Uphill Athlete Podcast

Voice of the Mountains revisits one of its most memorable conversations (originally recorded in 2024, with a new intro from Steve House): Lydia Bradey, the New Zealand alpinist who in 1988 became the first woman to climb Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen and who would go on to guide six successful Everest summits, more than any other woman in history.  We're re-releasing this episode...

Steve House and Will Zittlau pull back the curtain on Continuous Aerobic Threshold, a new feature inside Uphill Athlete's Training Groups dashboard that automatically calculates an athlete's AeT each week using a four-week moving average of their training data — no field test required. Steve explains the core problem: athletes can do the work consistently and still be uncertain whether they traine...

Steve House welcomes Dr. Øivind Sandbakk, professor at the Norwegian School of Sports Sciences and director of the School for Elite Sports, for a deep dive into the science underlying Norwegian endurance dominance. Sandbakk traces his path from competitive cross-country skier to national-team coach to researcher, explaining that Norway's success stems less from any single training method and more...

(Originally published November 2024, now with new intro from Steve House)  Most of us will never reach the pinnacle of our most passionate pursuit, no matter how driven we are. Through dedication, creativity and ingenuity, our guest today has reached the pinnacle of three of his passions.  Beginning with a unique journey to discover climbing and skiing, then the discovery of an interest...

Uphill Athlete founder Steve House sits down with athlete dashboard lead Will Zittlau and Coach Alexa Hasman to introduce the newly launched Uphill Athlete Training Groups dashboard — a purpose-built tool designed to cut through data overload and give athletes a clear, intuitive read on their progress. The conversation walks through the four core training pillars tracked by the dashboard — consist...

Steve House is joined by coaches Martin Zhor and Ben Morley for a deep dive into muscular endurance — what it is, why it matters, and how to train it. The conversation covers the critical distinction between local muscular fatigue and global cardiovascular fatigue, explaining why legs failing before lungs is the defining sign of a muscular endurance deficit. Drawing on examples from ultra running,...

Longtime friend Kyle Lefkoff — alpinist and venture capitalist — turns the tables on host Steve House in a wide-ranging reflective conversation facilitated by producer Jamie Lyko. We are deeply grateful to Kyle for joining us: his rare combination of elite climbing experience and high-stakes business acumen made him the ideal interlocutor to draw out the season's most resonant themes.  The co...

Steve House sits down with Dr. Marco Altini — data scientist, physiologist, and founder of HRV4Training — for a deep-dive into one of the most misunderstood tools in endurance athletics: heart rate variability. With over 50 peer-reviewed papers to his name, Dr. Altini brings rare scientific rigor to a space crowded with oversimplified wearable metrics. The conversation opens by challenging the ind...

This is the full, unedited version of Steve House's conversation with Peter Metcalf — extended and running longer than the standard episode release. Before Black Diamond Equipment became the most trusted name in mountain sports, there was Peter Metcalf: a teenager from Long Island hitchhiking to the Gunks every weekend, a dogeared copy of Mountaineering: Freedom of the Hills on his nightstand, and...

In this special International Women's Month episode, host Chantelle Robitaille sits down with coach Alexa Hasman to explore what it truly means to train as a female mountain athlete. Together they walk through the physiological realities of each major life phase — from the menstrual cycle and pregnancy to postpartum recovery and menopause — not as limitations, but as distinct training phases requi...

Coaches Chantelle and Alexa make the case that strength training is non-negotiable for female mountain athletes. They debunk the myth that lifting makes women bulky, distinguish between hypertrophy and functional strength, and walk through the three phases of strength programming: max strength, muscular endurance, and maintenance. Special attention is given to eccentric strength, an often-overlook...

Dr. Christine Theodorovics — Viennese-born insurance CEO, doctoral researcher, and accomplished recreational mountaineer — joins Steve House for a wide-ranging conversation about what the mountains teach us that the boardroom cannot. Christine's story spans a humble upbringing in Vienna's public housing, a near-fatal attempt on Huayna Potosí with zero acclimatization, 25 years of quietly ticking o...

In this science-focused episode, host Steve House sits down with Dr. Patrycja Jonetzko, a cardiothoracic anesthetist and high-altitude medicine expert, to explore the fundamental mechanics of gas exchange and oxygen delivery in mountain athletes. Dr. Jonetzko breaks down the journey of oxygen from atmosphere to working muscle, explaining the oxygen cascade, the critical role of partial pressure ve...

