Last month I introduced a more comprehensive and wholistic version of the FAKH protocol, and this month we expand on it.

Our objective is simple, continue the momentum from last month, opening our capacity in a variety of realms and becoming a more well rounded runner when viewed from the lens of strength training.

The set up for this months workout will structurally look similar to last month, just with new moment patterns and progressions. This leads us deeper into the year where we will eventually get eyes on a major fall and winter build.

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It takes ~5lbs of pressure to break the trigger (fire the weapon) on a Smith and Wesson M&P Shield 9mm. Go press down on your bathroom scale with one finger until it reads 5lbs and see how little this is. Now press down until it reads 4lbs and internally measure how small the difference between the two was.

I have spent many nights, 1lb of pressure away from not being here.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget the taste of gun lubricant. It initially stings the tongue with a pungent taste and then settles on your lips with a muted burning sensation mixed with the taste of gasoline. I remember the first time I placed the barrel of my M&P in my mouth I was surprised by the weight of it. I had shot thousands of rounds through it at the range, I knew how it felt in my hands, but in that moment it was twice its normal weight. The steel felt hard and dense on my teeth, as cold and metallic as I expected.

I quickly returned it to my lap. “Not tonight. Just a test run” I told myself.

I wrote this piece both in 2 days and 6 years.

2 days is all it took for me to put the words you’re reading together into lines and paragraphs that express a human experience.

6 years is how long I have spent navigating the “after”. Healing, reflecting, learning, growing, failing more (safely this time) and finding my way. For 6 years, I have thought about that season of life, every single day, trying to understand.

Looking back at it, I’m still not sure how I got to that place. I see the actions and the life events, the poor decisions, bad behavior and trauma that led my body into that space. I have however made peace with the fact that I will never be able to fully put myself back into that place internally to understand how my brain followed my body. The darkness I experienced was a language I no longer know how to speak and so I can only reflect on the memories that linger from that period of lived life and the lessons I have learned from it.

I was living in Chicago, fresh off a divorce that I set into motion. I had lost everything I thought I needed and did not have a penny to my name. I was undoubtedly, the worst version of myself I had and have ever been. I was spiraling, lying, deceiving, ignoring and evading. Present me would have thrown past me through a wall if I saw the life I was living.

My internal experience was one of going through my days as a dark shadow. I felt I had been the worst, had the worst done to me and that I was a martyr destined to carry all the worlds pain on my shoulders because that was just why I was here. Happiness was not something in the cards for me, this was my purpose.

The reality of my experience was that I was just a dude who went through a real rough patch of life and was stuck in a cycle of some pretty shitty habits and behaviors including lack of self accountability, lack of empathy and a general lack of morality. Who couldn’t tell the truth to others let alone himself and who was currently throwing the largest, most undeserved pity party in the history of humanity.

Hurting is ok. Sadness is ok. Hard times are ok. But allowing those things to damage those around you and yourself, is not. And I was guilty of all of that and more. The hard things can never win.

My ears are ringing as I write this. It is something I dealt with for years in the past, a symptom of the C-PTSD diagnosis I had not yet received. It is something that has nearly gone away completely in recent years. Last night, after writing part of this piece, I ground my teeth so aggressively in my sleep that I woke up with fragments of my own teeth in my mouth. Having the physiological responses of my trauma return while revisiting this experience in my writing is a reminder to myself how fragile we all are and that it is something I will always carry, simmering just beneath the surface.

It is both terrifying and motivating.

I remember posting the picture above on my instagram story one night during this time. No caption, no context, just a drawing of a boy dragging a teddy bear. In reflecting, actions like that are confusing to me because I was, in fact, surrounded constantly by love. I had my family, reaching out daily to support me. I had clients and friends who knew a little of what I was going through, who would ask me to meet up for drinks or go for a walk or grab lunch. My post would get dozens of messages and replies letting me know I had people around me who cared if I needed anything. I kept waiting for something like this to make myself feel better, to feel a little more whole, to feel like I had a grip on things.

I didn’t. I just keep feeling alone, dragging a teddy bear down a street toward an end point. I was alone not because I was not in the presence of love, but because I was not allowing myself to receive love.

I leaned into that. I declined the invitations from friends to meet up, I wouldn’t answer the phone when my family called and if I did, I never let them into my pain. I pulled back from all the love and support that was being poured on me and kept myself trapped in this little corner of “woe is me”. I was alone only by my own doing. I am grateful for those who forgave me in the years later for my distance and neglect of their compassion and I am deeply sorry to those who understandably have not. I am angry still at myself for not accepting and putting to work the help that was offered from every angle.

I have also forgiven myself, for I am human.

Occasionally during this period, there was light.

I’ve already written “The Story of Bia” so I will spare the details here, but in one brief period of positivity, I unknowingly took one of several steps that would save my life. I adopted a 4 month old little monster that would provide me something I needed, a reason to be. This would become a theme in my navigation out of the darkness.

Even with Bia in my life, my days became robotic.

Wake up→train→train clients→spend the afternoon sitting on my couch, listening to sad songs, cry until I felt sick, all with my 9mm twirling in my fingers while living in that 1lb of pressure zone. I would have moments I “wished” to be ready, to be “brave enough”, to just exhale and go. But, I had a reason. In the lowest moments, I would look over at the sleeping dog next to me and set the gun down. “I don’t want the noise to scare her” or “She needs someone to feed and walk her so it can’t be today” was enough to get me to the next day. And the next day. And the next day.

I slowly found myself in the 1lb of pressure zone less. It wasn’t zero, but it was no longer a daily occurrence. I had something I had committed to and that relied on me, and while still hurting immensely, it was enough. I had moments where I would almost instinctively reach for it in the evenings, but I would pause and say out loud I have a reason.

I did not want to do this. I wanted to get better. I wanted to find a way out.

I think having direction is something that so many people undervalue. It carries so much more weight than solely what it did for me in my lowest, darkest moment. So many flail in life and end up in trouble because they have no direction, no purpose, no reason. We need this as humans. We do not do well simply existing, we desire to be aimed at something. Complacency is a death sentence, literally and/or figuratively. The moment you believe you have arrived, is the moment you become a lesser version of yourself. You need to have something on your radar, always, far on the horizon that you cannot have, do or accomplish right now. You need to create a void in front of yourself that you can grow into.

I began expanding the concept of a reason. I needed to commit to something that I was not currently physically capable of doing and so I signed up for another round at GORUCK Selection, a 48hr, ~100 mile endurance event that very few make it through (2% finishing rate-ish). I had attempted GRS a few times before, failing early and in spectacular fashion each time. I had always showed up young, dumb, tough (I thought anyway) and underprepared and was always shown to be exactly the last bit. It is not the typical event type that I would be drawn to, but something really resonated with me about its incredible ability to demonstrate where you are not enough. The people who have historically done well at it seem to have lived a fair amount of life. Now that I had done that, I wanted to see if I could channel that darkness and pain and those lived experiences of the 1lb of pressure into something positive, something growth provoking and something I could build forward to.

As soon as I clicked “register” a fire lit in me. I trained morning, day and night, under a 70, 80, 90, 100lb ruck. I covered hundreds of miles under load, broke myself in the gym every day and replaced my time on the trigger with time watching videos from past year events and settling into a focused headspace for what was ahead. From the moment I signed up, I never tasted gun oil, ever again. I had somewhere to be, something to do. I had direction. I had a reason.

I did not finish Selection that year. I was one of the final 4 people left around the 24hr mark. I physically was fit, but I was mentally tired. I quit. And thats ok. I got what I came for, which was the journey to the start line. Alive, better and finger off the trigger. I built a path to a place I wanted to go, and I went there.

In the subsequent years, I built on this model for life. I identified a thing I desired, then the 3 things that were beyond that and I worked my way step by step through the work that needed to be done. Rinse, repeat, grow. No luck, just intention and direction. You cannot fail if you have both.

See the thing, want the thing, do what is needed. Repeat, forever.

I write this for 3 primary reasons.

