The Endurance Drive Podcast

In this week’s episode of the podcast, Elena and Katie are welcoming on a repeat guest who always has plenty of life wisdom to share. Gina des Cognets — an executive coach for teams and individuals and a badass athlete herself — talks us through how she approaches uncertainty and risk in the pursuit of ambitious goals, practical strategies for establishing a routine, and how to think about balance between career, sport, family, and life. She also talks us through her evolution as an athlete, and specifically how she and Katie have collaborated on her training in recent years, how she thinks about listening to her body vs. pushing harder, what races and goals are most exciting to her in training and how that has evolved over time, and how she has approached perimenopause as an athlete. In addition to Gina’s awesome perspective, Katie and Elena riff on some insights related to courage and anxiety in workouts, body image, and down weeks and share some fun gear picks of the week related to gels, apparel, and super shoes. Check it out! 

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In this week’s episode, we’re bringing on a very special guest and friend of the pod. Eli Burakian is an ultrarunner, coach, guidebook author, mountain photographer, dad, race director, and all-around adventurer whose love of the sport and passion for helping other people make him one of the most interesting people we know. We chat through Eli’s most recent ultrarunning achievement: completing the Grand Slam in 2024, a series of four 100-mile ultras in a period of 14 weeks. Eli also shares stories from the many FKT (fastest known time) adventures he has completed, including a multi-day trek across the entire country of Iceland and from the southern to northern borders of New Hampshire. We learn about the fueling, recovery, and training tactics he has brought to these extraordinary undertakings, the mindset tools he employs when the going gets tough, and how he wants to bring his knowledge into the coaching space. Finally, we chat about Eli’s upcoming trail running retreat in the White Mountains and how you can get involved. This is a jam-packed, can’t-miss episode — check it out! 

View extended show notes for this episode here. 

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We’re starting the transition to from base season to race season fast! This episode covers a bunch of topics we’re thinking about as our athletes welcome spring, the build phase, and even some races. We talk through the what, why, and how of tapering, the common pattern we see of bad race simulations and good races, reminders on the benefits of zone 2, and how to make easy aerobic training more bearable. We also do a deep dive (no pun intended) on common swim technique issues, cues to address them, and why making the swim a low metabolic stress event needs to be the goal of triathlon swim prep. Finally, we chat through the pros and cons of TrainingPeaks’ new “See How I Stack Up” feature and share some fun challenges and gear picks of the week. Check it out!

View extended show notes for this episode here.

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This week’s episode leans hard into sports science as we share some new thoughts on creatine, sodium bicarbonate, and caffeine for performance. We also talk through the why and how of lactate testing and whether this is a worthwhile thing to spend your time and money on, the “feel and stair test” as an organic and data-free way to assess your training readiness, how our coaching styles have and have not evolved over time, and how we approach coaching men vs. women. We finish up with some fun challenges and gear picks related to self-care and sleep. Check it out!

View extended show notes for this episode here. 

To share feedback or ask questions to be featured on a future episode, please use ⁠this form⁠ or email: [email protected].

In this week’s episode, we’re diving into a bunch of different thought-provoking topics: how to think about training when you’re dealing with grief or other high LSS events, how to modify bike workouts during indoor/outdoor shoulder season, when and how to use super shoes, adapting workouts, persevering through workouts, push vs. pull forces in working towards your goals, low cadence cycling, the coach/athlete relationship, tapping into different swim speeds, and more. This episode was also all about gratitude for what we have (and for the podcast!) when life feels extra tough. Stay well, peeps! 

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To share feedback or ask questions to be featured on a future episode, please use ⁠this form⁠ or email: [email protected].

In this week’s episode, Katie and Elena hit on a grab bag of topics that have been coming up from athletes and listeners recently: trying new types of athletic events, coping with winter, fueling FAQs, supplements, body image follow-ups, and more! With a mix of personal anecdotes and learnings from our community, we had a blast with this one and hope you find it useful too. Check it out! 

View extended show notes for this episode here.

To share feedback or ask questions to be featured on a future episode, please use ⁠this form⁠ or email: [email protected].

In this week’s episode, we’re bringing back a fan-favorite repeat guest: physical therapist and athlete extraordinaire, Neil MacKenzie! Neil talks us through common training and recovery mistakes athletes make in the late winter and early spring, how to tell if a rehab plan is working, how to use pain as a useful indicator, how to support injured athletes from a psychological and emotional perspective, best practices for bone stress injuries and REDs treatment, run warmups, strength training, mobility, home assessments for imbalances and other issues, PT goodness of fit, and a lot more. This episode is jam-packed full of actionable advice for all athletes! 

View extended show notes for this episode here.

To share feedback or ask questions to be featured on a future episode, please use ⁠this form⁠ or email: [email protected].

In this week’s episode, Katie and Elena tackle a big topic that has gotten a lot of interest among our listeners — the intersection of body image and endurance sports. We talk through external and internal pressures related to body image, challenges in thinking about how bodies change over time, whether weight is a useful metric to track or not, situations and circumstances in which body image concerns can be more activating, fueling and body image, and reframes that can be helpful for thinking about fitness, fueling, and our bodies. We also cover some fun insights related to shame and missed workouts, fueling higher-intensity workouts, vitamin D deficiency, not judging early-season workouts, and treadmills as a tool for hills and speed. Check it out! 

View extended show notes for this episode here.

To share feedback or ask questions to be featured on a future episode, please use ⁠this form⁠ or email: [email protected].

This grab-bag episode was packed full of a ton of fun topics! We dive into how to deal with very windy conditions in deep winter training, withholding judgment from workouts, re-evaluating your goals, how to track LSS over time, gels and carb intake, dehydration in the winter, whether you actually should do your pick-ups or not, 'strain' and 'body battery ' as made-up stats, how new athletes should approach Ironman prep, when and how to use SIM shorts, staying calm in the water, HIIT and endurance training, and more. Come for the insights and stay for the banter!

View extended show notes for this episodehere.

To share feedback or ask questions to be featured on a future episode, please use⁠this form⁠ or email: [email protected].

In this grab bag episode of the podcast, Katie and Elena catch up about recent happenings in their coaching and training lives including: how to think about training if you get sick, trusting the process, the concept of being "in your body" in sports, trying new sports, what it means to fuel enough, and mental reframes in the context of body composition. We also do a deep dive on two bigger topics: how to integrate skiing (of any kind!) with endurance training and an extended female athlete Q+A in honor of National Girls and Women in Sport Day. This episode is jam-packed full of insights for everyone -- check it out!

View extended show notes for this episode here.

To share feedback or ask questions to be featured on a future episode, please use ⁠this form⁠ or email: [email protected].