What It's Like To Be Coached by Koop with AJW and DBo | Koopcast Episode 150

well hello everybody and welcome to another edition of the KoopCast this is andy jones wilkins uh sitting in for Jason Koop uh long time listeners know that coop is taking a little bit of a break from the KoopCast working on a project and he's handed over the controls of the KoopCast to stephanie howe which is probably a smart move on his part and me which is probably a less smart move on his part if you have not yet had a chance to listen to any of stephanie's uh podcasts i encourage you to go back and listen to her recent interview with jesse diggins the uh three-time united states olympian cross-country skier gold medalist i was i was totally fanboying on that podcast when stephanie had jesse on i remember meeting jesse when she was 17 years old at a cross-country ski race in sun valley idaho when i lived there and it's just a fantastic interview so put it on your podcast list to listen to stephanie's interview with uh with jesse diggins it's a couple episodes ago on the KoopCast um today is part two of what it's like to be coached by coop uh it's something that i've uh chosen to be part of my um my opportunity to grab the handle

grab the controls of the KoopCast and today's guest is a really really good friend of mine um it's hard for me to believe that it's almost been 10 years since i first met him it was february of 2013 high on the bluffs above malibu california i had headed west uh to escape the east coast cold uh to run the ray miller 50 mile uh 50 miler a great race that is no more it's become the sean o'brien but it's up in the um in the bluffs above malibu california the ray miller 50 was a fantastic stop on the ultra calendar and in 2013 my guest who had already had some successful uh ultra runs that we'll talk a little bit about uh did battle with uh two western states champions at the time hal kerner had won the race twice and timothy olsen had won the race once and was on his way to winning the race twice and dylan bowman today's guest beat them both and while it may be a small footnote in his long career at this point it was a highlight of mine and it's with great pleasure that i welcome dylan to the KoopCast ajw i can't believe almost 10 years man and yeah thanks for the reminder that i was able to beat

those guys at the b tier races never secure a cougar trophy and win one of those a tier uh races like westerns myself but yeah it was i recall that day you telling me that you ate like 20 salt pills or something at the ray miller 50 miler in 2013 so fun memory do you do you remember that race i do i remember it well yeah i mean i was on the uh upswing in my career and of course i viewed people like timothy and hal and yourself as being heroes of mine and so you know to win the race and once you fall into the community once you start just putting these amazing life experiences and these achievements on your trophy shelf and into your memory bank it becomes a really addictive thing and it quickly became just an obsession for me and a lifestyle that i cherished and then slowly over time i think i got into it at an advantageous moment in the history of the sport because then my career really sort of grew in lockstep with the growth and trajectory of the sport itself and so it's uh been a wonderful you know 12 13 year ride at this point and i do recall feeling like a young gun for many years and now it's funny to feel like the grizzled veteran in a sea of new upcoming and much more talented young guns in

the sport right now but uh you may yeah you you mentioned lacrosse though fun fact uh you know three of the four faces on the mount rushmore of ultra running lacrosse players are michael wardian dylan bowman and myself i mean we've got to find a fourth one but uh i i know i know that at least the three of us still have lacrosse sticks kicking around in our closets patty o'leary is also a player he played okay that's good all right good that's good to know i i can i can see patty uh he's probably an attackman yeah yeah um so i the other you know i didn't i have to admit i didn't notice you very much in uh at silver rush or leadville but i did very much the following year um mutual friend of ours and more in my generation than yours is um a great runner named rod bean and i'm rod um has multiple hundred mile finishes as a as a business owner up in bend oregon and he he went to the uh san diego hundred in 2011 you know fully expecting to win and you crushed his butt and and i remember him uh you know emailing me after and like you this guy dylan bowman he's incredible i mean he i was so fit for this thing and and and you know it was it was a san diego has always been a great race it's kind of an early season it can be hot it's uh it's well organized it can be but like when

rod said that and it was you know you're still a young gun you're 25 at this point it's like okay i gotta i gotta check this guy out you remember that race san diego yeah yeah that was my first hundred mile victory and it's funny in addition to rod bean who was also you know a hero of mine and one of those early influences and somebody who's become a friend in addition to him and the friendship that i've sort of been able to develop with him i also met yassine de boone at that race the 2011 san diego 100 and also tofer gaylord uh who has become like a really truly dear friend of mine one of the you know top five people who i respect most in the world really and uh you know all three of those relationships were born out of uh my first hundred mile victory at the san diego 100 in 2011 and you'll appreciate this andy the reason i went to that race is because i didn't get into western states right of course of course it was like two weeks before western states and i was obsessed with you know having my opportunity to run western states for the first time i eventually got around to doing that the following year in 2012 so the way it all works out like it's it makes perfect sense in retrospect you know to go to san diego that year to win the race to develop these new relationships to gain experience in the sport and then take that to the next chapter of my career which was kind of devoted towards western states again it's just a lot of great memories i i would want to point something out because i remember