The first, as always, is to explore my own experience of living. Internally digesting a series of events vs writing them on paper (and sharing those words) are two distinctly different methods of reflection, both holding value. In the years following my low point, I used countless resources that I can praise endlessly. Therapy, destruction of ego, reframing of life, actively practicing empathy, selflessness and so on. I am not, nor will I ever be a finished product, and so the work will never stop. You also, will never be, so your work should not either. You will never arrive, there is more to do.

The second, and more important to me, is to impart on you what a difference you can make in someone else’s life. I am a normal dude. I am a husband, a son, a brother, I walk my dogs and take the trash out, I am a mediocre ultra runner, some people call me coach and even back then, to the outside world, I was a genuinely happy go lucky guy. But I was a breath away from ending my life, dozens of times. What kept me here, what stopped me in those moments, was not some dramatic rescue. Nobody descended from the light and scooped me off my feet and solved all my problems and made the pain go away.

What kept me there, and here now, were the subtle reminders of why I needed to be. I just needed reasons, and I had them. The most impactful messages I received were not from people offering solutions to my problems, but simply ones expressing I was needed, I was a part of their life, that I had a purpose. Do not ever, for a second, hesitate to tell someone nothing more than “you are important to me, I love you”.

Third, and most dear to me, is in hopes of my lived experience impacting someone who has, is or may one day live through your own version of this. Before I entered “that place”, I only associated suicidal ideation with extremes. I didn’t see my buddies get blown up in war, I didn’t watch my house burn down with my family inside, I (in my mind anyway) wasn’t suffering from some sever mental illness that caused me to not function in society. THOSE are the people who experience that stuff, not a random dude from a nice background who is going through some shit. And yet there I was, experiencing “the thing”.

I look back with a lot of grace for myself during those darkest moments. I don’t see a deeply flawed man, I see a little boy who was hurting and who was struggling to carry what it means to be human, because what a task it is to carry. So when you are confronted with your own humanity, look yourself in the mirror and recognize it is ok to feel the hard things. You deserve the same grace to be an imperfect human.

The hard things just can’t win.

Onward, Always.

x*The tense of some of this may be inaccurate when I post this. I have added and subtracted to it since I started, so there is a good chance the Divide 200 is over at the time I publish it.

I should be running a 200 miler right now. But I am not.

An ultra is never a sure thing. I always tell athletes that you haven’t truly arrived in the “sport” until you collect your first DNF. In such a complex and demanding set of endeavors, you can’t ever show up to a start line and be assured a finish, the universe has too much of a say. It is, in my opinion, one of the most exciting and beautiful facets of this type of exploration: you can have done every bit of training, every bit of planning and still fail, dramatically. Show up to test yourself enough, hard enough, and you will fail…as you should.

But in these failures, you grow. You gain perspectives around exertion and effort and life. You download data to use for your next outing, you callous your body to handle more and you expose yourself to the ruthless examination that a long day out brings. Showing up at the start line for an ultra, for 99.9% of athletes, is not about winning, it is about growing. And growth does not only happen when things go as planned.

If a DNF is a right of passage, a DNS (did not start) is an examination of self.

I currently am experiencing my first of these in many, many years, so this piece is to both navigate my own experience and also reflect on the experiences I have seen countless athletes go through on their journey through ultra. I think hearing others go through an experience that you have or inevitably will can be a helpful voice to have in the back of your own mind when shit hits the fan.

This past winter, the 200 bug finally struck. I knew it would and had waited until that fire got lit before I hit “register” on The Divide 200, a monster of an outing up here in the Canadian Rockies. Stoke was high.

Winter here is not a friendly place and I ambitiously jumped into a fairly big mileage build in the depths of sub 0 temperatures and constant snow storms. “Survive this and spring and summer will be a cakewalk” I told myself as I crawled through 60, then 70, then 80 mile weeks in some of the nastiest winter conditions I had experienced in years. Fitness was built, spring arrived, now the fun begins. Right?

Turns out that was a fuckin lie!

Spring came and motivation went. I had burned out, hard and lost the spark. Running 3 months of high mileage, on the only plowed road in town, in the dark, apparently will do that to you. 6 months laid ahead with a 200 mile monster waiting at the end that I was on track to be ready for physically but mentally, nowhere close. I’d wake up groggy, heavy, no motivation for a 10k shake out let alone a back to back long run. I live in one of the most beautiful places on earth to run, and I wanted none of it.

For a while I told myself I had easy outs: the area flooded during the timeframe I should have been doing my biggest days, wildfire smoke blew in for weeks after the flooding went away, it was impossible to get the miles in that I needed, work was busy blah blah blah. All lies I told myself to feel a little better.

But none of it was impossible, because others made it work. Those who kept their fire lit, did the work and are on the race course right now, doing something epic.

I took a week down, then two, then three. I made the decision to DNS long before I officially pulled the plug. “Maybe I can get ready in a month”, hell I even wrote about it here. But I knew all along where this was headed once that flame dimmed.

At the end of the day, my mind was not ready to do the demanding thing I signed on to do.

And that, is ok.

Because when you are connected to being human, you don’t tie your identity to one “thing”. I am not a race, I am not a summit, I am not a set or reps or an amount of miles. Those are all things I get to do, I get to partake in. Things that I make a decision to do, and at times, not do. And none of that changes who I am as a human for the worse…If anything, I feel I grow from making objective decisions about things like not starting a race. I treated myself with grace and love instead of showing up because I wrote I would on instagram.

And if you click “register” enough for anything in your own life, be it a race, a job, a relationship or anything else, you’re going to at some point, be confronted with the DNS decision. How you handle it each time matters, because growth happens in those moments.

I have coached athletes for 20 years. I have seen the struggles of success, failure and the mental gymnastics people play with themselves to get to a start line they probably shouldn’t be at. It is interesting to me seeing how different people navigate the moment they are confronted with the reality that something is not going to happen.

Races and objectives can not happen for a variety of reasons, primarily in two categories: By force and by choice.

By force is the easy way out, in my opinion.

You signed up for a 100 miler, trained, are ready and you get the dreaded “race cancelled due to wild fire smoke” email. Disappointment floods in. You did the work, paid for the hotels and travel, you had pacers and crew lined up, now what? In these scenarios, I typically see an initial moment of panic that can usually be calmed with a simple conversation. “Life has happened and being angry won’t fix it, let’s outline our options” is my copy and paste first line to athletes in this situation. Can we find a new race to pivot this fitness into in the next 30 days? No, ok. Can we find a self supported outing that speaks to you? No, ok. Can we find a race in 60, 90 days, that we can roll this fitness into? Etc etc are the steps we work through until we find a solution, recalibrate and shift focus. This sounds simple and obvious, but it is my hope that an outsider reading this, knowing that I've had this conversation with athletes dozens, if not hundreds of times over my career, and it ALWAYS worked out, will bring you some calm in your own navigation of life happening.

By choice is the trickier of the two, but in my opinion, the more valuable experience as it pertains to life.

You make a lot of decisions and commitments in life. Shocker, some are not going to work out, and giving yourself the space to say “actually, I changed my mind” is never wrong, when circumstances are right. This is not a free pass to avoid the hard things, you need to confront those. But when the path to something and the act of doing something, begins to clearly be harmful, you need to take a breath, a step back and ask yourself “is this right?”.

My race is a great example. I picked “a thing”, I spent a lot of money to sign up, I invested a lot of time and physical effort into it. I told people I was doing it, I built a schedule around it. I had dedicated resources of my life to it. And I woke up one day when I was supposed to start a 95 mile week, and all I want to do was spend the week in the mountains with my wife.

So I did. Because why the fuck would I not? The Divide 200 is and was just a random ass race (and they all are). When I lay on my death bed and I think back to life, am I going to be happier saying “got that 200 buckle!” or “I spent more time doing what I love with the person I love”? Obvious answer.

And that exact thought, is the process I use in all my life circumstances that confront me with the option to DNS. “How would I view this in my final moments?”. Because in my final moments, when I reflect on a life event, I will see if following through made me a better version of myself. Conversely, I will see if allowing ego to prevent a change of course caused me harm and to miss parts of life I should have attended to.

It sounds dramatic, but it is simple when put into practice. And it can be applied to almost any decision you make in life.

