Mason Coppi - Post Sunapee Scramble (U.S. Mountain Running Championship) Interview - Post Race Live

Post Sunapee Interview from Sunapee Mountain in NH - Mason was interviewed by the commentary team, Rachel Tomajacyk, James Lauriello, Remi Leroux & Corinee Shalvoy 

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Transcript

Champion Reaction And Vibram Deal

SPEAKER_03 0:00

What's up?

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Mason, congrats. Mason was right now.

SPEAKER_03 0:07

2026 mountain running champion. Mason, how sweet does this feel to add to add that to your resume?

SPEAKER_04 0:13

It's insane. Oh my gosh. That was like the whole time, like that like second lap. I just I couldn't believe it. And like even now, I'm just like, oh my gosh, I did that. That's sick.

SPEAKER_03 0:27

Mason, uh, talk about talk about the logo on your shirt.

SPEAKER_04 0:30

Cause this is also Oh yeah, brand new. Um, yeah, uh, so there'll be uh an official announcement of it of it later, but like just signed with uh Vibram. Um super stoked with that. Um to be starting a partnership with with them. Um yeah, just like literally, literally signed the paperwork this week. But again, there'll be a big announcement of it uh later. I don't know how much I'll allow to like talk about it, but I am running for Vibram now.

SPEAKER_03 0:59

So exciting. Mason, uh one more question for you before I before I pass it

The Move That Won The Race

SPEAKER_03 1:04

off. There was a there was a part there when you guys came off the first loop. It looked like Dan had made a pass on you and Christian going into the second climb. How did you how did that kind of we didn't get to see that obviously? Um, how the things started playing out in the second climb. When were you able to retake the lead and how were you able to retake the lead?

SPEAKER_04 1:23

Yeah, so that that was um, I mean, Dan's such a good descender. And so if if Dan comes up on you on a descent, you you kind of just gotta let him do it and just like hope you can uh catch back up on the climb. Um like and just hope hope for that. Um so yeah, he he passed me on the descent, and I was just like, okay, well, that that's that. Um and then um kind of coming into that second climb, like Dan, Dan had a good lead on uh uh Christian and I. Christian had also kind of caught up to me on that climb. And um yeah, like Christian and I just kind of started like running up that running up that climb. Um Christian's such a good uh climber that I just kind of sat myself behind him. And um yeah, we were we were kind of gaining on um on Dan. Um like slowly but slowly but surely. And then I think I just noticed that that Christian might have been hurting more than I than I've seen him hurt in the past. And uh I thought, okay, well, maybe maybe this is my time, maybe this is my move. I I really don't know. Like it's always kind of terrifying to pass Christian out because it feels like you're making a mistake. Um but yeah, I I kind of got around him and thought that okay, I need to connect with Dan because I really don't want to be behind Dan when we get to the top, uh, because I'll have to descend with him. Um so pass past Christian there, like past Dan there pretty shortly after. Um, and at that point it was like, okay, I have a lead. Uh I don't know if that was the right decision or not. I guess we'll find out in a couple of miles. Um, like when when we're nearing the top. And so from from that point on, it was kind of by myself. I could kind of hear them behind me. I've I had really no idea how close they were. Um, but at that point, you really can't you can't worry about that. You you just have to kind of like stick your head down and just like go based off of your own effort and and hope that it all works out.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

Well, congratulations, Mason.

SPEAKER_04 3:34

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Nice,

Fighting Doubt When Pressure Hits

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Mason. This is Rachel to my check. Uh yeah, I have a couple of questions for you. I've known you since the college days, and you're just one of the most positive people ever, I think. And I think one part of being an amazing athlete is having a positive mentality, but we all know that negative thoughts come in. So, was there any point during the race when negative thoughts were coming in? What point was that? And how did you walk yourself out of that?

