Uphill Athlete Coach Alison Naney has been running ultras since 2003 and coaching a broad range of athletes since 2006 through training groups, clinics, camps, and women’s retreats. Along the way she’s had two daughters, and shifted her mindset around training to fit around her family and work while still accomplishing big personal goals with her own running. Her experience as a massage therapist also guides her coaching practice to help athletes have a sustainable, long-term approach to training. In this session Alison discusses: Balancing training with other life stressors for long term success and health. Training through the menstrual…
Author: Uphill Athlete
I ran the Leadville Marathon in 2016, thinking that it would be good training for climbing. I was happy to finish within the cutoff time. That experience was an inspiring “run across the sky” for me, as the organizers advertised. This year COVID-19 has shut down most travel for climbing and has shut down Leadville. I ran a remote Leadville Marathon anyway, on the day for which it was scheduled, 13 June 2020, in the woods and hills of a small park around a lake near my home in Atlanta, Georgia.My focused training period was relatively short. It started after…
On May 15, 2020, Uphill Athlete Iain Kuo and two companions completed a two-week ski traverse across the length of Wyoming’s greatest mountain wilderness, the Wind River Range, covering more than 115 miles and 32,000 vertical feet of ascent on foot. Along the way they skied from the summit of Gannett Peak, the state high point.by Iain KuoWhen Life Gives You Lemons I was picking my way through breakable crust in the treed foothills near the base of Mount Moran in Grand Teton National Park when we got the news. As every backcountry skier, mountaineer, and wilderness adventurer knows, a full…
Sit down for story-time with Uphill Athlete co-founder Scott Johnston and Master Coach Sam Naney. These two have a long history together, and in this hangout they will recount the development and evolution of Sam as an athlete, and Scott as a coach. Their dynamic story is full of lessons and applications for any athlete, or coach. Listen to this Episode: Also Listen On : Listen on Apple Listen on Spotify Listen on Google More Episodes and Posts View All Aerobic Training Capacity Training vs Utilization Training Aerobic Training Intensity Monitoring during Training Aerobic Training Determining Aerobic Threshold Using Breath…
Training endurance is like building a sandcastle. You need sand, water, the sense not to overdo it, and both the expertise and creativity to build something great.Basic endurance is like piling dry sand. It can’t be shaped, just piled higher. For every inch of height, it takes a greater volume of dry sand than the inch before. Adding intensity is like adding water. You can increase the angle of repose of the sand, steepening the cone, getting higher with the same volume. Artists (great coaches) can get the saturation just right, creating amazing sculptures. But those sculptures will always be…
Many athletes we work with throughout the year target long-duration events: high-altitude climbs, ultramarathons, and big ski tours. As avid readers of Uphill Athlete literature know, the biggest bang for these athletes’ buck will be aerobic-capacity-building training. This comes in the form of low-intensity, long-duration work—multi-hour climbs, weighted pack carries, long aerobic runs. But for others there are competitions on the horizon. The 50K ultrarunner, the skimo racer with an eye on Patrouille des Glaciers, and the road runner–turned–vertical kilometer aficionado all need to pay attention to their speed potential. To perform well, they need to be able to prolong…
Sit down for story-time with Scott Johnston and Sam Naney. These two have a long history together, and in this hangout they will recount the development and evolution of Sam as an athlete, and Scott as a coach. Their dynamic story is full of lessons and applications for any athlete, or coach.https://youtu.be/bNpG1mBE6d4 Sam, #3, competing at US Nationals. Image by Matt Hagen Sam competing in the Alpental skimo race, January 2020. Sam skiing the Silverhorn Couloir near Mazama, Washington. 1:1 Coaching Personalized and direct accountability for your training Find Your Coach
For endurance athletes, staying healthy while training represents more money in the fitness bank. Imagine that for every day you were sick, you had to dig into your savings and pay your employer two and a half days of income:Five days off would cost you 13 days’ income;Seven days off would cost you 18 days’ income;Two weeks off would cost you 35 days’ income.If sick days cost you money, would that change how you interact with people? How much more cautious would you be about getting sick? “Also known as germophobia, mysophobia is a pathological fear of contamination and germs.” …
Every time I see El Cap my stomach sinks, my hands start sweating, my heart pumps faster. Even today, even after climbing the Nose, El Cap still strikes me as being impossibly big. When you’re up there the granite sweeps above and below you like a strange vertical sea. It looks and feels like it will never end. I have to convince myself I was really there. That I did in fact climb a route I had always dreamed of doing but had assumed I would never do. I’m a father of three with a full-time job, a decent climber…
A Transition Period is the first thing you should think about when considering an extended period of training. Dividing a longer training period into phases is called periodization. Each period has a purpose. And the purpose of the Transition Period is to prepare you for the harder training ahead. When I program for a tactical athlete, I use three such periods, sometimes called mesocycles: the Transition Period (post-deployment), the Base Period (the majority of the training “year”), and the Tactical/Sport-Specific Period (the pre-deployment spin-up). With this article, my goal is to give a broad overview of how I construct a…