Coaching the 2025 UTMB Champions: Scott Johnston’s Focus on Muscular Endurance

Final week, Tom Evans and Ruth Croft gained the 2025 UTMB in commanding vogue and beneath traditionally powerful situations. Evans, a British runner who has as soon as podiumed and twice DNFed the race, stormed to victory in 19:18:58. New Zealand’s Croft, who completed second on the occasion final yr, seized management within the race’s last third and completed first in 22:56:23.

Each athletes are coached by Scott Johnston of Evoke Endurance, co-author of the now-iconic e book, “Coaching for the Uphill Athlete.” Johnston’s roots are in alpinism and mountain sports activities like ski mountaineering, which makes his success at teaching athletes for one in all path operating’s premier long-course occasions particularly notable. Central to his teaching is a particular emphasis on fatigue resistance, often known as muscular endurance. Johnston believes fatigue resistance is the only largest determinant of ultra-distance efficiency, greater than VO2max or lactate threshold.

Coach Scott Johnston with 2025 UTMB champions Ruth Croft and Tom Evans on the end line. Photograph: iRunFar/Bryon Powell

“The center doesn’t get drained in these races,” mentioned Johnston. “What I’ve seen is that athletes are restricted by that fatigue issue out on the muscle.”

Coaching muscular endurance as a substitute of VO2max or lactate threshold is a considerably novel method that appears to be paying dividends for athletes who embrace it. On this article, we discover what Johnston means by fatigue resistance and muscular endurance, and the way he trains his athletes to enhance their potential to keep up their power and due to this fact their tempo late in an extremely when everybody else slows down.

Tom Evans, 2025 UTMB champion. Photograph: iRunFar/Bryon Powell

Fatigue Resistance and Muscular Endurance

Muscular endurance (ME) is your muscular tissues’ potential to maintain repeated contractions or effort over time. Consider it as how lengthy your legs can maintain climbing, descending, or pushing on the flats earlier than they offer out. Fatigue resistance is expounded however barely completely different and is outlined as the power to delay the purpose of muscular breakdown. It’s not simply how lengthy the muscle can maintain working, however how nicely it could actually resist the gradual decline in efficiency that comes with hours of stress.

Put merely, muscular endurance is the capability to maintain working; fatigue resistance is the power to maintain that capability from deteriorating. In ultras, significantly vertiginous mountain races like UTMB, the 2 go hand in hand; athletes with sturdy ME who may also resist fatigue are those nonetheless shifting nicely when rivals begin to crumble.

Ruth Croft climbing the Grand Col Ferret at daybreak throughout the 2025 UTMB. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi

That is echoed in a latest opinion paper in “Sports activities Drugs” by researchers Nicholas Tiller and Guillaume Millet. In it, they mixed observational knowledge with earlier analysis to pinpoint muscle harm as the primary impediment to ultramarathon efficiency. One knowledge level within the paper is a survey of 824 ultrarunners, the place 66% pointed to muscle breakdown as their major obstacle.

Learn how to Practice Muscular Endurance

Johnston’s background in alpinism informs his method to extremely coaching. He prefers to prioritize muscular endurance work earlier than addressing VO2max or different power programs in coaching.

Johnston seen that lots of his athletes failed to keep up sufficiently excessive coronary heart fee of their higher-end interval work, indicating that their legs merely couldn’t sustain with their already well-developed cardio engines. To repair that, Johnston makes use of event-specific exercises like steep uphill mountaineering, downhill repeats, weighted vests, and tire-drags to overload athletes’ legs. The purpose, in response to Johnston, is to emphasize propelling muscular tissues domestically with out inflicting world systemic fatigue related to high-intensity coaching.

Johnston educated Evans each for his latest win at UTMB and his breakthrough win on the 2023 Western States 100. Whereas his collaboration with Croft is newer, Johnston says their deal with ME was important to their success. Johnston believes that by extra deliberately specializing in ME through overloading the legs in coaching, and never the cardio system, athletes can nonetheless entry a better proportion of their VO2max late in races. Based on Johnston, Croft hit her highest coronary heart fee simply 5 kilometers from the UTMB end line, which Johnston factors to as proof of her potential to maintain a better output when not restricted by her muscular endurance.

Coaching muscular endurance allowed Croft to set her highest coronary heart fee of the occasion solely 5 kilometers from the end. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi

“For most individuals in these lengthy races, what I’ve labored on is making it in order that they don’t see that decline,” mentioned Johnston. “They will nonetheless entry a comparatively excessive proportion of the VO2max late within the race, whereas if their legs develop into fatigued, then it doesn’t matter anymore for those who’ve received a excessive VO2max of 90 as a result of you’ll be able to’t even get near it when the muscular tissues are so drained.”

Johnston’s concept is, in case your legs can’t generate power late in a race, your coronary heart’s oxygen-delivery capability is moot. To bridge that hole, Johnston’s coaching, rooted in alpinism and ski mountaineering, seeks to focus on the legs particularly.

Coaching the Legs

In coaching for large, mountainous races like UTMB, Johnston has athletes hike on steep grades, slopes of 10% to 30%, both with water — which has the good thing about with the ability to be dumped out on the prime of the hill in order that athletes aren’t descending with pointless weight — or a weighted vest. He has his newbie athletes carry about 5% of their physique weight, and elites carry 12% to fifteen%. For terrain-limited athletes, Johnston has them do tire-drags or stair machine periods to focus on the legs, making certain the burn of their legs is the limiter, not cardio capability. He additionally contains downhill repeats and tempo descents to construct eccentric power.