SPEAKER_04 4:03

Yeah, I mean, honestly, like the negative thoughts are always there, right? Like they're always in my head. Like I wouldn't say there's a point where I'm not kind of like fighting them off, like and they're small, right? Like they're little small bits, and and they could balloon out if if you let them. Um right from the start, like there, there's questions in my head. Like sitting on the starting line, there's so many negative thoughts in my head. Like there's a lot of pressure, you know. Like I've I've kind of transitioned from this point of like kind of being the underdog. Um, and that was a position I was I was really comfortable in, right? Like uh for for years, like I I identified as like that that underdog. And like I at this point, I wouldn't say like I was like uh a big favorite, but like I know, like now people know me, right? So like I feel like I have some expectations. So there's there's negative thoughts right on the starting line, being like, am I going to live up to those expectations? And then gun goes out, and like I I go up in the front and I'm trying to hang on to like Christian and like negative thoughts there. Like, am I going to blow up? I I really don't know. Like, is this the right decision? And then on on that descent, like uh Christian um Aries and I actually made a wrong turn pretty early on. Um, like we entered into the woods a little too early, and it's like, okay, is that my whole race? Is that gone? Like, is it gone now? So then like try to like push to like catch up. And I I I kind of hammered through through the glades there to try to catch up, found out that there wasn't actually anyone ahead of us at that point. So I'm like, oh, well, now I've blown up my legs. That's another negative thought. Um, as soon as I like try, like, and so now I'm like, okay, I got I gotta dial it back. Um, I get caught by by Dan and by Christian, but now my legs are feeling like jello. Um, I try passing them, like, oh, am I making the right decision? Again, I I had just talked about that, but like that's another negative thought right there. And like all throughout that that climb, there's just so much unknowns that you're kind of entering into. Like, am I making the right decision right now? As I'm descending, am I making the right? Like, they're constantly coming up, and it's constantly me, like you constantly have to say, okay, like we don't know that. Like the negative thoughts are as accurate as the positive thoughts. You don't actually know which one is is true. It's like, maybe I can't do this, but maybe I can. Um, so you constantly kind of have to kind of have to fight those, fight those on.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Yeah, that's awesome. And uh, I think that it's amazing that you're able to do that. And this was a race where you just had to stay engaged the entire time mentally, it sounds like so, really incredible that you can do that. And speaking of having to be

Long Races Vs One Hour Pain

SPEAKER_00 7:00

on for the entire time in a race, I would love to know you did so well at Gorge Waterfalls this year and the 30k. Then you raced Boston Marathon, ran a 215. That was incredible. So you've been doing some longer races that are kind of in that two to three hour range. What was it like to go into this race after racing some longer races? Did you feel confident switching over to a shorter race again, which has kind of been your uh main races uh until more recently? But yeah, what was that transition like?

SPEAKER_04 7:34

Yeah, it's kind of weird. It's kind of like I I felt more confident in some ways and and less confident in others. Um so, like a big goal for me this year is just to improve my mechanical endurance and my muscular endurance because that's kind of been uh what I would consider a weak point for me in in the past. And so that's something that I've really trying to be uh working on um in in my training. So that was kind of the idea behind Gorge and uh behind Boston and some of the other races I'll be doing later on in this year. So to a certain extent, like this course really does award muscular endurance because it's that two-lapse system. So you need to have um like really good endurance to um go up that second climb, right? And to like then smash that downhill again. So I had some um I had some confidence there, and like my legs are a little bit more muscular strong than they were in the past, and like it can take a beating a little bit better, but it it's always scary, like you know, like anytime like you're trying to to go to a different event than you've been practicing, right? Like the one hour efforts sting so much more than the two hour efforts. Like that's like just a different burn. Like it's it's like when in college, like or like in track, like dropping down from the the 10k down to the 5k or down to the like I remember like towards the end of my like college career, like I was focusing much more on like 5k, 10k, and when I would do a mile, it feel like an all-out sprint the entire time, and that hurt so bad. And so, like there was a little bit of fear of like, okay, do I have that that edge in in me anymore to really like go to the well and really burn like that? And so, like, again, that it's another like walking into a little bit of unknown, like uh, and again, like I'm sitting here and like in the past, I've I've really excelled in these style of races and to think like oh Macy, why can't you just like fall back on your history? You've done this before, like what just do it again, and it's just so hard, like you know, like it's it's hard to look back in the past and like draw confidence from it. You can to a certain extent, but like this is something that I feel a lot of athletes struggle with. Like, I struggle with it. Uh, I'm a coach, so I see a lot of my other athletes, like uh the athletes that I coach struggle with this. Um it's just kind of hard to like kind of mentally switch gears. Like, I feel like as athletes, you have like a certain amount of amnesia, which like is beneficial in some ways. Like if you have a bad race, you can kind of shake it off. But like also if you have a good race, you usually shake it off. And like one of the things I see so much as a coach is like I almost think you have more good amnesia, like you shake off the good races faster than you shake off the bad races. Um, so it's hard to like keep that good confidence. Like, it's so much easier to kind of like beat yourself up and hold on to like that kind of like fear. Um, so yeah, it it's always a little bit tricky with with these events for that.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Yeah, well, you definitely have that edge to switch between the short and the long stuff. So congrats.

SPEAKER_03 11:09

Uh Mason, do you know if you got the course record? I know it was very, very close. It was within like a few seconds.