This was all a pretty wordy way to say: you GET to do this stuff. A race, a self built adventure, a summit bid, an FKT attempt, they are all things that you-get-to-do and you can change your mind at any point. Nobody cares, nobody will care, nobody will remember. Tell every single person you know that you are going to run a 100 miler in 8 months, then drop from it 2 months out and watch how little people care. So why do you care? Why do you lose sleep over it and beat yourself up over a decision that at the end of the day ONLY affects you?

Because ego is strong. But your heart is stronger if you know how to flex it.

Go live life. Don’t avoid the hard stuff, but when your gut tells you to change course, do it. Quit the job, leave the partner, move towns, drop from the race. You have a finite period of time on this earth, don’t waste it doing shit you don’t want to.

Onward, Always.

I’m a firm believe that good information should not always be stuck behind a paywall.

In a world full of uneducated voices, AI slop and general idiots, I’ve spent a lot of time putting together content pieces backed by both my education and the experiences I've accumulated over my 20 year coaching career. There is little in the world of endurance sports I have not experienced first hand as either a coach or an athlete. Very few, if any coaches in the space hold the combination of formal education and decades long experience of hands on, in-studio coaching experience, that I have. Bravado aside, I recognize I am unique in this space.

I am also unique in this space because I do not believe in gatekeeping information. Not everything should be pay to play and I am a firm believer that if you are passionate about what you are an expert in, you should be eager to share what you can, when you can, to anyone who will absorb it and become better because of it.

Many of you reading this probably stumbled across my Substack via one of my posts on Reddit. For the last year or so, when time allowed, I would write on a relevant topics in the ultra space I felt could be helpful to the masses and often posted in the /r/ultrarunning and /r/ultramarathon subreddit pages. Each time, I spent 4-5 hours after posting answering questions and DM’s, expanding on ideas people seemed to find interesting and generally provided a nice “coaches corner” that in the span of a year, gathered more than 500,000 views, thousands of follow up questions and comments from readers and surprisingly, helped me establish a genuinely positive reputation in a space typically full of garbage.

Important to note that these posts were not advertisements. I never linked my coaching website to them, I never asked anyone to “DM me for coaching info”, when commenters asked about my services and pricing, I declined to answer and instead insisted I stay on topic. The only mention of what I do professionally was a preface to outline WHERE this information was coming from, along the lines of:

“My name is Kyle Long. I’ve worked full time as a run coach for 20 years. The information that follows is backed by that experience and education base.”

And for the better part of a year, there was nothing but positive comments, big thanks for the free resources I provided and generally a building of a great community.

So it was a surprise to wake up one day to a notification on my page that I had been permanently banned from not one, but both subreddits I frequented with my writing. No explanation, no warnings of any misconduct before, no “hey you need to word your posts a little differently”. Over half a million post reads, endless positive community responses and a vast amount of free resources provided, all shut down overnight with the following autogenerated messages:

I naturally replied back to the moderators asking for clarification and received very little specifics. “Your posting was reported a few times and it could be seen as free advertising” was the closest to a reason I was given. I offered to remove my preface in my messages, not mention that I am a coach and even put fourth that if the free resource posting was an issue, I’d stick to strictly answering questions other members posted. I expressed I just genuinely wanted to contribute the knowledge I have accumulated over 2 decades to a community I care deeply about.

Crickets.

A few interesting observations about the ban before I get into why this is a symptom of a larger issue:

First, there was no rules violation. I responded to the moderators and they could not tell me what community rule I broke, because I did not break one.

Second, the post I was apparently banned for was only posted in one of the two pages, not both, yet somehow led to a ban in both.

Third, there was only at the time, one person who was a moderator for both rooms. One person who decided that they were right and the half a million viewers of the posts who enjoyed the content, were wrong.

And frankly, fuck that.

This is not a piece where I just bitch about how unfair something is and play the woah is me card. I’m taking every piece I wrote for those spaces and will be reposting them here, with a lot more to follow.

What this is, is a sad exhale of realization of how little critical thinking exists in the world and how often those who genuinely want to offer something positive to the world, get a stiff arm by idiots. It should not surprise me when I look around at the current state of affairs in literally every corner of society, but it just never ceases to not leave me shaking my head. How have we become a world that so easily normalizes the ignorance of the obvious? Of ego and hurt feelings and jealousy holding the masses back from information, experience and opportunity?

The reddit BS means nothing. I’ll survive just fine without it and the only “suffering” that will occur will be a few hundred thousand people not getting to read something they’ve previously enjoyed. But at scale, as has been shown repeatedly in our modern time, acting randomly, with little foresight, little critical thinking and with an inability to set ego aside, the masses can truly suffer. People get sick, lose jobs, lose social circles, get hurt and die because of the constant wave after wave of people simply being dumb.

Ironically as I write this, a comment popped up on one of the old posts that are still up (posts I wrote, that I cannot comment on anymore lol). The commenter had asked some questions related to their training on the original post and circled back after a successful outing at the VT100. It is just one of hundreds of comments on my posts in a similar tone: appreciative of good, free, well intentioned information. .

All of this is to say, our issues large and small in our current space of existence will not solve themselves. They will not just go away as long as stupid people make stupid choices and we all allow it to happen. Waiting “till the next guy/girl” and hoping it will be better is not the answer, because if allowed to be, stupid will simply be replaced by a new version of stupid, and we will continue to all spiral to the ground. Each of us needs to take accountability for our own interactions with the world around us and value our own ability to think freely and completely.

My expertise is meaningless in many ways. I am simply, arguably, the best there is at helping other humans move their feet further. There are far more critical domains in which experts and idiots operate in that have far more dire outcomes to society as a whole.

But…

My expertise is not so meaningless in one critical way.

The development of self.

Because, while I am as good as it gets at helping people cover more miles, that is not the ultimate objective in what I do. The miles I help people access are more than just stats collected in Strava…they are a path to a higher existence. They are doors opened to finding deeper meaning of self, to help those who take on big projects become bigger versions of what they are. The fitness built in training allow individuals to line up at events and outings significant enough in size that they can and will break them down to the most basic of levels; survival, movement, introspection and overcoming. The experiences they have “out there” always, without fail, reframe and readjust the participants relationship with daily life, always for the better. When you’re willingly broken down to your core existence, how could you possibly not grow for the better?

That is what I do, why I am here and why it is in fact, deeper than just mileage.

And that is why I say, to those who hold back the few well intentioned, educated, experienced and the truly genuine amongst us who desire to make a positive impact….fuck you.

Whether it’s an ultra running subreddit or the governments leading the world super powers, we cannot allow stupidity to reign if we ever want to become more. And that truly, is all life is about, being…more.

Onward, Always.

It’s time for this to grow.

I’ve built, progressed and evolved the FAKH protocol for over a year now. The focus of past months has always been pretty isolated to the lower half of the body, with a bare bones approach to strength work to get you, the athlete, the minimum needed to be a stronger, more durable runner.

That goal remains the focal point.

However, there does exist a need for all of us to take a well rounded approach to training and I feel I am doing you a disservice by not providing a full, complete plan to follow each week. Because of that, I am adding some meat to the potatoes to create a more wholistic in approach meal in this newest, and future, editions of the FAKH protocol.

These sessions will focus on all the points we previously touched on, with more substance and upper body/midline work added in as well as a heavier emphasis on some mobility and prehab work. The net of it should be a much stronger you, without needing to invest a significantly more amount of time. All sessions are designed to be able to be done at home, with nothing more than a few bands and a set of dumbbells or kettlebells.

This first, revamped version of the protocol is built with 2 sessions, to be repeated each week of the month (so you’ll do each session, 1x a week each week), Next month, we will build a third day into the rotation as well as expand and progress on the two below.

