Episode 11: Build the Engine First with Joe Howdyshell

Chris sits down with Joe Howdyshell of Summit Endurance Academy, a mountain sport coaching company based in Breckenridge, CO. What is a “mountain sport coaching company?” Joe (also known as @badasscoach on Instagram, although these days you can find him over on Substack talking to athletes) primarily coaches sports such as Ski Mountaineering (SkiMo for short), mountain biking, and mountain running.

“I work with athletes who want to play in mountains that look like the ones around me,” he says, although he’s also totally comfortable coaching road cyclists, triathletes, and more traditional endurance endeavors.

As with many coaches, Joe’s path to where he is today would be best described as “meandering.” No shade, there—most of us who work in the endurance world took a…circuitous path to our current situations. Joe came up as a runner, and then a cross-country skier, and finally a SkiMo athlete. He has bachelor and masters degrees in exercise physiology, so he knows his stuff, but as with the coaches at Campfire, he tends to keep the athlete first and the training minutiae second.

Instagram
Summit Endurance Academy
Substack

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