SPEAKER_04 11:18

I don't know. I think it's it's pretty tight. Like I'm I either got it by like half a second or didn't get it by half a second. Like we're gonna have to like go back into the archives here to to find it. But I I mean I wasn't even thinking about that. It's like it's so it's so painful that it's just like I'm just like hanging on for dear life. I can't even like I can't even spare the time to really look down at my watch, like I'm gonna like fall on my face. So that isn't like really something that was that was in the mind. Uh maybe, maybe I I I'm really not sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Mason, this is uh cringe cowboy. Congratulations. That was a huge, huge performance. Um, just wanted to say awesome to watch, awesome to follow. What are you gonna do with your $30,000 prize first? It's a whole hundred dollars. I just tripled it. I'm giving more $30 because it's like sorry, 10 10,000.

SPEAKER_04 12:29

Oh my gosh. Uh that's a good question. I mean, I really hadn't been going into this race like expecting that. Um that that money, like, uh I don't know. Like my wife and I were saving up for a house. So that that's going into the house fund. Like, there you go. Until until like uh until like we're we're doing like getting getting something like that. I feel like I'm I'm I'm pretty frugal with my money, to be honest.

SPEAKER_03 12:58

So no Porsches.

SPEAKER_04 13:03

No, no fancy bike, no van yet. Um I don't know. Uh like like going into the house funds, saving up for that, saving up for the future and uh and all that sort of thing. Might be able to use that for a little bit more uh travel money um in in the future. Um, so definitely, definitely excited for that. I wish I had a more exciting, fun answer.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

No, that's the that's the mature, like that that's a good answer. That's that's some that's some smart asset building there.

SPEAKER_04 13:36

I'll probably go out for ice cream tonight, and that'll probably be like I'll probably get like it's my uh friend uh Abby's birthday today. So uh shout out Abby.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Oh he's frozen.

SPEAKER_04 13:53

So uh I'll probably do that for this. Nice.

SPEAKER_03 13:56

Well, part of me was hoping you were gonna say down payment on a Porsche, but still cool.

SPEAKER_04 14:00

Oh, I what are you talking about? I got a Honda Element, I got the best car in the world already. Like you can sleep in that thing before races. Sweet. Um Honda Element Gang. You know, if you know, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Well huge congratulations. That was awesome.

SPEAKER_04 14:20

Thank you, thank you so much. Sweet, sweet.

Prize Money Ticket And Race Plans

SPEAKER_03 14:26

Mason, are you you are you're accepting your your ticket, correct? To go race.

SPEAKER_04 14:30

Um, yes, that is that is my plan. I'm I'm excited to to represent uh team USA again and to to go to the um WMRA um World Cup. Um again, any any time that I get to like represent team USA and like kind of help um yeah, represent like the team on like a national scale. I want to be there. And so I'm um I'm really excited for that one. Yeah, get to get to prep for for uh worlds also for for next year, 2027. So yeah, super, super stoked for all that stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Uh hey Mason, this is Remy, by the way. Really looking forward to see you in Quebec in October. And congrats today. I'm so happy uh to see you win. Incredible season already so far. Uh wanted to know what's next for you. Like what's coming up?

SPEAKER_04 15:26

Yeah, yeah. So uh next, um I'm focusing on Broken Arrow. I'm just targeting the the 23k there. The vertical is a little too spicy for me. Um, I don't get enough of a payoff. My wife loves doing vertical races. Um, so it works out perfectly. I get to watch her do the vertical and then just like have fun um uh watching that. And then um, yeah, I'll just be I'll be focusing on the the 23k there. Um so super excited for that. And then really fun schedule this year. Um, targeting the lost surf series races. Um, I kind of alluded it to it earlier, but I'm gonna try my hand at a longer distance race. I'm gonna be doing the Speed Goat 50k. Nice. Um we'll we'll see if that's a good idea or not. Um but again, I'm trying to uh build up that that muscular endurance, um, build up kind of um yeah, build up kind of like my my range, right? Um and then uh yeah, WMRA's, um, and then also targeting um CIM in the in the winter, so trying to lower that marathon time.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

That's great. And I think

Training Tweaks Behind The Breakthrough

SPEAKER_02 16:40

one last question before we let you go. I'm really curious because like you've been running, you've been trail running for a while, like for a lot of years, but it really seems like in the last like one or two years, you've really had like this big breakthrough. What do you think uh caused that? Do you think it's just like the accumulation of training throughout the years? Do you think it's a mental switch? Do you think it's just like something you've really changed in training? Um, I'm sure it's a difficult thing, like it's not one single thing that makes a difference, but what would you uh what what do you think it would be?

