Trail Runner Nation

A few weeks ago we spoke with Addie Bracy about mental training. We loved it so much we bought her book, Mental Training for Ultrarunning: Your Psychological Skills for Ultra Success, and asked AJW if he would join us to talk about the principles she writes about. Visit her mental performance page at Strive Mental Performance

We often see photos of people, especially outside the USA, running with poles. Running with poles can be more efficient - using both legs and arms to help you uphills. Have you ever considered running with poles or not sure how to use them proplerly? In this month's Training Principles episode, we get some sound advice from four professional runners, Max King, Courtney Dauwalter, Sabrina Stanley, and Tim Tollefson on how to be successful with poles. Check out Max King's runnning camp Sabrina's coaching Check our Leki, if you want the best poles on the trail.

Runner, coach, certified nutritionist and author Matt Fitzgerald teams up with the coach of the Hoka Northern Arizona Elite team, Ben Rosario, to help us understand how the pros run. In their new book, they help us understand that we can reach our potential if we include some of these training techniques and strategies. Matt has been on TRN ten previous times including the episode we referenced, How Bad Do you Want It? Find out more about Matt and coaching at 8020endurance.com

We've all heard the saying, "Ultra running is 90% mental and the rest is in your head". Addie Bracy a sports and performance phychologist rejoins The Nation to dive deep into this oft-times neglected part of our training. We discuss mental toughness and how it correlates to performance, mental distractions, and how to get into the "zone". Check out her book, book, Mental Training for Ultrarunning: Your Psychological Skills for Ultra Success Visit her mental performance page at Strive Mental Performance

Trails can be intimidating with varying technical challenges. Four coaches from Sharman Ultra Coaching help us understand these challenges and give us some tips on how to feel more comfortable. Ian Sharman, Liza Howard, Hillary Allen and Addie Bracy are all excellent technical trail runners and share their knowledge with us. Learn more about mental training at Addie's web site: strivementalperformance.com or her new book, Mental Training for Ultrarunning: Your Psychological Skills for Ultra Success FInd out more about Hillary Allen HERE Find out more about Liza Howard HERE Check out Liza's great camp for veterans and their families HERE

Hillary Allen was on the top of her sport, Skyrunning, when she fell 150 feet off an exposed ridge, breaking two ribs, fracturing her back, ruptuing a ligament in her foot and breaking both wrists. She joins The Nation to discuss the mindset of injury recovery, why having a support system matters, and the importance of balance in athletics. LINK to her Tedx CU talk LINK to Hillary's web site Get her Book, Out and Back: A Runner's Story of Survival Against All Odds

Sometimes we just have to have a light fun episode. We invited Andy Jones-Wilkins to join us on a new type of episode, Spin the Bottle, a randomized vocabulary game. Join us and play along. We referenced AJW's postmortem episode shortly after his first DNF. HERE is that episode. Hire Andy as a coach! or check out his weekly Tap Room at iRunFar

Dr. Megan Roche helps us all, men and women, understand the physiological differences that women have and how it might be an advantage. Dr. Roche is an MD and current PhD candidate at Standford University working on epidemiology, focused on population health and genetics for athletes, spedifically women. she is also a freaking fast runner: 2016 USATF Trail Runner of the Year 5-time national champion North American Mountain Running Champion 6-time member of team USA She is the co-author of, The Happy Runner: Love the Process, Get Faster, Run Longer and co-host of the popular podcast, "Some Work, All Play" You can also hire her or their coaches at SWAPRunning. Check out this past episode with Megan and David about their book.

In our second monthly installment of Training Principles, we attack the subject of consistency. Joining us on this episode are some amazing coaches and consistent runners. We chose some running and coaching couples for this episode: Megan Roche: Consistency in Speed Happy Running Coaching Some Work, All Play podcast Book: The Happy Runner: Love the Process, Get Faster, Run Longer David Roche: Consistency in aerobic development Emily (Harrison) Torrence: Consistency will help you run injury free Sundog Running Coaching, Running camp and Racing Ian Torrence: Consistency and goal setting-both within a season and within an event

Eric Clifton was inducted into the American UltraRunning Hall of Fame in 2021. He was the fastest and most dominating 100-mile trail runner in the 1990s. He has amassed more than 60 ultra wins and his win ratio at the 100-mile distance is staggering 17 wins of his 31 finishes and more than 20 course records. His strategy was very different from the norm back then. And get this....He has 19 years of his career where he won at least one ultra. We sit down and talk with Eric about his experiences back in the early 90s and how he went against conventional wisdom to race the way he wanted to race. He talks about how running saved his life. Be sure to listen to his complete story on UtraRunning History Podcast.