Session 1

2 rounds

Ankle rocks x12 per leg

Single leg l-sit over x10 per leg (each rep is over and back)

2 rounds

WGS x10 per side

Quadruped reach across x6 per side

3 rounds

Bench step ups to calf raise x10 per leg

Loaded lateral bounds x8 per side with pause

4 rounds

RE DB split squat x 6 per leg, holding the bottom of each rep for 3s

SA DB row x12 per arm

Bench push up x10, pause the bottom of each rep for 2s

3 rounds

Overhead banded side bend x12 per side

Extended high plank x1 minute

Finisher

8 minute AMRAP (as many rounds as possible in 8 minutes)

DB strict press x15

Dual tricep extensions x15 *same DB as the press

**flow between the two movements with minimal rest between

Session 2

2 rounds

90/90 switch x10 per side

Quadruped hip CAR x6 per side per direction

2 rounds

Banded clamshell x12 per side

Single leg RD on foam pad x10 per side

3 rounds

Foot elevated SL glute bridge x10 per side

Two foot lateral plate jump x10 per side

4 rounds

DB RDL to shrug x12 w/ 3s hold at the top of each rep

Foot elevated floor press x15

Sumo goblet squat x12

3 rounds

Foot elevated side plank hip drops x12 per side

Hollow rocks x15

Finisher

3 rounds

Hammer curls x15

Wide curls x15

Walking lunges x1 minute

My wife and I share the same passion for the mountains. We spend countless days, hours, minutes and seconds navigating the Canadian Rockies on foot..peak bagging, scrambling, soloing and exploring. My most treasured memories have been built during our long days in big terrain together.

Sharing such a consequential and intricate expression of effort together has not only formed a special bond between us, but has helped me stay hyperaware of the partner I wish to be for her and the man I desire to be for myself.

As in life, our roles in the mountains are fluid and ever evolving. Some days I lead, others I follow. Sometimes we move quickly, with intention, others slowly with delicacy. Some days are easy, some are not. Plans go as intended, other times they do not. In both life and our days in the alpine, we have a shared goal…to move forward, together, in the best style possible.

On ascents, I tend to take point. The terrain is often steep, dangerous and temporary. Careless steps and lazy decisions can send life ending rockfall toward her in the blink of an eye. My internal dialogue often simply repeats “step softly”, sometimes thousands of times per outing. My vision locks in not just on the next few feet ahead, but on every rock, every hand hold, every tiny bit of dirt, every little detail. My minds internal blinders create a hyper focus on the angle of the climb, the solidity of the rock, it makes dozens of calculations each and every upward movement, looking for any and every small sign of potential danger and instability.

And with every step, every solved equation of how to move safely together, I step softly, with more intention than any other moment in my day. This process repeats itself every few seconds, for hours on end, as we venture on.

And it reminds me every time, that this is how we love each other in all areas of life. And how you must love, if you truly love. This is how you to find a deep connection to your lived experience.

Living with intention, on a microscopic level.

Our roles in life are fluid and ever evolving, as they are in the mountains. Life is seldom simple and straightforward and often the end product is a result of a million micro adjustments, as it is in the mountains. For me, it is simply not enough to wake up and try hard every day for her and for us…that is carelessly vague and lazy. Rather, my bandwidth is spent recognizing the value of every small action and decision I make and how they form a whole that is my love and partnership to her, as well as my own experience as I navigate life.

The balance of our lives is more fragile than we admit. We are almost always a small number of decisions and actions away from catastrophic failures or stratospheric successes, and typically those actions and decisions aren’t obviously significant.

The way you live your life matters…to yourself and to those around you. Intention matters in all your moments large and small. It matters how much you sleep, it matters what you eat, it matters who you hold close, it matters how you spend your time. It also matters how you listen, how you connect with people and the earth beneath your feet, how you learn and evolve and reflect on your lived experiences. It all matters, just as every step up a mountain matters.

A few careless moves, a few lazy moments, and the ground beneath your feet can crumble. Conversely, a few well thought out moves, a life parter you work in step with and a deep connection to your environment, can propel you forward, upwards and onwards, rapidly. These words are true for both the mountains and life.

I write this primarily because I am thankful to have experiences with my life partner that keep me so present and connected to her and to my life, but also because I see so many people so disconnected from a life well lived. The distance between an existence full of depth and connection and one of superficiality and mediocrity is not that large and those who are truly thriving, are almost always, simply, living with intention.

Thank you again, to my wife, the love of my life and the eyes that have helped me see how this life is to be lived. I love you endlessly.

Onward, Always.

Week 1 of my crash course to 200 miles is in the books, and things went…easier than anticipated if I’m being honest.

With a 45 day window to crank up the work toward 200, I had to both jump mileage pretty quick this week while also fighting the urge to dive into too much mileage and ending up hurt. I settled on a 75 mile week with a few good days in the mountains as a short adaptation week before a few much larger ones ahead.

One thing I really recognized about myself this week is the value of new terrain being a weapon to fight off some of the chronic fatigue I’ve been dealing with lately. I made a conscious effort to get my feet on trails and mountains they have never touched this week and it made the days so much more enjoyable. It’s something I’ll keep in mind over the next month and fight the urge to try and grind away on familiar trails because, reality is, I live in essentially unlimited alpine terrain, so I am gonna explore it.

The next few weeks will be the crucial test runs. I’m hoping to touch close to 100 miles this coming week and beyond that the next, essentially with as much gain along the way as I can. If all goes well, that’ll put me in a position for one last jumbo effort or two and instill enough confidence to show up at the start line in August.

Thankful to have gotten to share two wonderful days in the alpine this weekend with my wife and our friends who are visiting from the States.

Chase big shit. The worst that happens is that you fall short, a better version of the person who started.

We’ve built strength, stability, mobility and durability.

Summer is here, big days out are the norm and developing progressive strength is less critical at this junction because we are building strength on foot. So our intention this block shifts to staying agile, with a plyometric heavy program designed to keep you light on foot, dynamic in ability and strong on trail. We’ll touch on strength components, but the emphasis here is going to be more movement based.

Run through this 2x a week, not on consecutive days if you can avoid it. Our next block will feature 3 weekly sessions and the block after that 4, as we start to build into fall.

Work hard, train smart and keep ripping the summer.

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Generally, a 200 mile training block should last at least 6 months.

Mine has not.

Over the last 6 months, I’ve been battling a nasty case of chronic fatigue, a lovely physiological response I’ve dealt with for many years stemming from my C-PTSD diagnosis. Over simulation in my day to day life can turn into months of lethargy, piercing ringing in my ears, a body that feels like concrete and a general anti-stoke for anything major in regards to physical pursuits. Most days during these down periods, crawling out of bed and keeping my eyes open for more than 15 minutes at a time are a win for me.

I’ve been very close to pulling the plug and as the days to race day have counted down, I felt the opportunity to have a go at this slowly fading into the darkness.

Today that changed.

I am 45 days out from race day. On my shake out run today, my body and my mind shook hands and made a decision: we are going to absolutely redline the next month, and see what it leads to. Can a human take a solid base and turning it into 200 mile fitness in a month? I want to find out. So I will.

I am not fast on foot. I weigh 220lbs and many days don’t really feel like running. But what I do have, is a quietly held ability to endure physical suffering that rivals any human being on earth. I very seldom flip that switch on, but when I do, scary things happen…and scary things are about to happen.

I write this mostly to commit myself to the pain ahead. Saying the words out loud provide a level of accountability that will get me out the door when things start getting heavy and the fatigue creeps back in to try and win the day.

On Monday, we begin.

I’ll be posting a fair amount of the day to day training on my Instagram so follow along if you want to see either an impressive feat of human endurance or one of the larger implosions of my athletic career. Either will be entertaining and maybe you’ll learn a few things.

I just want to find out what happens, if I don’t quit.

Onward, Always.

Summer is here, miles are big, races are near. What do we do?

We fine tune.

This months FAHK protocol focuses on the little stuff. We’re going to leave the legs fresher with a less beefy strength approach and spend

3x a week running through this singular protocol for the month, to go after the balance, stability and resiliency work that we need to handle the summer miles as they stack up.

Ideally, you’ll run through this Monday, Wednesday and Friday each week.

Work hard, train smart, shred miles.

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I’ve let the last few weeks go without a training recap because frankly, I’ve just been enjoying life and didn’t really feel like taking the time away from it to write.

I’ve kept mileage moderate, chilling around 40 mpw while creeping up the vert. The alpine is opening and I’ve been able to pretty consistently get 10,000ft+ of gain a week and am slowly increasing my single push efforts, touching a 7,000ft session recently, a 10,000ft session soon and then a day spent hitting the Canmore Quad again where I’ll tap into around 16,000ft in a day.