SPEAKER_04 17:12

Yeah, I I think it was an accumulation of of so many things, right? Like there there's and especially as a coach, like I'm always thinking of factors and I'm constantly experimenting on myself. So uh I can pass it on to to my athletes, right? So there's so many things I'm messing with at a time. I think to boil it down, like the the things that really helped me is I think I specified like the type of training that I was doing, like each session really well. So um I think I on one hand, um, I was I started doing a lot more track work and I started doing a lot more merit-specific work. So I kind of got away from that, like my early part of my my trail running career. Like I just needed a brain frontal track after the NCAA, to be honest. Um, but now I've kind of come back to that. So I'm doing much more specific uh speed work, I'm doing much more controlled speed work. Um I started using like heart rate monitor and and stuff like that, really dialing in my my threshold zones. Um, other things that I've done, I really slowed down my easy runs. So those are super controlled. Um, so I'm getting a lot more easy aerobic volume in. I'm not really hammering myself into the ground every time I run. I don't care what my easy pace is. Um, so I really slowed that down. Um, and then I really made a concentrated effort to work on my downhill ability. Um, so I did that in a couple of ways. So one way that I did that is by doing uh starting to stack more birds. So that was kind of that muscular endurance piece um to kind of like beat up my legs and and really um build that up. But I guess, sorry, I'm gonna hop around here, but like that easy running also helps with muscular endurance. Um, so that's a really beneficial thing for building up muscular endurance um and stuff like that. So um those two things helped um build up my my endurance, slow twitch muscles, all that sort of stuff, all that uh great uh things there. Um and then I started doing uh some more technical work. I think you've been posting it on your story, so similar stuff to what you've been doing, um, but just like practicing technical trails. And what I did in specific is I would do the same technical trails over and over and over again, um, and really work on that footwork. Um and and really, really practice that. Um, but the the benefit of doing that repetition is like uh there weren't things that were surprising me. So I really got to own my skill at just like the footwork and the the mechanism uh of that. And then I started okay, now I'm comfortable on this trail. Start mixing up with with other trails and and and all that sort of stuff. So I think that really uh helped me uh as well. Another interesting thing that I think that I do um and a lot more athletes are doing, I started adding in a lot more easy volume through cross-training. So I bike quite a bit. Um, so all my doubles I I do as as bikes. Uh one of my training days out of the week is just a really long bike ride. So um, like once a week, I'm getting like uh a two to three hour long bike ride. And um, I'm living out in Colorado now, so I'm like doing it up in the mountains like that. So I get this really big, like functionally, like an extra long run per week. Um, but it doesn't beat up my legs quite as much. So doing less miles than I have in the past, but I'm getting longer, longer uh hours one games a week.

SPEAKER_02 20:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:56

So I I've really upped my hours, but reduced my mileage. So that has the effect of uh getting me much more aerobic volume and uh building up my base, but also I feel fresher now. Like I don't feel as beat up as like when I was trying to get like 90 miles a week. Now I'm like closer to like 70 or like sometimes hitting 80 if I'm I'm doing a big block. Um and like that that's just so much easier on my legs, I'm recovering better. Um and and all that. So I think those are probably and then I guess like this is another caveat that I feel like is worth mentioning is I did to uh Colorado. So there is that elevation um element to things, and I I I don't think that's the the biggest deference. Um, but as a coach who loves throwing caveats into things, I I would it would pain me not to mention that um I started like I'm I'm living at at altitude um now. And then um yeah, so I I'd say those were the biggest things that I've kind of like changed in in my training. So it's a lot of things, um, and it's hard to say which one has has made the biggest difference, or if like any of them is like making an individual difference or it's an accumulation of differences, and that's kind of like the tricky thing about training theory, right? And that's that's just like the tricky thing about all sorts of like training stuff. So um, but that's that's basically what I've what I've got.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

No, that's that

Ice Cream Plans And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_02 22:35

that's great. I think anyone can at least like use one of the things you've said and and use it for themselves. And it's you know, it's it's never anything super crazy, but um that's the that's the beauty of running. It's it's it's a pretty simple sport. Um I think this is about it for our questions. So I think we'll let you get your ice cream. Congrats again. Congrats, Mason.

SPEAKER_04 22:55

Yeah, congrats. Yeah, thank you so much for broadcasting all of this and like all the work that you've put in. Like, again, that that really like helps uplift the sport and really appreciate all the work that you're doing here.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

Thank you, man. Congrats, Mason. Thank you.