Racing at High Altitude

Earlier this week, Endurance Planet hosted a live, interactive webinar on Racing at High Altitude with Dr. Scott Drum. Drum is the Director of the High Altitude Performance Lab at Western State College in Colorado. He’s also the founder of the Gunnison Endurance Project. Today on Endurance Planet, we’re making the audio portion of that webinar available to all our listeners. Special thanks to our webinar sponsor: AltoLab Altitude Training Simulator. Look for more Endurance Planet webinars in the weeks to come!

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Completing the Barkley

Each year for a quarter of a century, a race has been held in Frozen Head State Park, Tennessee that most of the world has never heard of. The Barkley. The Barkley Marathons 100-mile Run puts the toughest ultramarathons to shame. In some ways the word “race” doesn’t quite fit with Barkley. Because—leading up to this past weekend—this “race” had only been completed 8 times. But Jonathan Basham of Allentown, Pennsylvania emerged from the woods after 59 hours and 18 minutes, alone and victorious. JB, the 9th official finisher of the grueling challenge, joins us today on Endurance Planet.

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Hills Worth the Climb: The Incline & Koko Crater

Just when you think you’ve traversed the worst hill there is, someone thousands of miles away does you one better. After “running” The Incline in Manitou Springs, Colorado, I get a message from someone in Hawaii who said, “take a look at this!” Koko Crater does, in fact, have a lot of visual similarities to The Incline. Both, it would seem, are worth the effort.

The Incline

You’d be hard-pressed to find more difficult “hill” training than The Incline which is located on the mountainside in Manitou Springs, Colorado. A specially-designed train used to take locals up to the top where they could bask in remarkable views. Now local athletes—Olympians and age groupers alike—use this ridiculously steep trail for exercise. The view from the top is worth it.