we were on a little shakeout run at san francisco north face race uh i don't know eight seven eight years ago and i commented to you about being uh somewhat of an exception at the time and really picking your spots and racing you know just three or four races a year in 2011 you didn't that didn't do that because two years two months two months later you you were back at leadville uh had a really good leadville got second um but it was just two months after san diego uh and maybe you learned a thing or two from that yeah i mean it's funny i was just thinking about this because i was looking at annie hughes who's done so much amazing things and of course she represents this new age of young guns in trail and ultra running and she's probably already done a dozen hundred mile plus races in her career i think i've done 13 in my career so far and i've been in the game for 13 years right so i think i have done a good job of moderating my racing volume and i think that's one of the reasons why i've been able to have longevity and for the most part keep control of my health throughout my career um but i wouldn't necessarily point to san diego and leadville that double as being a learning moment for me because both races went well and i think it was before i was really approaching my training in a more professional way and we'll get around to talking about that i'm sure because

jason koop kind of brought that into my life so i wasn't really training all that much still at that time and i was still skiing all winter long because i was living in aspen in those years so it that that wasn't necessarily a moment where i stepped over the line i probably have done that a couple of times but never in a overly dramatic or dangerous way uh you and i both know that we've seen a lot of folks especially from my generation suffer from over over training over racing i've been able to avoid that for the most part but yeah i i definitely did learn early that i needed to take a moderate approach to my training volume and for the most part i've stayed disciplined with that throughout my career yeah and for those of you who are wondering when we're going to start talking about koop you know it's his podcast we'll get to him eventually uh but we got more important things to talk about so for those of you who always like just block out anytime ajw talks about western states you can pause about for the next 10 minutes of the podcast but for those of you who love hearing about western states here we go because dylan showed up in 2012 and ran it again in 2013 and again in 2014 and went from seventh place to fifth place to third place uh kind of a scenario uh interestingly enough that's sort of mirrors a little bit of my trajectory in the sport a decade earlier a very different competitive

environment a decade earlier but but nonetheless a sort of a a steady build up through um the standings at western states and you know your third place was you know well under 16 hours and on a on a challenging day in 2014 but i'd like to i'd like to zoom out ask you to zoom out looking over that three-year period um 2012 so let's call it debo's western states era i still want you to go i still want you to go back there one of these days i know you're on the board now and there's complications around that but that three-year period combined with very good runs at what was a wonderful annual gathering in san francisco at the north face 50 yeah that three-year run from age 26 to 28 you'd been you know the car had been driven off the lot you know from with those leadvilles and the san diegos and um and yet you were young enough and enthusiastic enough you had kind of learned you'd kind of gotten some chops i mean that was an impressive three years of western states running yeah um what what role did you know that that annual trip to uh olympic valley play in your overall training and and as you look back on it now again almost 10 years ago um what role has it played as you you know as your careers moved on spent a lot more time in europe and and other things we're going to talk about later yeah it was an immensely special time in my life and in my career and i have similar feelings about

the race as you do andy i know few people are as passionate about western state western states as you and you've been around the race for much longer than i have but i've been around it now since my first race in 2012 so this year was my 10th anniversary of being around the race and i've been lucky to now approach it as an athlete as you know as a runner as a crew member as a pacer as just a simple spectator and now as a board member and as somebody who helps to lead the race day commentary and analysis team that the race is invested heavily in it's been a great journey for me and i am just proud to have been involved really it's been an absolute honor to go back to my three years running the race you'll also remember andy that i had a fourth year where i dropped out at michigan bluff so i'll give you kind of the whole arc of that story in 2012 let the record show dylan brought that up not yeah so i started four years in a row 2012 to 2015 in 2012 like you said i was 25 years old i had just won the leona divide 50 miler and that was my first win on what was then the montreal ultra cup which you'll remember now a western states golden ticket race which was a pivotal huge moment in my life honestly andy to win that race it was against many of the sort of name brand athletes in

