Jason Koop is the Director of Coaching for Carmichael Training Systems, coach to elite ultrarunners, and an accomplished ultramarathoner. Koop walks the walk—or runs the run, as the case may be—when it comes to ultras. His journey from a cross-country runner at Texas A&M to ultra coach started with a postgraduation internship at CTS in the summer of 2001. A runner in a company of predominantly cycling coaches, Koop was quickly drafted and trained to be the company’s lead running coach. In 2006 he traveled around the United States coaching and supporting Dean Karnazes as the “Ultramarathon Man” ran 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days. Karnazes again tapped Koop’s expertise in 2011 for “Regis and Kelly’s Run Across America with Dean Karnazes,” a nearly 3,000-mile cross-country run.

As the director of coaching for CTS, Koop coaches runners, cyclists, and triathletes in his role as a CTS premier coach. He also oversees the recruitment, education, and ongoing evaluation of more than 30 full-time endurance coaches and has developed CTS’s quality assurance system for coaching as well as the CTS Coaching College. His personal ultrarunning resume includes two top-10 finishes at the Leadville Trail 100 Run and finishes at some of ultrarunning’s most formidable events, including the Western States Endurance Run, the Badwater 135, the Wasatch 100, and the Hardrock 100.

Jim Rutberg is the media director and a coach for CTS. He is coauthor, with Chris Carmichael, of The Time-Crunched Cyclist, The Time-Crunched Triathlete, The Ultimate Ride, Chris Carmichael’s Food for Fitness, Chris Carmichael’s Fitness Cookbook, The Carmichael Training Systems Cyclist’s Training Diary, 5 Essentials for a Winning Life, The Time-Crunched Cyclist and innumerable web and magazine articles. His work has appeared in Bicycling, Outside, Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, VeloNews, Inside Triathlon, and more. A graduate of Wake Forest University and a former elite cyclist, Rutberg lives in Colorado Springs with his family.