The climbing legs feel strong, really strong. I find myself knocking out 4-5,000ft workouts and by the time I’ve showered and had a bite to eat after, I feel fully recovered, so thats big. I need some long day tests however to make sure my all-day fitness is there, and the quad will be the first of those, with an anticipated 15hrs or so on foot in the mountains. Mileage is going to start ramping up, the snow is finally melting down up high and it’s time to start hurting.

My biggest takeaway as of late is honestly, to just keep joy at the forefront of everything you do. On paper, I should probably be logging 30+ more miles a week than I am now, but I’d much rather have the time and energy to go to dinner with my wife, walk our dogs, enjoy the spring rainstorms in the mountains and enjoy the process. I truly don’t care what the outcome of race day is, 1st, last, DNF or other, it is the path to get there that means the most to me, and I’m letting myself feel.

I think so many people get paralyzed by their own self inflicted guard rails around training and get so buried in meaningless numbers. When I look at all the athletes I have coached over my 20 year career, the ones who have consistently performed the best, the most frequently, are the ones chasing vibes and adventures. The ones who burn out, who fail the most, who don’t even show up half the time, are the ones who overanalyze every metric, every workout, every step and burn themselves out in the process. Data matters, intention matters…but having a good fucking time matters more. And I’m having a good fucking time.

Onward, Always.

I’m back with a slightly more specific “coaches corner” type of post to hopefully provide some helpful insight into some training protocols that can be useful for some. Long read, fair warning.

My quick background for anyone who I haven’t interacted with: My names Kyle Long and I’ve worked full time as a run coach and sports performance specialist for 20 years (very slow ultra runner myself, love of the game type of guy 😂). I come from a more traditional strength training background in terms of my education, and work primarily with “sub-elite” runners looking to chase big objectives, not have it kill them and have the training generally fit life. I mention that because a professional runner/top end elite is going to have different training requirements than what I typically outline in my posts here and I think it’s always important to say that out loud.

Something that comes up often in conversations I have with athletes is “how do you train for a vertically demanding race/objective if you live somewhere without much uphill available?”. While there’s no 1:1 replacement for being able to train on good uphill/downhill terrain in the build up to a demanding race or objective, there is plenty you can do to at least put yourself in a position to get your ass kicked a little less.

Generally when looking at how to prepare someone stuck in the flatlands who has eyes on something with some beefy uphill, there’s two primary concepts I try to instill in people at the start:

Accept your situation: There is just a reality that the version of you living in Florida is going to most likely perform a little rougher than the version of you living in Colorado when racing in the mountains. That doesn’t mean you’re stuck with “bad performances” if you live far from terrain, but it’s an important concept to not compare yourself to those who can get 4k or gain out their front door every day because it’ll just drive you crazy. That being said, while we can’t completely replace training in terrain, we can do a lot of work to get you closer.

Accept it’ll be a grind: Training for terrain based objectives in the flats isn’t sexy, it’s not very exciting and it’s not the most fun. That sounds kinda of obvious, but it’s an expectation I think is valuable to set with yourself before you take on a project. “Do the work so you can do the job” is a good headspace to have…you’re going to be doing hard, tedious work for a while, but it’s so you can go do something epic (the job) down the road.

From there, I look at the training itself. I ask:

-What tools DOES the athlete have access to? This can mean short bits of uphill, gym access, ability to travel a few hours at selected times to access terrain etc.

-What are the specific demands of the race/outing? How much ascent and descent are we looking at? What do the biggest/most challenging climbs and descents like? How technical is the terrain?

-Finally can we simulate the above demands using the above tools? And if not 1:1, how close can we get?

While there’s no one size fits all answer to “what’s best” in this situation, there are some general concepts and ideas we can put into action to generally have you in a better position for success on terrain. While repeating that there’s never a 1:1 replacement for truly training on up/down, we can:

Prepare with the strength work. This primarily focuses on 2 fronts: ascending strength and descending durability. These are two things you can build, to a degree, in the gym.

For the up, think stepping patterns in a variety of domains and modalities. Step ups are the most obvious, but sled work (push and drag), lunge patterns, step down patterns and unilateral hinging are all tools you can use to build your uphill ability. Touch various volumes. During some blocks go high volume, low load and then strategically work the inverse during other parts of your build, with low volume, high load. Build in progression to your strength work and play the long game.

For descending, think eccentrics, isometrics and landing phase focused plyometrics. Downhill running is essentially a repeated set of deceleration patterns, so training the eccentric (lengthening portion), isometric (static holds) and landing phase plyos (emphasis on deceleration on the landing) will go a long way in building some durability in the downhill when you can’t train on downhill terrain. Because I get asked a lot, below are some examples of each of those movements. There’s dozens more with tons of variations, but these will hopefully at least give you an idea of what I’m speaking to:

-Eccentrics: split squat positions with a slow descent, RDL variations with slow descents, Patrick step down variations with slow descents etc.

-Isometrics: split squat holds, wall sits, calf raise holds etc.

-Plyometrics: drop lunges, depth drops, broad jumps etc

When worked properly into a program, these should 1) not negatively impact run performance and 2) build some downhill durability and uphill capacity.

Second, we look at “what DO you have?” access to?

For some, this might mean a lone 100ft hill, for others, it might be a stairclimber, local high school stadium stairs, hell I’ve had guys train in 8 story parking garages. Theres almost always SOME option, to do SOMETHING. Sure, repeats up a 100ft hill won’t hit the same way as a 1,500ft sustained climb, but if you can spend some time each week doing progressively more up/down efforts on any gradual grade, it’ll net you surprising amounts of durability and familiarity with moving up and down on bigger terrain. Using myself as an example: I spent about a month in a big city with literally zero uphill of any substance except for a singular, 125 foot hill. Straight up, straight down from a river bed with one little foot path up. It was spring time and I was prepping for a move into the Canadian Rockies and so for kicks and giggles one week, I did a 10,000ft week on that stupid hill. Didn’t track mileage, spent each day on the hill and while it was less than exciting, it was still 10k of up, 10k of down, broken down into a 60-90 minute session over the course of the week. Was it the same as doing a few big days in the mountains? No. Was it better than nothing? Yes. Just a one off example of making the best of what you’re given.

-Uphill Treadmill work/stairclimbers: the obvious focus here is ascending, but there’s a few ways I’ve seen success with athletes in terms of how to utilize them.

+The first is what you’d expect: long, progressive climbing sessions built intelligently into training blocks. Both power hiking sessions and lower grade run sessions on the treadmill will have value so utilize both.

+The second is to stack either the stairs or uphill power hike sessions with flat mileage to simulate the transition between uphill legs and run legs. An example of this could look something like: 4x10 minute climb at 10% grade+2 mile run. It’s simple, but taps into a little different stimulus than just hiking uphill endlessly and translates to a race environment half way decently.

Wrapping up with a few more broader scope things:

-Being intentional about your peak efforts, B2B efforts and important long runs is even more important for those stuck with limited terrain. Often, someone has access to some better vert a few hours away, but obviously that isn’t sustainable to go touch every week for most folks with family/work responsibilities. BUT, if you can look at a 12/16/20 week training build, identify a few days you can get away and make the most of them, it really pays off huge. The difference I see in race day performance when someone can combine smart training with a few intentional big days out on terrain they have to drive to vs those who just do the training smart is massive. Hire the babysitter, the dog sitter, whatever it takes if possible to get away for a big few sessions and you’ll be set up for success FAR more on race day because of it.

-Rucking. This is another long arc tool and something that can be generally useful for most distance athletes, but spending some casual miles (hiking/walking) under load each week has been proven to me time and time again as a useful thing. It’s not going to net you as significant gains as some of the other previously mentioned items, but I’ve seen a pretty marked difference in folks who get out 1-3x a week, even just on a 30 minute dog walk here and there with a pack, vest or plane carrier to spend some time under load. Obviously we get some nice stress on the legs here but you’re also getting some structural strength built around your ability to carry load (so a heavy race pack is less consequential) and generally it will help reinforce an upright posture under fatigue that can be helpful. Don’t run with it, don’t try and go ruck 20 miles with it, just spend 30-60 minutes out a time or two a week if you can for some chill movement and it’ll do you some good.