the sport at the time i never pictured myself winning it and so also it was six weeks before western states was to occur and so i then went into western states with the mindset of i'm going for this one i just won leona divide you know who knows this may be my only opportunity here at western states i'm going to put my nose in this fight and try to win this race and so i ran in the in and with the lead with many of my heroes that day and it still gives me goosebumps to remember of course this is the year that timothy olsen broke the course record ran under 15 hours for the first time so i ran with him nick clark dave mackey mike wolf ryan sands zeke tiernan you know these are like my heroes and uh i exploded of course taking the strategy of i'm going for it i exploded on cal street i ended up you know sort of suffering it in for you know still a fast time because it was a really cool day i ran just over 16 hours but certainly was not happy with the performance but happy to have been able to punch my ticket back to the race the following year sort of similar the next year i had a solid day i raced with a little bit more composure more strategy but still had like a three or four hour low point on cal street and you know in the final miles towards alt that made my performance something that was solid fifth place

but not my best not my potential the following year 2014 i had a really solid day i finished third place behind rob krarr and seth swanson who are both great friends and people who i look up to immensely in the sport and i felt like okay that was as well as i could have done that day it still wasn't perfect but i left satisfied happy with a podium performance at UTMB one of my life and career highlights i should have walked away that year because i had already devoted three years of my life to the event and i finally had a race that i was really happy with and instead i thought seventh fifth third you know this next year pattern could continue and i could secure myself with cougar trophy and uh you know i i this is actually maybe something we could expand on as we start to move towards the coop conversation too but uh looking back now i i know i had an intuition at the time that it just wasn't i my head wasn't in it in the same way my heart wasn't in it in the same way and um i had also had some health issues in the spring i had a heat stroke in the spring that was actually like pretty scary and probably should have given me um you know the advance warning not to start what is obviously one of the hottest races in the world uh so things went sideways very early in that race i ended up suffering my way to michigan bluff and pulled the plug there and it was the first dnf in my career andy and this is after probably 40 or 50

races and i know you're uh you're still you know going without a dnf but i still consider that my only dnf in my career and um that is something that i'm proud of and also like it it was one of those moments where the universe really taught me a lesson because i think i had a smugness about like oh whatever i'm gonna finish no matter what whatever and it just it wasn't gonna happen that day and i bailed and i haven't been back as a racer since and i again i love the race dearly um i love my new role and i'm not necessarily itching to step back on the start line i very much enjoy being a spectator and a fan uh an admirer of the event and uh but at the same time yeah i i would like to eventually get back around to it um but it's hard to say when that's gonna be but yeah that's my history with the event a lot of again a lot of just amazing memories throughout the last 10 years and all those different uh ways in which i've interacted with the event i remember speaking about moving on from from being a racer there to having a role in the race that doesn't involve running it my first year of not running it which was 2015 because craig thornley told me after i got my 10th finish that i was not allowed to ever run the race again i was standing in forest hill um watching people go through and there was tim tweetmeyer and we saw one runner come through that looked particularly in

trouble and he turned to me and said andy aren't you glad we don't have to run this anymore it was such a good feeling i have that feeling every year too so yeah especially when you when you this is so hard but but the the dnf i'm not gonna let that go so i one of the things every time i talk to someone about a dnf i want to know you the the record shows the record shows you dnf'd at michigan bluff yep but where did you really dnf before the start did you dnf when you had the heat stroke a couple months earlier like what was the anatomy of the dnf yeah so like i said my head and heart wasn't in the training in the way that it had been in the three years leading up to western states i think part of that had to do with the fact that i was finally satisfied with the race that i had had in 2014 and it would have been a perfect opportunity for me to set my sights on other goals but as you know when you get to wear one of those especially like an m3 bib it's really tempting to come back and pin that bib on and do battle again on that course so that's one thing that i would flag is just like really listening to that intuition about what you're motivated to do and that year i don't think i was truly motivated for that race i it would actually funny enough it was one of the best years of my career even with that dnf like i won terrawera early in that spring and then i won the

north face uh what is now ultra trail australia in may and then i came back and finished second at tnf 50 in the fall slash winter so it was like a really solid racing season for me but with that big disappointment in the middle of the year the other thing that um i remember is that uh i think it was wednesday or thursday before the race race week uh i had dinner in the same restaurant as uh ryan sands and francois den and ryan sands was then a race or a friday scratch because he had gotten food poisoning and francois den had also told me afterwards that he was sick throughout the entire event he ended up finishing 11th i think that day one of the few blemishes on his entire you know resume and uh and i was feeling actually very ill in the the 24 hours before the race i attributed it to being nervous which i usually never am but part of me thinks that in the back of my head there's like a voice that says that i was compromised in some way uh like uh physically going into it just like with my health and my guts and things like that but um yeah more more than anything it was just like when things spiraled out of control i didn't have what it took to regain control and get to the finish line it was like my body was giving me a fairly clear signal and uh it i sat in michigan bluff for like two hours before they cut my my wristband and ultimately i don't regret it it was a good learning

