Mountain Peak Fitness
Photo by Joe Azze
“Come further up, come further in!”” Aslain extolled his followers in “The Last Battle” the final book in the Chronicles of Narnia.
This is the call that envelops all who delve into Nature.
“Come off the roads and carriage ways. Come in, come away from the noise and the distractions, come, come. Stay for hours. Start in the dark, end in the dark. Leave the well-trod paths and the plebian safety and security of civilized life. Learn to drink from creeks, sleep in the woods, and find your way among the trees and stones. Come. Come further up, come further in,” Nature calls seductively.
And you do, you go into the woods and the mountains, the rivers, the fields. While you may never be Chris McCandless and try to live in the Alaskan wilderness, having skills and a community will make following the siren song of nature an adventure not an emergency.
Mountain Peak Fitness Adventure Club, from the team of Elizabeth and Joe Azze of Mountain Peak Fitness (MPF), is setting out to build a community of runners, mountain bikers, mountaineers, hikers, triathletes, cyclists, and anyone else who finds their peak experiences outside.
“It can be very dangerous out there in five minutes. This can be prevented by having the right gear and knowing what to do,” Elizabeth Azze, owner/coach and Queen of MPF, said.
One of the goals of the club is to have adventures while being safe in the woods and mountains.
A recent event Azze ran was a beginning trail runner’s clinic.
They had about 20 people at the clinic and covered the topics of gear, hydration, and map reading. Azze discussed what to bring, like a battery powered phone charger, and how to keep the charge strong by wearing the phone on your body.
“Carry a knife and repellant spray, for wildlife or humans, know where the nearest road is, have the park police number in your phone. Tell someone where you’re going and when you expect to be back,” Azze told the new trail runners.
When the snowfalls the club will have more activities, according to Azze. These will include winter tracking, backcountry skiing, ice climbing, and fat biking.
This is the call that envelops all who delve into Nature.
“Come off the roads and carriage ways. Come in, come away from the noise and the distractions, come, come. Stay for hours. Start in the dark, end in the dark. Leave the well-trod paths and the plebian safety and security of civilized life. Learn to drink from creeks, sleep in the woods, and find your way among the trees and stones. Come. Come further up, come further in,” Nature calls seductively.
And you do, you go into the woods and the mountains, the rivers, the fields. While you may never be Chris McCandless and try to live in the Alaskan wilderness, having skills and a community will make following the siren song of nature an adventure not an emergency.
Mountain Peak Fitness Adventure Club, from the team of Elizabeth and Joe Azze of Mountain Peak Fitness (MPF), is setting out to build a community of runners, mountain bikers, mountaineers, hikers, triathletes, cyclists, and anyone else who finds their peak experiences outside.
“It can be very dangerous out there in five minutes. This can be prevented by having the right gear and knowing what to do,” Elizabeth Azze, owner/coach and Queen of MPF, said.
One of the goals of the club is to have adventures while being safe in the woods and mountains.
A recent event Azze ran was a beginning trail runner’s clinic.
They had about 20 people at the clinic and covered the topics of gear, hydration, and map reading. Azze discussed what to bring, like a battery powered phone charger, and how to keep the charge strong by wearing the phone on your body.
“Carry a knife and repellant spray, for wildlife or humans, know where the nearest road is, have the park police number in your phone. Tell someone where you’re going and when you expect to be back,” Azze told the new trail runners.
When the snowfalls the club will have more activities, according to Azze. These will include winter tracking, backcountry skiing, ice climbing, and fat biking.
Photo by Joe Azze
Club membership is open. “We welcome everyone, of all abilities to share in our community and desire to adventure,” the website reads.
The Club does make some request of its members- promoting the outdoors and fitness, subscribing to the Leave No Trace ethic, respecting parks and the rangers who protect them, being a support in other’s adventures, ensuring safety, and showing up to club adventures fully prepared and self-sufficient, and, of course, establishing your own goals and training smart.
The website is http://mountainpeakfitness.com/adventure-club/.
On the web page you can sign up for Strava and sign the club’s waver. You will then get directed to a private Facebook page. Other club members post activities, like full moon runs, on the Facebook page. “When venturing further into the mountains it’s important to have someone who knows the lay of the land, and the weather!” Azze said.
Mountain Peak Fitness Team
Now, of course, that’s not all MPF does. They are primarily athletic coaches.
Joe and Elizabeth started MPF in 2007. Both are mountaineers and athletes in their own right. They have been involved in the fitness industry for 18 years.
Elizabeth Azze took the methodology from her National Academy of Sports Medicine, NASM, certifications, Functional Movement Systems, and information from the top strength and conditioning coaches in the fitness industry and put it together to create training plans for nearly 200 athletes in swimming, triathlon, road running, trail running, and ultrarunning, as well as in general health and fitness.
Joe Azze is a lifelong athlete and has been a fitness professional and coach for the past 18 years. He took his hobby of photography and videography and made chronicling their athlete’s movements and action part of Mountain Peak Fitness.