For elites like Evans and Croft, Johnston introduces this coaching methodology early within the season and carries it by means of the yr, although he recommends that most individuals add it into their coaching the ultimate 10 to 16 weeks earlier than an extremely. He pairs ME-focused coaching with base coaching and power work, and sees it as a approach of coaching muscular sturdiness whereas preserving athletes’ capability for high-quality periods.

“We by no means do any VO₂max coaching,” mentioned Johnston. “I’m making an attempt to get the identical muscular impact that you just’d get from VO₂max intervals, however with out the worldwide fatigue price. You don’t elevate cortisol, you don’t elevate lactate, and restoration is way quicker.”

Tom Evans main the 2025 UTMB late within the race. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi

To gauge the effectiveness of his coaching and monitor athletes’ progress, Johnston depends on a number of metrics, together with persistent coaching load (CTL). Calculated in TrainingPeaks, a digital coaching platform that Johnston makes use of along with his teaching shoppers, CTL supplies a six-week exponential shifting common of an athlete’s coaching stress. That metric, amongst others like ramp fee and general evaluation of their coaching stress, helps Johnston tailor the coaching to every particular athlete.

Croft appears to have benefited from Johnston’s method and says, “I’d must say that Scott’s coaching method is sort of unconventional. His periods focus closely on constructing muscular endurance and tailoring the work to the precise calls for of the course. However past the coaching itself — and one thing typically ignored in teaching, is the connection and suggestions between coach and athlete. Outdoors of my companion, Scott has been the individual I’ve had probably the most contact with every day. That degree of constant interplay and help is, for my part, what separates a superb coach from a really nice one. This system issues, however the relationship makes all of the distinction.”

“Understanding the work capability and restoration fee of the athlete is essential for locating the restrict of what they’ll safely deal with,” mentioned Johnston. “With an elite, in some over-reaching blocks, we will see CTL will increase of 10 to fifteen per week. Each athlete is completely different and must be handled individually.” For a lower-tech approach of assessing progress, Johnston recommends athletes construct a cairn, or go away a stack of rocks on the hillside the place they do their intervals, encouraging them to repeat exercises on the identical hill, and see in the event that they transfer the cairn uphill over time.

Is Muscular Endurance the New Secret?

Whereas ME-specific coaching is core to Johnston’s philosophy, some query its centrality and relevance to all athletes. Whereas consensus factors to ME being essential, how precisely to go about it’s up for a bigger debate. Some proponents argue that elevated quantity has the twin advantage of each constructing cardio capability and rising muscular resilience and endurance, and that focusing an excessive amount of on ME to the detriment of cardio improvement may be sacrificing greater advantages for a marginal achieve.

Cliff Pittman, Teaching Growth Director for CTS and an expert ultrarunning coach, says ME is one piece of a bigger puzzle.

“ME is totally probably the most essential determinants of efficiency in ultrarunning,” mentioned Pittman. “However it’s not an adaptation that must be remoted in case your coaching is already race-specific. In my opinion, ME is addressed implicitly within the coaching of any athlete logging constant quantity over applicable terrain, particularly whereas sporting their required race-day gear. We simply name it endurance coaching as a result of it’s all-encompassing.”

That assertion is echoed by Tiller and Millet’s paper, which factors to coaching quantity alongside power coaching and fueling, relatively than particularly concentrating on and overloading the muscular tissues by means of weighted coaching and tire-drags, as being contributors to success. Different research have additionally strongly pointed towards coaching quantity as a serious predictive think about ultramarathon efficiency.

Ruth Croft, 2025 UTMB champion. Photograph: iRunFar/Bryon Powell

Strategies of overload, like utilizing a weighted vest whereas operating or mountaineering uphill, are additionally debated within the literature. The purpose is to extend the load being carried by muscular tissues, however proof means that the added resistance meaningfully modifications the entire operating or mountaineering motion. Not solely can that make coaching much less particular — a 2023 examine discovered that carrying weights that exceeded 10% of educated path runners’ physique weight altered their biomechanics and negatively impacted their efficiency at submaximal pace — however it could actually additionally improve danger for harm in some situations.

All of this mentioned, UTMB is a singular take a look at case in that it entails loads of mountaineering, even for an ultramarathon. Taking a look at Evans’ knowledge, Johnston mentioned that the athlete spent about half the race mountaineering.

“Operating and strolling are very completely different actions,” mentioned Johnston. “It’s like a unique sport, and also you really need to coach them.”

Pittman agrees that particular occasions benefit particular interventions, like concentrating on stronger powerhiking for UTMB. However he worries that some nuance might get misplaced within the weeds. Pittman factors out that athletes who’re too centered on synthetic ME interventions may sacrifice cardio improvement, the true cornerstone of extremely coaching.

Remaining Ideas

On the elite degree, marginal features in muscular endurance, like what permits you to hit one’s prime coronary heart fee late within the UTMB like Croft did, could make or break a efficiency. Ultramarathon success is multifactorial, and whereas two standout outcomes don’t represent proof, the highlight on Johnston’s strategies highlights an space of coaching which will deserve extra consideration. It’s not a silver bullet — no single component of coaching is — but it surely presents a helpful lens for understanding success.

What is evident is that as the game grows extra aggressive, coaches and athletes might want to go away no physiological stone unturned to remain on the prime.