experience for me and and yeah like i said like i've i haven't dropped out of a race since then and so um you know again it not to the smugness is i think what got me and um so i've been i'm trying to i always try and keep that humility and that respect for races and the distance for everything that i approach now i remember backing up to 2014 your 1536 third place with rob and seth in front of you and by the way seth perhaps the most underrated american ultra runner of the love the last two decades just an incredible runner i remember seeing you first of all i finished you know four hours after you did and you were still hanging around and i remember seeing you and seeing the smile on your face and the look in your eye and uh if if if an outside observer seeing us have that exchange would have thought you know oh ajw is congratulating devo on winning the race and it brought me back to when um when greg soderland gave me my uh buckle uh after i got second place he's like this is the only second place runner who celebrated more than the first place runner he used to love and embarrassing me about that because you know i did and i mean now we see it all the time i mean we see seventh place and 70th place and 170th place celebrating like they were on won the race but but you really had a

if i look back on it a kind of a contentedness about you with that 2014 finish and giving it a shot in 2015 and going for it you know there there was uh because you had you had really lived through the the transition of western states being a medium-sized race you know where maybe one person or two people or five people went under 16 hours to you know the top 10 going under 16 hours to you know even more than that now so it was uh it was kind of lightning in a bottle moment and uh and i think you uh you handled the lightning well yeah um so then when did coop come along um you know and and just to just to put a little i interviewed another of coop's longtime athletes um last week casey lichtai and and she got the coop referral way back in 2013 from a mutual friend of ours scott hyme a 10-time hard rock finisher a colorado guy and uh coop wasn't really like as hardcore coaching as he is now but you know he was he was around and so when did coop enter the picture in your um life yeah so also in 2013 and at a special and opportune moment so we're coming up on our 10-year anniversary working together which is crazy to think about but in 2013 i went out to UTMB for the first time so august 2013 and it was my first international

race i traveled alone and i was going to be there for three weeks so for like two and a half weeks before the race and on my first run the first day i was there in chamony i sprained my ankle in like a heinous way like third degree sprain tore the all the ligaments in my right ankle and was completely devastated ultimately obviously could not start the race so i spent three weeks in chamony just kind of moping and going to the bars and drinking beer and just like being sad but i had the amazing opportunity that year to hang out with frosty anna frost and joe grant and ride around as they crewed for anton kropichka he ultimately dnf'd that year at treant but it was an amazing learning experience for me at a front row seat to see rory bozio run one of the most phenomenal races in ultra running history uh and then i got to see the the lead men's pack and acknowledge to myself that i was not ready for that event no matter what and that the fact that i was injured was potentially a blessing because the course would have absolutely mauled me and it was in that moment where i realized i need help you know i came from a lacrosse background i had no idea what the hell i was doing but i knew i wanted to race with those guys like i wanted to be in that fight and i knew at the time that coop

had started to coach dakota jones who's two or three years younger than me but who's a person who i've always looked up to as an athlete and as you know andy he's always been sort of wise beyond his years and dakota was sort of like the first quote-unquote pro who had engaged a coach at least in my awareness and so coop was really like the only coach who i even knew existed and i knew him loosely in fact we had a funny and special interaction that we both kind of still talk about to this day in 2012 he was running nick clark's race in fort collins the quad rock 50 miler on the same day that dakota jones beat killian jornay at transvolcania i was there helping nick uh volunteering at quad rock and got to tell coop that dakota had just beat killian and so this is before coop and i had really started our coach athlete relationship but anyway going back to my UTMB situation when i got back to the united states i sent a note to coop and said hey i'd really like to to work with you if you're open to helping guide me and he was gracious enough to take on that burden take on that responsibility and is because my ankle was so injured the first thing we did together was starting doing workouts on the bicycle of all things which is kind of funny to remember especially