By addressing nutrition, sleep habits, recoverability, stress management, digestive health, and mental well-being athletes have their best chance to reach their goals and thrive day to day. MPF looks at movement patterns and addresses weak links such as mobility limitations, compensations, imbalances and injuries.
“Runners are afraid to get away from running and they miss out on a lot of cross training opportunities,” Azze said. “Athletics is not just running; we’re here to lead you in the right way.”
Rehab and corrective exercise comprise a lot of Azze’s coaching.
She immediately suggested strength training exercises to improve my running form.
Azze went to school in Alaska and lived there for 8 years where she did a lot of mountaineering. From that she moved into endurance sports.
“I fell in love with the outdoors. I wanted to take that and combine the sports with the outside world,” Azze said.
She stresses the need for strength training and professional consolation in endurance sports. Azze sees a lot of people over training and not knowing how to combine strength training, and mobility exercises.
“It’s not just how many miles per day or intensity, but combining running or riding with other exercises,”Azze said. “Runners think they have strong legs but usually their glutes need to be strengthened. You can’t just run, you have to combine injury prevention techniques with strength training, nutrition and sleep patterns. Lifestyle habits.”
And our modern lifestyles are part of the problem.
“If you are seated at a desk all day, and then you ask your body to go run for two hours your hip flexors are shortened and gluts are not engaged. Movement prep exercises a five to ten minute warm up to get those muscles activated. “
A lot of people think ‘our bodies are designed to run and so we should just be able to get up and run.’
Not so Azze says.
“Maybe back in the day when we were doing physical labor all day, but when we are seated and in cars for hours a day it’s not true.”
Strengthening and warm up exercises are needed to mitigate the effects of a sedentary life. MPF are big believers in overall wellness and overall fitness. Lifestyle, sleep patterns and nutrition are all part of training, not just what happens when running or riding.
The MPF coaches run a functional movement screen test. After that they use Facetime or face to face meetings to communicate with their athletes. MPF offers online training as well as training peak software to coach athletes based on findings from the assessment.
Each athlete gets a personally designed program based on strengths, weakness and goals. The team uses technology applications to keep in contact with their some 80 athlete/clients from all over the country and sometimes Europe.
Supplemental exercise to keep you in the sport for longer and uninjured. Little exercises will keep you going longer, according to Azze
“It’s hard to convince people until they’re sidelined, “Azze said.
But the coaches know the anguish of being unable to train because they are athletes themselves. Three of MPF’s coaches are endurance athletes, trial runners, triathletes, and mountain bikers.
The Club does make some request of its members- promoting the outdoors and fitness, subscribing to the Leave No Trace ethic, respecting parks and the rangers who protect them, being a support in other’s adventures, ensuring safety, and showing up to club adventures fully prepared and self-sufficient, and, of course, establishing your own goals and training smart.
The website is http://mountainpeakfitness.com/adventure-club/.
On the web page you can sign up for Strava and sign the club’s waver. You will then get directed to a private Facebook page. Other club members post activities, like full moon runs, on the Facebook page. “When venturing further into the mountains it’s important to have someone who knows the lay of the land, and the weather!” Azze said.
Mountain Peak Fitness Team
Now, of course, that’s not all MPF does. They are primarily athletic coaches.
Joe and Elizabeth started MPF in 2007. Both are mountaineers and athletes in their own right. They have been involved in the fitness industry for 18 years.
Elizabeth Azze took the methodology from her National Academy of Sports Medicine, NASM, certifications, Functional Movement Systems, and information from the top strength and conditioning coaches in the fitness industry and put it together to create training plans for nearly 200 athletes in swimming, triathlon, road running, trail running, and ultrarunning, as well as in general health and fitness.
Joe Azze is a lifelong athlete and has been a fitness professional and coach for the past 18 years. He took his hobby of photography and videography and made chronicling their athlete’s movements and action part of Mountain Peak Fitness.
By addressing nutrition, sleep habits, recoverability, stress management, digestive health, and mental well-being athletes have their best chance to reach their goals and thrive day to day. MPF looks at movement patterns and addresses weak links such as mobility limitations, compensations, imbalances and injuries.
“Runners are afraid to get away from running and they miss out on a lot of cross training opportunities,” Azze said. “Athletics is not just running; we’re here to lead you in the right way.”
Rehab and corrective exercise comprise a lot of Azze’s coaching.
She immediately suggested strength training exercises to improve my running form.
Azze went to school in Alaska and lived there for 8 years where she did a lot of mountaineering. From that she moved into endurance sports.
“I fell in love with the outdoors. I wanted to take that and combine the sports with the outside world,” Azze said.
She stresses the need for strength training and professional consolation in endurance sports. Azze sees a lot of people over training and not knowing how to combine strength training, and mobility exercises.
“It’s not just how many miles per day or intensity, but combining running or riding with other exercises,”Azze said. “Runners think they have strong legs but usually their glutes need to be strengthened. You can’t just run, you have to combine injury prevention techniques with strength training, nutrition and sleep patterns. Lifestyle habits.”