-Hammer in the accessory strength work. Spend time each week on the feet, ankles, knees and hips in any way you can. Get some mini bands, a balance board (love my mobo board, no affiliation, just genuinely enjoy it) and a foam pad and spend a little time making sure that all the little areas you may typically strengthen running in the mountains on the regular, get some love and attention.

Circling back at the end here, this is just all an accumulation of information gained over my last 20 years of coaching. Some of this may be helpful to some, all of it may be unhelpful to others and these are just some examples of what I have seen work well. But my hope whenever I throw out chunks of things I’ve learned working with people is that it can help even a few individuals here refine their training and chase the things they want a little bit better. There are other paths, other methods and ideas, concepts and training routes to go if your feet are stuck in the flats but your eyes are on the alpine, these are just ones I can speak to myself.

If you want to talk shop and learn more about how I program for mountain athletes and those chasing big, long objectives, drop me a note on my contact form HERE and we can set up a consult call.

Onward (and upward), always!

I coach a lot of savage humans chasing absurd objectives.

Bailey is a prime example of one of these people.

After a great 100 debut at Javelina last year, where she finished sub 21 hours, she set her eyes on the world of the 200+ mile outings and jumped in the wait list for Cocodona 250, got in and demolished it.

In the immediate aftermath of big races like this, I know there’s a lot of people putting eyes on potentially running a 200+ miler in the future when hype is high. The conversation of “how do you train for something like this” pops up a fair amount, and with her cracking the top 10 on the women’s side of things at this years 250 and top 35 overall, I thought I’d share a zoomed out version of what her training build looked like, so you could see a real world example of what a successful build can look like for a race like Cocodona.

For perspective, she is not a “professional runner”. She works a demanding, shift work based job, has a normal life and balances training with many of the regular variables us normal folks deal with. I think that’s an important thing to say out loud, because often we only see examples of what works for the “pros” or “elites” who run and train as their primary job.

We had eyes on Cocodona ever since she got on the waitlist, but weren’t sure she’d get in, so in the 4-6 weeks leading up to her getting in off the waitlist, we kept a fairly manageable weekly mileage load of 40-55, hit the gym work pretty hard and kind of idled until we knew she was in for the race. Even though we were pretty sure she would get off the waitlist, there wasn’t a point in cranking miles up too far out as we knew there would be substantial work ahead.

At 10 weeks out, she was in, and so we dove into our build. The objective was to spend 3 weeks of a fairly aggressive build before peaking in a singular, large effort peak week with a big B2B2B effort. She lives near terrain, so we were able to get a fair amount of up/down without too much extra effort and through the first 3 weeks and the last 3 weeks of this build, we generally kept 2-3 strength days a week on the schedule.

Her peak week consisted of a big back to back to back effort, 15 miles, 40 miles and 18 over a Friday/Saturday/Sunday.

We peaked her out at 5 weeks with the idea being that if we had any major issues with fueling etc, we still had 3ish weeks to figure it out (thankfully it all went well) before we started tapering down.

As you can see below, both the mileage and vertical generally built up progressively, peaked, then dropped down, with the last 2 weeks being very friendly in comparison to the primary build.

Her build break down:

9 weeks out- 71 miles, 11,000ft of gain
8 weeks out- 90 miles, 12,000ft of gain
7 weeks out- 101 miles, 13,000ft of gain
6 weeks out-118 miles, 20,400ft of gain
5 weeks out- 100 miles, 13,900ft of gain
4 weeks out-90 miles, 8,000ft of gain
3 weeks out- 66 miles, 10,600ft of gain
2 weeks out-55 miles, 1,700ft of gain
Taper week- 25 miles, 1,300ft of gain

The 9 week build was some hard work and is a huge example of why I’m such a proponent of keeping off-build weekly mileage much lower. None of these weeks felt harder for her than they should, even though she doesn’t live at 70-100 mpw during her off season like many folks do. She was fresh, mentally sharp and generally held together body and mind really well in the 9 week block. I used a very similair plan for another athlete who finished Moab 240 earlier in the year, with the same lower mileage, heavy on the strength training, idea built into his down periods of the year.

There isn’t a one size fits all training plan for this kind of distance and even what I’ve outlined here is just what worked for one person. However, seeing what has worked for people, can help you decide 1) if this type of race is something you want to prepare for and 2) what approach you want to take in your training for it. The training is just one aspect to a 200+ mile objective, with endless logistics like sleep, fueling, support, pacing and more all equally as critical as having the legs to cover the distance.

Super fucking proud of this killer and excited to see the next big endeavor she takes on (Mammoth 200) go down.

If you’re curious about putting in some work to train for a 100, 200 or just generally “way out there” objective, drop me a note on my website and we can shoot the shit on a call and see if I can be of help.

Onward, Always.

I struggle to connect with the mundane.

I moved to the PNW from the Midwest with zero climbing experience and recklessly launched into soloing. I have spent many days nobody knows about on rock I had no business being on and have covered miles and terrain I probably should not have been able to. I somehow survived long enough to have my experiences shape my views on what it means to live and create a deeper connection to this reality than I ever knew to be possible. I formed my own version of what it meant to explore my existence, to feel what it means to be human, to feel alive, to shake hands with death. I would quietly slip away in the mornings to go do things few will ever do and nobody will ever know about because I wanted to see what life is, for me. I’ve never written in detail about these days, I have never told anyone the stories from these adventures, they do not live on any social media posts …and they never will. Because those moments were my path to finding what life is at its outer edges, nothing more.

The photo above was taken the day after I had skin cancer cut from my face, a result of catching rockfall with my jaw during a day in the mountains followed by an entire summer of baking the wound in alpine sunshine while climbing. I wear my sunscreen now (you should too) but I never look at the scar it left or any of the others I’ve collected with anything except pride. They remind me I have lived and continue to live. I want to be weathered, I want to have a map of my experiences carved into my flesh. I want to bleed, hurt, grow, evolve and become more.

We as a species weren’t created inherently weak minded, but we unfortunately have evolved. We have turned into creatures of comfort, of ease, of the smoothest path to the softest destination. Truly hard men and women are hard to find in the sea of those who pose, pretend or downright submit to the versions of life that require less of them.

I am unable to understand the lives of those who do not strive to milk every bit of life from this existence.

My eyes glaze over when I see someone wasting hours of their day melting into a video game, into a bottle or a cubicle, into augmented realities that shield them from the most insane lived experience known to exist in this universe. Equally, my ears ring and fill with static when I listen to a habitual “talker” express all the life they will live only to remain stagnant.

I cannot stand the talkers and I hate the wasters.

I am not impressed by the every day. I don’t find a town in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a Taco Bell and a gas station “cute”. I find it a sad prison where generations of people never escape and die in. I don’t accept that someone spending 10 hours a day in an office away from their families and passions for 40 years, no matter how normalized it’s become, to be the path to anyones highest state. While I recognize there are realities at points of life for many that would be labeled “less than ideal” which are part of a larger journey, I cannot relate to those do not fight tooth and nail to escape and evolve from these situations. Why do so many just roll over and give in? Are you really just going to give up and coast for 60-70 years until the lights go out?

I have never met a free thinking, well traveled, constantly tested and challenged human whose life story was less spectacular than someone who spent their existence sedentary, stagnant and content with how things are.

I cannot and will not have any desire to ever be able to understand how a person can look at this nearly impossible-to-be existence we have all been given and choose to do anything less than everything possible. We are stardust arranged into consciousness, on a rock hurtling through an endless universe, during an impossibly too small to fathom period of time. How can any of us settle?

I have been intentional with those I surround myself with. My circle consists of humans touching the outer limits of what is possible, exploring existence via effort. It makes anything less seem, pathetic.

This is not to say my specific way of finding meaning and exploring life is the way but it is a way and I cannot be convinced that someone just idling through life is living to the same degree as myself and those around me who I see on the cutting edge of their version of existing. The ones so often labeled reckless, crazy, obsessed and dangerous are the small minority actually experiencing the depths of this life. Those titles are bestowed upon them by lazy, weak people too afraid to step up and find their own true potential.