given the fact of where our relationship has come to now and you know just all the things that we've done in the last 10 years the fact that it started doing tempo and vo2 max intervals on a bicycle is just kind of hilarious yeah you know so once i was healthy enough you know to start running again he totally transformed my training i started doing less volume in my training than i had been doing but with far more intensity and much more specificity much more intentionality a lot more rest and recovery and he's a genius and i attribute you know so much of my career to his guidance and leadership and i'm immensely grateful for it i've had a small digression because my first meeting with coop was of all places at leadville in 2009 so the year before you ran it for the first time and if you if if uh inquiring minds want to check out the race results from that year eighth place Jason Koop ninth place andy jones wilkins tenth place brian powell yep it's true all just squeaking under uh 20 hours but uh but but but but i remember seeing coop's light up the boulevard and being like nope not gonna get him not gonna get him i'm gonna have to run this whole thing and that's not gonna happen um so okay so so he he he took you on this is very good because he so he was there for he was there for part

of the western states journey the the 14 and the 15 um post 15 so post western states dnf there's a there's there's a notable there's a notable shift in your resume towards international racing not exclusive not exclusively but but it was also where you know many north american runners were heading over to europe a lot more frequently and a lot for a lot larger races um was was was coop part of that or was that something you were doing and and coop was along for the ride he was definitely uh what what coop always has emphasized and especially in those early years for me was just gain experience go race good guys on big stages and gain experience and this is something that i try to pass along to this next generation as i because i love to sort of in an unofficial capacity help the next generation of pro athletes think about their career and how to manage it and race selection and all those things and that's one of the things that i try and stress is just gain experience you know go have fun put your nose in it and test yourself and if you have the appropriate commitment if you have the right people in your corner like a great coach then you know you can accomplish amazing things and of course also around that time i was in many cases and thanks to Jason Koop i was getting a lot more support from sponsors

which opens up opportunities to do more traveling and racing uh abroad as well so you know coop always let me be in the driver's seat about picking my objectives for the year and he always has encouraged me to listen to my intuition and to my deep motivations and to let those guide the race uh objectives that i set for myself and then you know he does the hard work of making a mosaic of beautiful training blocks around various uh race objectives that i set uh to put me in a place to succeed where i want to and then you know always course correcting me at moments when i need it along the way uh but the the shift to the international racing was in some ways influenced by coop because he always just encouraged me as i was trying to make my way in the sport make a name for myself in the sport to just gain experience racing against the guys who i wanted to be competing against and that was i think great great advice well and and i will say too you know your your career has not been all rainbows and unicorns and both physically and and even perhaps psychologically or emotionally and and i remember working with an athletic director when i was a when i was a team sport coach um and one of my early uh teaching coaching jobs who said you know the the true measure of a good coach is not how well they do when when the team's winning all the time but how they handle when the

team's losing and and you you you know being a public figure such as you are you've you've had not obviously the ankle the ankle was it was noteworthy moment number one but you've had a couple you know easily observable sort of hiatuses in your career um where where there was relatively lengthy period of time between between races between being on the public stage you know the the covid one notwithstanding but i'm thinking of you know from fall 16 to spring 17 and again summer 18 all the way almost to summer 19 and i know there are probably a lot of stuff going on in your life that is not the scope of this conversation but i was reminded of this when i when i interviewed casey uh last week about the way in which coop was a presence for her when she had surgery and when things when it when it wasn't about putting cool stuff in the training blocks yeah but it was about yep another rest day or another day going to the gym and foam rolling or another day of bicycling i think the best coaches and you and i are both coaches as well as coop but the best coaches in all in all sports are those that are there when it's bad as well as when it's good can you share a little bit about some of those down times and and what coop is meant to you during those times yeah definitely so you know i honestly i feel

like i've been actually fairly lucky with my health as somebody who's been in the sport and racing you know at a high level for 13 years and aside from that acute ankle injury on my right foot the only other real injury i had was when i broke my left ankle in 2019 that was easily the lowest moment of my life and in my career and uh yeah it was also as i was i was think i was 33 at the time so it really started to crystallize like hey man like you time is of the essence here and you have to really cherish these years of your quote unquote peak athletic um capabilities right and so um and coop was always there for me in terms of just kind of checking in sending notes and being available to to chat and also i think critically andy he was always like a voice of reason to my sometimes stubborn um insistence on getting back to it you know when i was hurt and trying to like set new goals for myself and trying to put things on the calendar because i was like grasping for continued relevance in the sport and he would always be a voice of reason about you know let's just focus on where we are now let's get yourself healthy like it's actually not as bad as you think it is like yeah it feels terrible but if you just kind of rest for a little while and you stay diligent with your pt

