blended science and practice into a cohesive narrative they had a manual to guide them regardless of whether they were training for a 50k in the desert 200 miles in the mountains or any distance and terrain in between tens of thousands of copies of the first edition of this book have been sold it's been translated into multiple languages and i have traveled around the world to give lectures on the contents i even had to recruit screen and train an entire ultra running coaching

department in order to satiate the demand for athletes wanting to be coached despite that success the first edition of this book had some detractors the training methods came under scrutiny as they rightfully should and at times by influential and well-known coaches in 2016 just before the first edition of this book went to press i was profiled by trail runner magazine for a feature in their annual dirt edition the feature contained the normal q a style interview complete with a tour of my office and physiology lab as well as interviews with many of the athletes i had worked with unbeknownst to me at the time the article's author also gathered the opinions of trail running coaches david roche ian torrence and ian sharman coach roche described some of the training strategies i use as chasing marginal gains which is a contentious strategy that aims to compound many small incremental improvements to potentially create a larger meaningful benefit coaches torrence and sharman were critical of some of the strategic underpinnings i use for ultra runners that are derived from different sports particularly those that stem from cycling since the first edition of this book was published some of those criticisms have continued i've been told you don't believe in strength training or ultra runners are not cross-country skiers and the like the fact of the matter is most of these criticisms have been ill-informed short-sighted poorly thought out

and lacking much needed context for example anyone who has followed the hundreds of articles interviews and content i have posted over my career knows that i preach a consistent theme of focusing on what matters most for improvement before chasing any marginal gains additionally there are certain limited circumstances where many marginal gains can mean the difference between an athlete winning and losing or even making a cutoff or not ultramarathon training is highly nuanced and rewards coaches and athletes who are open to new information and willing to accept that there might be multiple paths to a successful outcome the contents of this book exemplify this way of thinking as you will come to find out you can weigh the benefits you get from a sauna strength training or any other marginal intervention against one another to make choices on which gains to chase and which to forego furthermore while ultra running is a unique sport it is not so dissimilar from cycling cross-country skiing triathlon marathon running or any other endurance sport that we can't borrow and adapt research and best practices to better inform ultramarathon runners the fact of the matter is there's far more information on training athletes in those traditional endurance sports compared to ultra running and there likely always will be

the key is finding the nuance in what can be applied across different endurance disciplines and what needs to be adapted from one sport to another and what doesn't apply at all our understanding of ultra marathon running continues to evolve and this book has had to evolve as well we know far more now about ultra marathon performance than we did at the time of the original publication we've learned in more detail about concepts about how neuromuscular fatigue likely plays an important role in ultra marathon performances how low carbohydrate diets impact running economy and that hyponatremia which is low blood sodium is more often caused by over drinking fluids that do not contain sodium than not consuming enough sodium itself the six scientific papers published in 2004 have now expanded to more than 100 per year providing a growing trove of information coaches and athletes alike have the opportunity to digest and synthesize into their training with that as a backdrop here's what is new in the second edition of training essentials for ultra running it's almost everything in fact more than 75% of the content has been revised added to or is completely new among other additions there's an entire section devoted to low carbohydrate diets a complete chapter on the benefits or lack thereof of strength training a chapter on mental skills for ultra running and an in-depth section devoted specifically to considerations for female athletes and to make sure i as a male coach wasn't unconsciously biasing the recommendations for female athletes as often happens in various

areas of research i brought in my coaching colleagues i brought in my coaching colleagues corinne malcolm to specifically pin that section this book also went through greater scientific scrutiny from nick tiller PhD and stephanie howe PhD both ultra runners and well respected in their fields that scientific review expands upon the guidance provided by preeminent biomechanist roger crom PhD and former western states medical director marty hoffman md in the first edition of this book in addition to all of this there are nearly 400 references to the existing scientific literature all of which can be found in the book's index in the digital packet that accompanies in the digital packet that accompanies this book despite these additions you still will not find a stock training plan in this book if you're expecting a downloadable calendar that you can put on your refrigerator and blindly follow for the next 20 weeks you are going to be sorely disappointed so don't say i didn't warn you and please ask for your money back now before you leave a one star amazon review better yet listen to this audio book and at the end if you hate it email me and i will gladly refund you your money no questions asked this audio book will walk you through the steps of solving your personal puzzle of ultramarathon performance it will take you on a journey step by step on how ultramarathons work what you can do to better prepare for them and how you can thrive during the process

and supremely confident about whatever ultramarathon adventure you have chosen i want you to understand what it takes to make yourself a better ultra runner i want you to have enough information and wisdom to create and adjust your own training your own nutrition and your own ultramarathon game plan and be confident with the entire process i want you to take notes from the content in this audio book that have particular meaning to you above all else i want you to be inspired by the training processes you uncover and the realization that you are ready to crush your most audacious goals after all ultra running is a ridiculously difficult sport one that is rife with pitfalls and hazards that confound even the most seasoned athletes preparation is your greatest ally and most powerful resource and the information in this book will help you be as prepared for you as possible for when you step up to the start line finally i would be remiss not to mention that this book does not have any sponsors endorsers or other sources of financial or business entanglement in 2018 i made the conscious decision to alleviate myself from such conflicts of interest real or perceived and i have to say that the move was quite liberating in today's world of paid partnerships instagram influencers and implied endorsements is nearly impossible for the end consumer to ascertain what is fact from what is fiction while there are many athletes and influencers that authentically use and endorse the products that they are peddling there are just as many that wear a different brand of shoe on their feet have a different drink in their bottle or are just taking the endorsement money and running so i decided to avoid

