This Is The #1 Threat To Ultrarunning in 2024

Jason Koop is the Head Coach of Carmichael Training Systems Ultrarunning.

In this conversation, we talk about whether and how the increasing professionalization of the ultrarunning is changing the ways athletes train and race and generally commit their livelihood to the craft, the potential for professional co-located trail running teams, doping and the policies that should be put into place as soon as possible among many more topics.

Discounts:

Timestamps:
(0:00) - insights from traveling to races with athletes
(8:20) - what's changed the most in the way elite athletes races ultras
(14:05) - why it's insufficient for elite athletes to marginally improve year over year
(28:41) - when ultrarunners reach their performance peaks
(39:15) - creating the ideal mountain ultra trail runner
(45:34) - biggest advances in the athlete-coach relationship
(53:36) - feasibility of trail running teams
(63:11) - media coverage of ultrarunning
(68:11) - doping in ultrarunning
(94:50) - training theories for 200 mile races, long trail FKTs
(103:34) - how coaching for ultras looks different in 2030
(108:30) - final thoughts

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[runsingletrack]

Thanks for watching! What'd you think? Leave a comment below! Also, make sure you hit the subscribe button to automatically get the latest Singletrack content in your YouTube feed.

[greghouston]

Really great discussion! Thanks to you both.

[lasted_leather]

Love the great follow up questions on the fly

[KTravRuNEr]

Awesome podcast! I’ve always had a running coach since college and it’s been invaluable to keep me on point and not do anything dumb. Id love to know who laughed Koop out of the room.

Great interview! Always interesting to listen to such a knowledgeable coach. His training book is on my shelf and love to get back to it every now and then.

[fbtxr]

Well done, Finn! Great conversation. 👌

[bruisercat]

Interesting discussion on the doping issue. I more fully appreciate the issue from Jason's explanation of what parts of the system are missing--namely a governing body and/or body to funnel resources through that would dole it out to USADA/WADA, do the education of athletes and enforce sanctions. I do wonder if the same schism in the sport between the prop camp and the "old school" grass routes (just running in nature) folks is partly to blame for no action.

[billysaolcom]

with all due respect to Jason, im so glad there are still the outliers like Courtney D that are still crushing it at the highest level and eating nachos with no plan for the next workout except to enjoy it. this thing is going off the rails from my humble perspective. Really? just go run

[gwilymeades]

Love this! Following you now on instagram (both your accounts). Koop's god and his book is my bible. It's great to hear his thoughts on all these topics. I love the speculation about the future state of the sport of ultra-running. I think it will always be a non-conformist (therefore non-team) sport to some extent, because of the nature of the sport (conditions, terrain, distance, etc). Do you think the less serious back of the pack dudes will drop away once the ultramarathon fad fades?

[matthewmyers]

Kilian doesn't ever seem to race to set records, so not sure even his records will hold long term.

[PerryScanlon]

Sorry but it's a fairy tale to believe that most elite athletes are clean when you look at the endurance performance gains of EPO, ITPP, and AICAR as well as the history of doping in sports that have more testing than trail and ultra running. And WADA is not trying hard when athletes can miss 2 tests per year, ABP requires 3 experts to agree and is confounded by altitude. According to a 2011 paper, maintenance microdosing of EPO had a 12 to 18 hour detection window. A 2021 paper says it has expanded to 48 to 72 hours.