like you're gonna get through this man and then we'll get back to it but don't rush it don't skip this step and he also you know he's competent enough to where i recall a few times like sending him lab results and sending him x-rays and uh mri interpretations or results and and him being you know just like the smart uh composed thoughtful coach that he is of just you know telling me okay here's the situation you know i think this is actually better than it seems and we can get through this and you know i'm here for you and i've always i've always really really appreciated that the other thing that i think is actually relevant going back to our earlier conversation about when i dropped out of western states that was a really important moment for coop and i in our relationship and it really helped me to understand the importance of communicating with him as a coach and being honest with him about how i was feeling and um you know the specific example is that you know like i said i had one tarawera and ultra trail australia in february and may that year i had also had a really scary heat stroke and i think it was march that year and so i had put myself through a bunch leading into western states and after ultra trail australia i had the distinct feeling of just like training is not fun this feels

really hard like i'm not motivated and my body is just it's not coming to me the training is not clicking and i never told coop that i all i kept it inside and thought you know this is western states training it's the last six weeks like it's supposed to suck this is supposed to be hard you got to get through it just be tough and i showed up and i was flat and i dnf my first dnf at uh a competitive race and of course it was the the biggest goal of my season so it was highly disappointing but again with every big disappointment you get a great opportunity to learn and so the big lesson there for us and for me in particular was like you got to tell your coach how you're feeling man like i could have easily said hey this does not feel good like this is not feeling right my intuition says this is wrong and either totally back off the training change the stimulus you know bail on western states all together and focus on something else and get yourself back to being fit fresh and motivated that none of those things i did um and so that was a really valuable learning experience for me and uh something that coop and i still talk about to this day was just sort of like how pivotal of a moment that was in terms of just our coach athlete relationship yeah yeah it's interesting uh debo that you mentioned that i i'm as i think listeners to the podcast know i'm i'm one of about a a dozen coaches at at cts which is where coop coaches and is kind of the the grand poobah of

coaches we have and and i'm i'm i'm a bit of the elder statesman and the and the resident curmudgeon on the in the group as a role that i that i cherish but i also think it's an important role because you know coop is and i think your comments here are valuable coop is an extremely smart guy i mean he's going to analyze those mri results and x-rays and and come uh with a conclusion that will most likely be the the best course of action but he also is not so prideful that he is afraid to admit he's wrong you know one of the you one might think a coach as successful as coop would be like a my way or the highway coach uh and and he's not and and i i see it happen in our continuing ads at cts where i or one of the other coaches typically one of the more experienced coaches will will push back a little bit on on something where maybe he's going maybe a little bit too far down the science side and i mean as you might expect he goes down the science side i tend to jump over to the art side right yeah the art and the science of it i mean that's i i don't i don't disregard the science by any means but i'm a little bit more touchy-feely than most when it comes to these kinds of things and and sometimes it bugs coop you know his texas background and all of that but other times he sort of gets it and he's open to it and so forth and so i think for an athlete such as yourself i mean yes it was probably a mistake to just shut up and like bite the bullet and not tell him anything but there was also something

where it's like well this is coop i've just got to keep my nose to the grindstone and and gut it out i suspect you wouldn't do that now so is there a time if you if you think of that moving forward you've had great successes since then a podium you know top 10 at at utmp a sec an extraordinary second place at hard rock have you pushed back with him at all i mean you've got to after 10 years you've got to talk tell a little bit tell the audience a little bit because everybody listening to this god podcast knows coop knows all so tell me some examples of pushing back this is a great example of how we learned from that anecdote of western states 2015 in 2018 i started the year again winning tarawera and then i did a project with red bull on the lost coast of northern california that was an 11 hour day and then in april i was due to run ultra trail mount fuji in japan and as we were in the critical crux last few weeks leading up to utmf coop had me on my schedule doing something like a back-to-back five-hour five-hour saturday sunday weekend so high volume just you know classic endurance back-to-back days to just kind of finish the work finish the training block uh for you know 100 mile specificity i was feeling pretty tired uh after tarawera where i had

won and i knew i was fit and had all that sort of like good energy and confidence from winning a big race like that and then i had another 11 hour day under my belt with the lost coast and my intuition told me i don't need these two five-hour runs i feel tired this feels like too much to me and i told Jason Koop that and we changed the training for that week and changed it dramatically i think it was something like we did 90 minutes on saturday with a little bit of intensity and maybe like two or two and a half hours on sunday so we slashed my weekly volume that week by like 20 or 25 percent right and then i went to utmf and i had the race of my career catching pal capel with 5k to go to win in what was easily the most the best executed 100 mile race of my career to that point you know the hunt the hard rock in 2021 is probably up there in terms of one of my best performances but the 2018 utmf is still a race that i look back at with just an immense pride and i think the key to that preparation was not overstepping in training leading up to the race i left that effort for race day which i think is critical and not necessarily easy for professional athletes to achieve consistently is to have the their day when it matters most that day i was able to do that and i think it was because i had the confidence in myself