In this concluding conversation, Mark Twight takes Steve into the harrowing heart of the 1988 Nanga Parbat expedition—four climbers clipped to a single ice screw, buried under avalanche debris for thirty minutes on the world's largest mountain wall. The vivid recounting reveals how total commitment to an ideal can blind climbers to approaching storms, yet paradoxically, that same commitment become...

In this first installment of a two-part conversation, Steve House sits down with legendary alpinist Mark Twight for one of Voice of the Mountains' most anticipated episodes. This deeply personal dialogue - the show's first in-person recording - reunites two climbers whose friendship spans more than three decades. The conversation opens with Twight's 2019 book Refuge and his struggle to redefine hi...

Most endurance athletes don’t fail because they lack motivation—they fail because their goals are vague, unrealistic, or disconnected from their daily behaviors. In this episode of the Uphill Athlete Podcast, Steve House is joined by coaches Chantelle Robitaille and Alexa Hasman to unpack what actually makes goal-setting work over the long term. The conversation breaks down the critical difference...

John Winsor has lived many lives: setting an FKT on Kilimanjaro before the term existed, surviving an avalanche in the Selkirks, building and selling companies, serving on Black Diamond's board, and now researching organizational innovation at Harvard. In this conversation with Steve House, he traces the thread connecting these experiences—what he calls "the explorer's mindset." Whether pioneering...

Steve House welcomes newly appointed Uphill Athlete Coach Gabe Joyes for a comprehensive look at the 2025 trail running season. Gabe brings deep expertise as both a competitive trail runner and race director, having organized Wyoming's Sinks Canyon Chill Races and Run the Red Desert for nearly a decade. The conversation covers the year's marquee events: Western States 100, where Abby Hall and Cale...

Steve sits down with longtime climbing partner Scott Backes for a conversation that moves far beyond typical adventure storytelling. Scott traces his path from rebellious Minnesota teenager to respected amateur alpinist, describing his 1980 baptism in the Canadian Rockies—soloing the West Shoulder Direct on Andromeda, climbing new routes on Mount Temple, and surviving desperate bivouacs on Kitchen...

Steve House sits down with Kyle Lefkoff, a rare figure who has lived at the intersection of serious alpinism and venture capital for nearly four decades. From discovering his "mutant gene" for rock climbing as a kid in Atlanta to surviving K2's deadliest season in 1986, from co-founding Array Biopharma (acquired by Pfizer for $12 billion) to serving as founding chairman of AIARE, Kyle shares how t...

From the UA Pod Archives! We thought it was fitting to share one of our most popular episodes again in time for the holidays - updated with a new intro from Steve House, be sure to listen in! "In a special holiday episode, Alyssa sits down with Uphill Athlete’s new registered dietician, Alyssa Leib. The two tackle listener questions about fueling well through the holidays and the unique challenges...

I n this episode of the Uphill Athlete Podcast, host Steve House and dietitian Alyssa Leib tackle the challenge of choosing safe, effective supplements in a largely unregulated industry. Alyssa explains that the supplement market operates as "the Wild West" with minimal FDA oversight, meaning products can contain banned substances, heavy metals like lead and cadmium, or nothing at all. She emphasi...

In this episode of Voice of the Mountains, host Steve House sits down with legendary climber and entrepreneur Randy Leavitt to explore how vision, hard work, and delayed gratification shaped a lifetime of adventure. From pioneering routes like Jumbo Love to building a real estate business that funded decades of climbing, Leavitt reveals how he approached both pursuits with the same discipline and...

Host Steve House sits down with dietitian Alyssa Leib to tackle the big question: do endurance athletes really need supplements? Alyssa breaks down which options can actually make a difference, like protein powder and creatine, and which ones deserve more caution, including bicarbonate, greens powders, and caffeine. She explains why lab testing is essential before adding vitamins or minerals and s...

In this episode, Alyssa sits down with Uphill Athlete Coach Ben Morley to discuss the ins and outs of skiing. Ben shares insights from his career coaching athletes from juniors to collegiate skiers and discusses ways to build durability, athleticism, and efficiency through ski training that translates into other mountain sports. The conversation explores the crossover between Nordic skiing, s...