these conflicts altogether and turn down every single endorsement opportunity ever since much to the dismay of my own bank account as a consequence if i recommend something it's because i believe in the product or method based on its merits not because someone is paying me to this freedom also allows me to opine on products and practices that are quite frankly junk and pseudo-scientific garbage and i certainly don't mind calling them out as such and for those of you listening to this and promoting this nonsense you are right to have a big lump in your throat and have a few beads of sweat form upon your brow as if all of this was not enough i also acquired the rights to self-publish this book in order to make it as long as detailed and as accurate as possible plus if i'm being honest i wanted to say whatever the heck i wanted to which is problematic even with the most liberal of publishers make no mistake that these actions cost me a copious amount of time and a fair amount of money i hired and paid editors contributors printers and the like out of my own pocket in order to get this edition of the book and audiobook off the ground but the trade-off is worth it and i wouldn't change a thing in my profession i am ultimately a purveyor of advice athletes trust in the words i write and say based on that trust they take action i honor that trust as a sacred bond between me and the athletes reading these pages as one that is unbreakable

so rest assured the content that follows contains the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth in a pure raw unentangled and unadulterated fashion all the way down to the very last sentence as a piece of housekeeping this audiobook comes with a free digital download which is available at jasoncoop.com forward slash book that's jasoncoop.com forward slash book that's jasoncoop.com spelled with a k dot com forward slash book this download will contain all of the charts and tables including a template of my now famous long range plan and the rice ball recipe as well as an index of all of the referenced scientific literature finally and i am really excited about this aspect the read of this audiobook will be interspersed with interviews from coaches and technical experts and in the field while it's one thing to list nutrition recommendations in the table it's an entirely different thing to bring that to life with everyday athletes and that is my aim with the interviews that are interspersed throughout this audiobook i'm sure you will find them fun casual practical and actionable all at the same time needless to say i'm excited that you're here with me on this journey so if you're ready willing and able let's get right into it

all right this is our first official break in the read and i thought that there's no better person i'd rather bring up to the mic than the person who's responsible for this mess in the first place my co-author and partner in crime jim rutberg jim true story that is all your fault that this book got written in the first place correct yes i'll take the blame for getting this ball rolling uh the majority of my career has been focused on helping coaches get their message out to athletes sometimes that's been ghostwriting sometimes co-authoring and oftentimes just editing and helping coaches organize their thoughts let me say that you're really good at that you have co-authored a number of different books with several coaches but in all seriousness i've always considered myself a reluctant author and you know this just as much as anybody else because i am not at all a writer by trade you of all people know firsthand how awful my writing can be and i think it took a good two years of cajoling from you to get me to write this book so why did we decide to do this in the first place all the way back in 2015 with the first edition of this book well you know every sport has its benchmark training book or there's a small handful of books that are on every athlete's shelf tim noakes had lore of running joe friel had the triathletes training bible everyone has a copy of nancy clark's sports nutrition guidebook when i was coming off the second edition of the time crunch cyclist you were building a substantial following with the ultra marathon runners and i saw the

opportunity to create the benchmark book for an emerging sport the existing training resources for ultra running at that time were first person n of one it worked for me narratives there was really nothing out there that examined the demands of the sport the physiological adaptations needed the nutrition required and the range of skills that are unlike any other sport so we decided to write it the funny thing about training essentials for ultra running was that i knew it needed to be written but that you were going to have to do a lot more of the actual writing than i was used to you may have been a reluctant writer at first but i knew you had a strong voice and a passion for the subject and that's a lot to work with well and i remember an initial part of that reluctancy that i had went with this concept of the benchmark book you mentioned all three of those books books that i had been a long time and i thought that i had been a long time and i thought that that there was no way that i could ever me personally could ever live up to those books because i personally had revered them so much and used them in my coaching practice and so i still thought even with all of those accolades and you trying to pump me up for it that we might sell like five or ten copies we'd sell a few to my mom a few to your mom and maybe i'd keep one as a keepsake for forever and forever and yet here we are we're doing a second edition which means that the interest went far beyond our immediate family members yeah i think it's a testament to the ultra running community honestly the first edition was

dense with information second one is even more so but ultra runners are a serious bunch they see through fluff and they're happy to dig into complex topics a lot of the new material in the second edition came from interactions with readers who just wanted to know more well jim i really do appreciate you getting me into this mess in the first place i'm sure the listeners and the readers of this book do as well so let's not waste any further time let's get right on into it and get into the book all right folks there you have it there you go that was the entirety of chapter one of the second edition of training essentials for ultra running you can find the audiobook right now either on audible or on itunes as well as you can find the paperback on amazon you can also find the kindle version on amazon and to boot there is a special edition hardback that i will personalize for you that you can only find on my website jasoncoop.com forward slash book and that hardcover book is actually selling a whole lot better than i thought it was originally going to and i'm going to have to order more copies right when i stop recording this podcast here so i will get to that now i promise i'll have more in stock once this podcast is released as i mentioned during the intro i have the listeners in the community to thank for this absolutely overwhelming response to the launch of

this book the launch of this book has gone against every prototype of any book launch that has ever been done and that prototype is the author and the publisher sends the book out to any any number of different influencers and media outlets in order for them to kind of create a hype around the book before it's even released i decided that i produce content for the people for the athletes and the runners out there and the launch of this book is reflective of that ethos where many people out in the community they got their hands on the book even before i did i had some people email me from europe and from sweden that somehow got a copy of it even before it landed on my front doorstep so if you're waiting for one of these copies one of these media copies or one of these influencer copies i'm sorry you will just have to wait in line those copies are going out next week but my point with that is is thank you thank you thank you to the listeners and to the early adopters of this book it just means a tremendous amount to me that you have taken this work and really adopted it so much i can't wait to see you guys out on the trails with this book in your hands that is it for today we're going back to our regular scheduled programming again next week thank you guys again from the bottom of my heart as always we will see you guys out on the trails you