to know no your fitness is there you won terrawera your endurance is there you had this another 11 hour day on the lost coast like you're ready for the 100 mile race you don't need two more five hour runs back to back and it was kudos to coop who you know it trusted my intuition he didn't push back whatsoever he said all right sounds good let's switch it up here's your new training and i you know had a great weekend that weekend low volume went into the taper and arrived in japan feeling ready to absolutely swing for the fences so i think that's a great example of what you're getting at yeah and i one of the things i've seen in an evolution with coop you know i've been with cts now seven years and it's not so much the art and science but a little bit of it is is he's definitely and i i suspect you've experienced this he's come around a little bit on the importance of mental training on the importance of um i remember we had a we had a memorial day camp in colorado springs a few years back and and he asked at the end of the camp he asked us all to provide a little tidbit on you know the one piece of advice you'd give ultra runners and i just came up with you know devote twice as much time to mental training as physical training and i think it stuck with coop that the notion i mean when you see katie shides race this year at um at UTMB a lot of that was between the ears i think a lot of abby hall's success with uh with coop has been but obviously they're both really really talented athletes but a lot of it's between the ears certainly with casey you know coming back from multiple injuries first winning

uh western states and then gutting it out last year and i suspect am i right i don't want to push here but was part of hard rock and the success of 2021 after so many years of trying to get in was it was there a piece of that that was mental for you yeah i mean i think i've always recognized the importance of the mental side of the sport and it's always in this something i've talked about many times and that i also try and stress to the next generation is that it's never necessarily when i've been training the hardest and i'm theoretically at my fittest when i have my best performances it's when i feel happy healthy centered present and grateful to be on the start line and so and this is something coop and i have always talked about too and the way i like to articulate is that i like to train for a state of mind rather than a state of fitness and so if i can controlling the variables in my life that help me to feel happy centered and grateful that also makes me a better athlete and always keeping that as a high priority of course you still have to get the work done you still have to grind through the tough interval sessions you still got to get out the door for those six seven hour endurance runs when you're feeling pretty tired uh and there's a time and a place for that but you know the way that we truly have those breakthrough experiences is when we do have the mental side of

things dialed as well and i think katie shadja is a good example of that i had her on my podcast recently and we talked about it i asked her if she had had sort of an intuition that she was ready for that type of day and she said that she and coop had talked about it before the race and she made a point to tell him i'm feeling better than i ever have right now and so no matter what happens like we're doing something right and of course she was able to win UTMB and uh bring home one of those coveted uh championships that all professional trail runners only dream about and uh yeah i think uh the mental side of things uh really helped her to to achieve that that's great well i'm gonna we're gonna wrap up here but before we go i have something a little bit fun um you know you and i are we're not we're not subtle in in talking about how uh we love all sports i mean we're obviously we're into trail running and endurance sports but you and i are both you know espn junkies and sport you know you know and and and by the way coop is a little bit too unfortunately being from texas he's a dallas cowboys fan yeah which is which is something that we just have to put up with but i think one of the things and maybe you guys have talked about this too is we talk coop and i talk a fair bit about coaches from other disciplines particularly team team sport coaches and that that we might look up to or that we might attempt to emulate i mean it's it's easy to emulate

somebody who coaches you know cross country at you know val and hannah or mark wetmore or something but sometimes i like to play the game of a of a coach i'm going to ask you debo and i'll a coach from outside running from outside um even any individual let's limit it to team sports a team sport coach that kind of has what it that maybe has that similar it that coop has or um or has that way about them that gets the most out of their athletes because ultimately that's what we want we want to do as coaches we want to get the most out of our athletes on any given day and i would argue that coop does that better than most but on the team sport side can you think of a coach or two current or retired that might fit that mold this is such a great question andy so i'm going to give you give you a couple um and if you steal mine i'm going to really have to go digging can i guess yours can i guess who you're going to say are you going to say are you going to say lars tiffany from the university of virginia men's lacrosse team i'm not i should but i'm not no yeah yeah um i mean so this is a really good question and i wish i had a chance to really think deeply about it a couple come to mind