I don’t have a poetic way to end this thought train. I feel most of who read this will be in the small circle I call doers, and to them, I nod my head in recognition of a shared stride. To anyone else leaving a lot of life on the table, I say start honoring your existence. You were made for more. You will never arrive, there is always work to be done. Empty the tank and go down swinging.

Onward, Always.

For most, winter is behind us (or at least waving goodbye) and that means big objectives, early season races and beefy miles are close, if not already here.

We’ve built a base in a variety of ways through the winter and into the spring, now, as we finalize our launch into the fun stuff on foot, we’re going to lean into some hyper specific strength and plyometric work designed to make sure your first big outings are successful.

Mileage is most likely starting to pile up, so we want to make sure 1) we’re durable and connected to handle it and 2) we’re fresh to perform well on foot. This month, we’ll run through 2 distinct sessions each week. In a perfect world, you’ll do these each twice through the week, with a rest day in between (Monday/Tuesday, Thursday/Friday for example). Each movement has a recommendation for how to progress the session each week included in the prescription.

Train smart, train hard, rip some miles and get to work.

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Another crossover post here from Reddit that I wrote a while back that seemed to be helpful. The topic of strength work pops up a lot there. I see a lot of “what’s the best exercise/routine” and generally a lot of questions related to the space of gym work. You’ll often see me reply with “there’s no one size fits all” to a lot of these questions, so at least for now, I’m not going to try and post a sample strength block as an example to the below points because it’s just too dependent on the individual.

What I will do though, is talk you through the process I use as a coach when deciding how I’m going to build an athletes strength protocol. My hope is that you can then use this as a tool when building your own program, when looking at generalized programming or when working with a coach, to make sure you’re getting the best ROI on the work you’re putting in.

When I’m looking at an athlete I coach and am building out their strength program, I walk through the following questions/thoughts. Some seem obvious, but I think it’s valuable to say them out loud and to see them as part of the bigger process.

What are the specific objectives of this strength protocol?

This sounds very obvious, but it’s often the least examined with depth and arguably the most important. People TYPICALLY fall into two camps: I only want the bare minimum strength work to assist my running OR I have secondary objectives I’d like my strength work to help with (aesthetics, secondary activities like climbing, MTB, etc etc etc) in addition to making me a better runner. It’s really important to identify which you fall into and also to acknowledge that the answer can be different, at different times of year.

Maybe you’re a big back country skier in winter and then run ultras in the spring, summer and fall. You might have a period of time leading into the winter where the strength work reflects the need to transition from trails to ski’s and vice versa coming out of ski season into the spring. You may also have periods in the spring, summer and fall where the work should reflect solely the needs of your running.

All of this to say, look at your objectives both from a macro and micro level, and make sure you’re clearly identifying what you want to accomplish, because if you don’t, you’ll always have a less than optimal program.

What are the objectives, within the objectives?

This builds deeper on the concept I just discussed. Once you’ve identified the macro level objectives, you need to look deeper to then decide the specific tools you need to incorporate in a strength program.

Are you looking for purely performance related outcomes? Or do you also want to shore up that knee that’s been cranky for the last 4 months and work on your mobility a little so you can get your shoes on without risking throwing your back out? Are you strong ascending but weak descending on trails? Do you find your posterior chain breaking down deep into a race or notice your glutes aren’t firing well? These types of things are all the points you want to glance at while determining what the specific nature of your strength work will look like.

People often look at strength work superficially as “I want to get stronger to run better”, which, cool, but what that also looks like can mean improving durability, reducing injury risk, preventing old injuries from returning and generally improving your ability to “do the thing” in addition to “being better at the thing”. So look at both what you feel you need to be better at your objective, but also what you can improve to be able to DO your objectives more and what’s limited you in the past.

Nuts and bolts first

So now we’ve got an idea of the “why” and “where we wanna go” with a program. Now you need the identify the tools you need to get there.

This is a topic, as I alluded to at the start, that is highly individual and will look very different for everyone. But the approach you take to determine what exercises, rep ranges etc you need, is one a more generalized audience can follow to find their personal answer.

Look at your objectives you outlined, what are their demands? List them, then start with the most foundational way to improve them. Does your descending suck in the mountains? Cool, start with deceleration patterns. Do you keep rolling your left ankle? Cool, start with some low leg balance and stability work. Do you want to gain 5lbs of lean mass? Cool, make sure your reps are at least partially hypertrophy focused.

Start stupidly simple. Don’t get caught up in the shiny object of “WHAT’S THE BEST EXERCISE TO HELP ME RUN A SUB 24hr 100” or try to throw in every single exercise you see in a reel on IG. Strength is a long, steady, simple game. Build a program around the foundational work you need, sprinkle in a little extra fun and progress it month after month after month. There’s rarely a point in doing an extremely advanced version of a squatting pattern if you can’t perform a basic bodyweight squat, to depth, with quality. So check the ego a little and work through the progressions needed.

This stuff again, can sound obvious, but objectives aren’t reachable without the tools to get there.

What can I realistically dedicate to my strength work each week?

I believe you should always under promise, over deliver, even to yourself. So when looking at how you’re going to structure your weeks, it’s pretty important to be objective about what you think you can put into the gym work so that you don’t set yourself up to fail before you even start.

Typically, we want to see at least 2 days a week on the strength work. That’s enough to maintain and slow build some progress and won’t eat up too much of your time. That being said, 3, even 4 days for some folks, can really supercharge your ROI on the strength work, IF and WHEN you have the time.

When I look at an athletes weekly schedule and am building out their strength work, I start with what I know. If I know they can get 2 full gym sessions in a week and a 20 minute at home session, that’s my baseline. If I’d like them to get a 3rd gym session in, but know they have a busy life and can’t always make sure that happens, I put all the critical work in their 2 “for sure” sessions and literally label a third session “OPTIONAL STRENGTH” and toss in the accessory pieces I’d love them to get in, but that won’t be a big deal if they miss.

You can put this into practice yourself. Structure your weeks conservatively around what you KNOW you can do. Make sure the important nuts and bolts are in those sessions, then give yourself some grace to be a busy human, while also charting out a plan for if life lets you get some extra work in.

Just the visual of seeing a session listed as optional can both make the week less stressful but also have an option in front of you if life allows a little extra work. I liken it to people who make lists. Sure you know most of what you need to do today, but if it’s written in front of you, you’ll probably get it done more effectively than if you’re winging it from a busy brain.

Write it out

Put your plan on paper (or in an app, spreadsheet, etc). Obviously if you’re working with a coach or a program, this is most likely done. But if you’re DYI’ing things, it pays to chart out the path forward for at least a month at a time.

This doesn’t mean you need to draw out the specifics of every single workout for every single session for a month, but at minimum, create a calendar and label the days. “Tempo work, long run, gym day upper, gym day lower, rest day, mobility session” etc etc. Back to the list concept: if it’s in front of you, in writing, you’re far more likely to get it done, so just give yourself a path to follow. Put in the optional days, write in your vacations and races and busy work weeks. The more you can set yourself up for success, the more you will succeed.

And that’s (kinda) it, the TLDR version of the above is simply: identify objectives, outline needs of the objectives, pick the tools, determine your available bandwidth and chart out the path.

This is the exact blueprint I use when building a program for someone and like I said, is something you can use in your own design or when analyzing it a new program or coach is right for you.

As always, hope this can be helpful for even just one person.

Onward, always 🫡

Prescribed mileage: None/Competed mileage 36.48

Prescribed vert: 10-15k/Completed vert 15,118ft

Going up!

Finally found the legs, the motivation and clear enough trails to crank up the vert train.

The objective this week was essentially: Collect as much vert as you can, within reason, in as few miles as possible. 36 miles and 15k of gain later, I’ll call it a solid little week.

The climbing legs felt good and I was able to bag a summit of Lady Mac thanks to just enough cornice melt to allow me to dance along the ridge line. The rest of the week was spent on some shorter, steeper terrain to try and jump start the uphill capacity and I finished with a nice 5,000ft day that felt very strong. The biggest win was feeling fitter at the end of the week compared to the start, and with a week ahead of very spring like temperatures, my eyes are starting to settle on my first big training day out, which will most likely be a round of the Canmore Quad, but doing it from home, which will be sweet.

