Steve House sees the convergence of technical climbing and mountaineering as "New Alpinism." And the athleticism required to be an all-around alpinist demands a training regimen as diverse as the skills of the blended climbing disciplines used. His coaching company, Uphill Athlete, grew from his work helping lead other alpinists, mountaineers and athletes based on personal learnings and fundamental endurance coaching.For 21 years, Steve House was a professional climber and has been a professional mountain guide since 1992. His most famous ascent was Nanga Parbat's Rupal Face in 2005, which earned him and Vincent Anderson the acclaimed The Piolet d'Or ("Golden Ice Axe"). Reinhold Messner called him "The best high-altitude climber in the world."He has also compiled an impressive list of first ascents and new routes in Alaska, the Canadian Rockies, the Alps and the Himalayas. Since retiring from professional climbing, House has coauthored "Training for the New Alpinism" and "Training for the Uphill Athlete," as well as becoming a co-founder of the coaching company Uphill Athlete. 

Despite establishing a career in the financial domain after college, Amy Charity took a big gamble, trading boardrooms for race courses. She is now a former professional cyclist and member of a World Championship time trial team for the United States, and author of "The Wrong Side of Comfortable." Her new career is co-founder and owner of the SBT GRVL gravel event that has become one of the marquee cycling events in North America.Charity now focuses her efforts in the cycling community, bringing more diversity and new cyclists to the gravel roads of Colorado. Additionally, she's become a coach to several beginners learning and training their way to take on the various distances of SBT GRVL. She has created an opening for more riders to experience the gravel scene through partnerships with other cycling advocacy groups.

Dr. Ross is a clinical psychologist in Denver, Colo. specializing in athlete mental health and performance. He helps address issues such as anxiety, depression, disordered eating and insomnia while aiming to develop high-performance sports psychology skills within any field of play. Dr. Ross authored the Introduction to Sports Psychology for Endurance Coaches course through TrainingPeaks University. Learn the fundamentals of Sports Psychology with specific techniques to keep your athletes motivated, confident, and performing their best.He also helps athletes manage the psychological impact of injury or transition back into their sport. He's an athlete and has competed in IRONMAN® 70.3s and qualified for the Boston Marathon nine times with race plans for the Silver Rush and Leadville 100 Mountain Bike races, followed by the Berlin and London marathons back-to-back in the fall.

Ultramarathon running is a complex sport. Jason Koop's updated book, "Training Essentials for Ultrarunning," dives into the complexity to help answer many of the questions that ultrarunners and other competitors face as endurance athletes. The book is filled with evidence-based methodologies that may be useful for athletes in other endurance sports beyond ultrarunning.Koop is a leading authority and one of the most sought-after coaches in trail and ultrarunning. He has over 20 years of coaching experience and is the head coach at CTS Ultrarunning. He's an ultrarunner in his own right, having completed a 250-mile race recently and is preparing for Hardrock 100 this summer.Athletes looking for training guidance for ultra-distance sports beyond ultrarunning may find the evidence-based methodologies useful for their training. Koop self-published the book and hosts a podcast, Koopcast, centered on ultrarunning performance. You can find more information about him and his book at jasonkoop.com.

Joy and Brian McCulloch are the husband and wife team behind the southern California-based Big Wheel Coaching. Joy was a high school P.E. teacher and professional mountain biker. Her vision behind Big Wheel Coaching was to bring P.E. to adults by providing structure, feedback and accountability to athletes. Brian joined the business in 2016 and has over 15 years of professional road, mountain bike and gravel racing experience, and he currently races for the Bianchi Gravel Team.Big Wheel Coaching has developed a Race Day Ready program to help their athletes hit collaborated goals. Joy and Brian develop a plan — many times a physical plan — to achieve the desired objective while also preparing for various aspects they will encounter during a race that might be unique to the course or new to the racer. In addition to the planning, they attend the races to guide mini-clinics on the days before or day of the race to help guide clients and, at times, other racers to be aware of situations they may encounter on the course. Or to get off the line with an opportunity for success.Listen in as they talk about what they've found essential to help racers successful in a race day "stadium" that many have limited experience with or limited occasions to practice. 

Recognized as one of the world’s leading sports nutrition experts, Asker Jeukendrup is the author of several books on sports nutrition and over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles on exercise and sports nutrition.He started a consulting business, mysportsscience.com, where he advises teams and organizations. Jeukendrup is currently head of nutrition for the Dutch Olympic Committee, Jumbo-Visma pro cycling team, the Red Bull Athlete Performance Center and several other professional nutrition and exercise organizations. Including Core Nutrition, which is an app that provides detailed nutrition information for your races and training.Dirk Friel talks with Jeukendrup about nutrition planning and strategy for race day and what athletes should aim for to stay fueled up for high-intensity racing. They also talk through some misconceptions that may lead to gastrointestinal (GI) issues and how to prevent them from undermining your performance.

Dr. Andy Pruitt, whose professional legacy includes the pioneering of 3-D bike fits, three patents for the development of Specialized Body Geometry shoes and saddles, all of which are designed to help optimize performance and comfort based on individual anatomy. Dr. Pruitt has spent his entire career helping thousands of riders from Tour de France contenders to local racers achieve their own brand of freedom and comfort on the bike. He served as director of sports medicine at the University Of Colorado and was a founder and director of the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine.He joins Dirk Friel on CoachCast to talk about the origins of bike fitting, the importance of turning a foot into a proper lever for power, the balance of aerodynamic body position and power, the future of bike fitting and his next venture of making cycling safer.

Gwen Jorgensen won the triathlon gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympic games after a pair of ITU World Triathlon Series championships in 2014 and 2015. She has since retired from professional triathlon and is focused on marathon running. She will be inducted into the USA Triathlon Hall of Fame in August of 2022. After contracting COVID-19 recently, she and elite athlete coach Bobby McGee reset her goals and plans for the year. The situation has given them both a new perspective on training and racing. Listen in as Dirk Friel talks about the various challenges of recovering from the illness and how running form and surface impact runners.

Ryan Hall left the pro running circuit in 2016. The U.S. half marathon record-holder and unofficial American marathon record-holder has a new passion these days — bodybuilding. From running a sub-2:05 Boston Marathon in 2011 to putting on 40 pounds of muscle, Hall found a new fulfilling way of expressing himself after his body told him his competitive long-distance running days were over.The two-time Olympian joins Dirk to discuss the process of shifting disciplines, the challenges and benefits of coaching his wife Sara, and the coaching lessons he's learned throughout his 20-year career and beyond.

Peter Stetina was an accomplished World Tour road cyclist before embracing gravel racing in 2019. He quickly established himself as one of the best in the sport, winning Utah’s Crusher in the Tushar, the 2021 Belgian Waffle Ride San Diego and the inaugural Leadboat, which is the combination of two arduous endurance races for a total of 250 miles over two days. In 2020, he set the course record on the infamous White Rim Trail in Moab, Utah. Stetina, son of U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame inductee Dale Stetina, joins Dirk to discuss the ever-evolving sport of gravel racing, his successful 2021 season, self-coaching and van life.