and and you know i i think i've always resonated with people who are kind of players coaches you know who make their players feel like they're part of something and instead of making them feel like they're obligated to perform because otherwise they're a disappointment instead making them feel excited to perform because they're performing for their brothers on the field and you know i've always admired mike tomlin i love his attitude he's of course the pittsburgh steelers head coach and one of the longest tenured head coaches in the league at this time i think a two-time super bowl champion uh so mike tomlin is is one of those guys and then from the older school uh pete carroll also kind of represents that of being kind of like a a player's coach of course he was at the university of southern california when they had reggie bush and matt leinard and lendale white and they were such an exciting team and then of course he's been a great coach for uh the seattle seahawks for a long time so those are two answers and then lars tiffany from the university of virginia men's lacrosse team is good john tillman from the university of maryland men's lacrosse team those guys are also absolute studs and they've done amazing things for their program so there's four for you nice nice well i had i had pete carroll also i mean the guy has it's hard to believe he's 70 with his level of enthusiasm um but i yeah i i have to go with coach

k um i have to go with coach k and how well he knew his players how he followed them far into the future i mean when he retired and the the outpouring of love and respect for coach k and how he knew their you know you know sent them notes when their kids when they had children themselves and so forth he he was the ultimate human connector uh of a coach i i felt that that coach k just understood his players knew where they were coming from knew what he wanted to get out of them and and and made them not only it's it's cliche but not only better better players but but better people um you know i'm i'm not gonna i'm not gonna dive into to college lacrosse i i mean petromala has always been a guy i've liked he's old school i mean he he was in the same generation as i was and kind of you know just a headbanger he's a little old school but you know i think he's he he knows what he's doing um but i also they say they say he's the best player coach combo in lacrosse history because he also he won a national championship as a player and as a coach at johns hopkins well and sometimes you get the feeling he could still like lace him up and get out there if he had to you know like like if he really had to he would and then you know i've got to because i'm because i'm an educator and i come from a long line

of educators the sort of the the most cerebral coach with the exception of john wood and i'm not gonna we're not gonna include john was was uh is tony la russa i mean whatever team tony la russa went to you know his best years were with the cardinals but i go back to tony la russa and the a's you know the way no no detail no stone was unturned uh with tony la russa so um those coach i mean you can kind of tell where i'm going with coach k and tony la russa and petromala you know that's sort of my my sort of inclination but um maybe maybe what we'll do debo is when when coop gets back from his break we'll we'll have to maybe get his choices and have him weigh in i know i know he has his opinions and we we might have to not allow him to name any coaches from texas but i have one more i have one more for you that's off the uh off the beaten path that i think maybe our listeners will find fun and entertaining and maybe send them down a rabbit hole have you gotten into the formula one thing on netflix andy you know i've only recently because my middle son logan when that dutch guy you know won the championship at the end of last year yeah everyone went crazy on it he turned me on to that so i haven't gone i haven't gone completely down that rabbit hole but i i think i'm on my way i just listened to a podcast with christian horner who's the team principal for the red bull racing team who is you could call the coach of uh max verstappen's team right and it was fascinating to hear him talk

about his process of leading that team throughout the course of the last i think it's been 12 years or something coming from being a backwater team that you know didn't really have any place competing against ferrari and mclaren and then coming through and winning four championships and then going into obscurity for another few years and now coming back and winning last year and it looks like they're going to win again this year it's uh it's a it was a really good podcast so christian horner was another good one that came to mind there i'll have to look that up i'll make sure i'll make sure mike gets that into the into the notes from the episode so um so debo this has just been great i want to uh i want to thank you for taking the time i know i want to thank coop for for handing over the controls uh this has been a lot of fun i want to i want to wish you and uh harmony great success as you continue down the uh down the road of parenthood as i've said to you before as a as a father of three uh grown sons it goes fast i know it doesn't feel like it now when you're up at three in the morning doing feedings and stuff but it it goes fast and you gotta you gotta savor it and you gotta get your runs in when you can so uh keep those keep keep those baby jogger tires pumped up amazing thanks so much andy super fun to chat with you awesome all right man and well i hope to see you sometime soon well that was fun thank you all very much for listening to that great interview with dylan bowman

and hard to believe uh guy still in his 30s been around the sport so long and has so many great stories and has been impacting the sport in so many ways for so many years and and how great to hear hear his stories of his experiences working with coop um like casey uh last week uh just uh just a remarkable example of um of the coach athlete relationship and particularly how important it is as it as it is advances uh through the years so thanks again for listening and we'll uh we'll see you next time on the KoopCast you