I’ve found myself battling the down days and keep reminding myself that you can’t give up on a hard objective just because a day feels hard. This is such a long build toward a very unknown-for-me distance, that I know just showing up when it’s good, bad and in between, is what will get me to the finish line.

I’m enjoying the approach of not being a slave to numbers right now mileage wise, and plan to take the next few weeks as pretty free play on that front, while pushing the vert more and more until 20k weeks are feeling pretty manageable. The alpine should be really melting out in the next 14-21 days, so the real fun will begin then, and I can’t fucking wait to be back peak bagging with my wife and sharing the big days out together.

Listening to an audio book today, I was drawn to the line “Do the work so you can do the job” and I really appreciated it in the frame of prepping for a big race like this. It isn’t always fun, sexy or exciting (it is most the time though!) and on those days, it’s helpful to remind myself of the bigger picture and bigger objective.

But stoke is high, the body is feeling good and winter is finally about to piss off, so the fun can and will begin.

Big work coming up, now we do the things to do the thing.

Onward, Always.

No prescribed miles, no prescribed vert

My final week of being a lazy baby!

After my VERY early initial build period, I just needed a break. I built up to 85 mile weeks running in the depths of winter on sidewalks with no scenery, and my brain just needed a regroup. Spring is finally creeping in, and this final down week, I decided I’d have a little fun, recharge a little more and get ready to rip harder soon.

I think this has been a really nice practice in patience. I started my initial build far too early because I lacked it. I watched a few race videos on YouTube got amped and built my build to start too far out. Now that I’ve recharged a little, it’s time to get to work on the beefier work.

I’m going to start chasing some vert as the alpine melts out the next few weeks. My long run legs feel good, my uphill legs need work, so I’m going to take advantage of my backyard playground and rip up hill, often.

I’m going to document a lot of the big build on my instagram on a day to day basis and give some insights into fueling, recovery etc. So if you want to get more of a behind the scenes look into what a 200 mile spring and summer prep build looks like, follow along there.

No more being a little bitch, time to get to work.

Onward, Always.

A while back, I posted a version of this to Reddit and received a lot of positive feedback and somewhere in the neighborhood of 200k views, so I felt it could be a valuable resource to publish here as well. At the end of 2025, I condensed some thoughts and ideas I had developed after looking back on my year of coaching. It was by far my busiest, and most successful year as a coach from the perspective of athlete performance, and I noticed some repeating patterns and concepts that I feel can help others if identified, as they navigate their own training experience.

To some, a lot of this may sound like common sense and that’s ok, for others, I hope it maybe can answer questions you’ve had or validate thoughts you’ve had.

A quick run down of my athlete base so you have context for my points: I work primarily with people who are just looking to enjoy ultras, not have them destroy their body and have the training fit life. Not to say my runners don’t train hard or chase big things, I had folks bring home finished at Moab, UTMB TDS and dozens of other big 50k-100 milers. But what I do not work much with are athletes who are chasing a 14hr 100, a 2:15 marathon, a podium at Leadville etc. I make that distinguishing statement because different training methodologies and concepts fit different archetypes and my reflections below won’t all fit the more elite/sub-elite types.

Onto my condensed-ish thoughts:

You can cover big distances on low(er) mileage. If I averaged out all my 100 mile athletes, their peak weeks would settle around 60-65 miles. Over almost 20 years of coaching, I’ve seen a better success rate of 100 mile/100k finishers in my athlete type utilizing well built, progressive back to back efforts vs huge overall weekly mileage. The only times I’ve ever programmed a 100+ mile week in my entire career were for my folks chasing 200 mile+ objectives.

Strength work is a massive advantage, first and foremost from an injury prevention standpoint. I push all of my people to spend time on strength work and build programs that integrate well into their run work, but not for the most obvious reasons. There is of course a performance perspective, especially those training for big terrain objectives who are stuck in the flatlands, but the rate of decline in ankle/knee/hip/posterior chain injuries I see is absolutely, directly correlated to how well people follow their strength programs. You can get the barebones of what you need in 2-3, half hour sessions a week, so don’t say you don’t have time.

A jump off point from the above is that INTENSITY MATTERS. If your strength work is solely focused on helping you as a runner (as opposed to secondary focus points like aesthetics etc) then it should rarely leave you feeling so crushed that it affects your run work negatively. Fight the urge to “Goggins” your way through the gym. It’s a long arc, treat it that way. Work over long, progressive, slow building arcs. If you’re so sore you can’t get out for your runs the next day, you probably need to make some tweaks (but not cut it out completely).

Nutrition REALLY matters. I’m personally guilty of fueling 8 hour training days on some sour patch kids and a dream, but then I married a sports nutritionist and realized I probably was being an idiot. I don’t live and die by the calorie/macro now, but I made some low hanging fruit changes to my days and my fueling that on their own have increased my capacity to train massively. Something as simple as “I drink a big bottle of water first thing before I make my coffee”, “once a quarter I track a few days of eating to make sure I’m at least generally close on my macros” to being slightly more mindful in how I fuel my training days. I was getting by on garbage nutrition but a slightly less bit of garbage has really gone a long way. TLDR: it didn’t take a massive overhaul to make an impact on the fueling front.

Make sure you have plans but let your heart adjust them. I’ve seen some of my athletes get married to a race schedule that they fall out of love with, and it really damages their relationship with running. At the end of the day, 99% of us are doing this because we love it and we want to do it as long as possible. The rate at which you can become resentful towards running is scary fast if you end up forcing yourself into efforts you don’t truly want to be a part of. Social media can suck and there’s so much grandstanding out there that it’s important to remember you only are seeing your people’s best. Be whatever version of a runner your heart and mind wants, and that can change year to year, even month to month. Want to go long? Go long. Want to spend the fall getting fast for a marathon? Do that. Want to go do stuff in the mountains? Cool to do it. Just don’t get too hung up on being one type of “thing” simply because you’ve been that thing before.

Sleep. I’ve seen countless athletes of mine try to tough-guy their way through on 4-5 hours of sleep. I won’t go into all the science and reasoning behind it, but I’ll just say that it is night and day in terms of performance and mental health for my people who consistently get the sleep they need vs those who don’t. It’s not woo-woo hippie stuff and it’s easy to say but even easier to neglect. Create healthy sleep habits and you’ll see your recovery and performance go through the roof.

That’s generally what I felt could be helpful to hear here. I hope you all have a great spring of training and races and do some epic stuff.

Onward, always 🤜🤛

Prescribed mileage: NA/Completed miles: 31.42 miles

Prescribed vert: NA/ Completed vert: 10,019 feet

Did he chase a down week with an even more down week? God damn right he did.

Last week was a whirlwind, moving into a new house and spending time with the in-laws for Easter, so coming home on Sunday, I was excited to settle into the new house and explore the out-the-front-door trail access. I was feeling pretty worn down from move week so decided to take a totally unstructured, no numbers driven week. I just wanted to see what I could access from our new place and go up as much as possible as winter is finally slowly starting to break.

And I did. Grabbing a 10,000ft week pretty easily and snagging the first true summit of the spring, I enjoyed a lot of cruiser miles on some single track around town. The access from the new house is ridiculous as I can tap into probably close to 250 miles of alpine trail systems out my door and bag a half dozen summits from home without thinking twice about it, so this spring is going to be a lot of UP. Legs felt and body felt generally tired coming down from the big move week, so I hit the gym a little harder than normal, got my bearings on some trails and capped the week off with a fun little shuffle up Lady Mac, which still had a pretty solid cornice on its ridge line (thankfully you could dance around it).

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a few days in the last few weeks that I second guessed chasing the 200 miler, but I recognized it was a product of life being busy and already feel the fire returning, so pretty stoked about that. The temps are finally steadily above freezing which means 1) it’s going to be a real wet week ahead and 2) the alpine will be clearing soon. My plan is to take the next few weeks to not be a slave to numbers, but to ramp back up the miles and settle back into 50-80 mile weeks and then when everything’s truly melted out, I’ll throw my 100+ mile weeks into the mix with some pretty epic days and some big back to backs.

Big stuff ahead and I can’t wait.

Onward, Always.