And our modern lifestyles are part of the problem.
“If you are seated at a desk all day, and then you ask your body to go run for two hours your hip flexors are shortened and gluts are not engaged. Movement prep exercises a five to ten minute warm up to get those muscles activated. “
A lot of people think ‘our bodies are designed to run and so we should just be able to get up and run.’
Not so Azze says.
“Maybe back in the day when we were doing physical labor all day, but when we are seated and in cars for hours a day it’s not true.”
Strengthening and warm up exercises are needed to mitigate the effects of a sedentary life. MPF are big believers in overall wellness and overall fitness. Lifestyle, sleep patterns and nutrition are all part of training, not just what happens when running or riding.
The MPF coaches run a functional movement screen test. After that they use Facetime or face to face meetings to communicate with their athletes. MPF offers online training as well as training peak software to coach athletes based on findings from the assessment.
Each athlete gets a personally designed program based on strengths, weakness and goals. The team uses technology applications to keep in contact with their some 80 athlete/clients from all over the country and sometimes Europe.
Supplemental exercise to keep you in the sport for longer and uninjured. Little exercises will keep you going longer, according to Azze
“It’s hard to convince people until they’re sidelined, “Azze said.
But the coaches know the anguish of being unable to train because they are athletes themselves. Three of MPF’s coaches are endurance athletes, trial runners, triathletes, and mountain bikers.
Photo by Joe Azze
There are about 20 athletes on the MPF team. Ben Nephew, known locally for winning Rock the Ridge, the Escarpment Trail Run and Manitou’s Revenge, as well as fastest known times(FKT) on many trails, is part of the team and a coach.
Nephew was always a runner, he ran in high school as well as in college. Then joined the Greater Boston Track Club.
“There were regular work outs and we were racing all the time. It was a social out let as well as competitive,” Nephew said. “I missed that. MPF filled the team hole. They work hard at planning events that a lot of us are able to get to or the training weekends. It’s something that I was hoping to find again.”
That’s the team aspect of MPF, there is also the training. Elizabeth and Joe are scholars of the sport. They have both experience and training and continue to educate themselves, education which they then pass on to their team.
“They've made me think more about general strength and running form,” Ian Ridgeway, MPF team member, said. “I'm a typical runner- I’d train by running 90 to 100 miles a week generally. But now I do focus more on core and functional strength, even incorporating sprints in my training at their advice, and haven't had as many niggly issues.”
Runners of all levels can have the experience of being part of the team and benefit from the MPF training.
“I am not a top performing athlete. I am a single mom, balancing two jobs and a very busy teenaged daughter, and I am thrilled that there is a place for me on the team,” Amy Jennifer Hanlon, MPF team member, remarked.
“It’s definitely been a fun year being part of the MPF RNR [Red Newt Racing] trail running team. Elizabeth and Joe Azze hold such a huge wealth of information regarding fitness and the outdoors – I feel lucky to benefit from their knowledge and passion. I didn’t know I would be capable of finding even greater enjoyment of trail running – but the last year being a part of MPF RNR trail running team has certainly given me new ways to love and explore it,” Hanlon said.
The MPFis sharing the wealth too; a few of their athletes are becoming coaches.
“They’re encouraging us to get certification, Nephew said. “I have made a couple of training plans for 50 milers”.
Winter is starting late in the northeast but January should bring colder temps and snow and with them wintery outdoor adventures with Mountain Peak Fitness Adventure Club.
Perhaps you'll find your way into Narnia.
Nephew was always a runner, he ran in high school as well as in college. Then joined the Greater Boston Track Club.
“There were regular work outs and we were racing all the time. It was a social out let as well as competitive,” Nephew said. “I missed that. MPF filled the team hole. They work hard at planning events that a lot of us are able to get to or the training weekends. It’s something that I was hoping to find again.”
That’s the team aspect of MPF, there is also the training. Elizabeth and Joe are scholars of the sport. They have both experience and training and continue to educate themselves, education which they then pass on to their team.
“They've made me think more about general strength and running form,” Ian Ridgeway, MPF team member, said. “I'm a typical runner- I’d train by running 90 to 100 miles a week generally. But now I do focus more on core and functional strength, even incorporating sprints in my training at their advice, and haven't had as many niggly issues.”
Runners of all levels can have the experience of being part of the team and benefit from the MPF training.
“I am not a top performing athlete. I am a single mom, balancing two jobs and a very busy teenaged daughter, and I am thrilled that there is a place for me on the team,” Amy Jennifer Hanlon, MPF team member, remarked.
“It’s definitely been a fun year being part of the MPF RNR [Red Newt Racing] trail running team. Elizabeth and Joe Azze hold such a huge wealth of information regarding fitness and the outdoors – I feel lucky to benefit from their knowledge and passion. I didn’t know I would be capable of finding even greater enjoyment of trail running – but the last year being a part of MPF RNR trail running team has certainly given me new ways to love and explore it,” Hanlon said.
The MPFis sharing the wealth too; a few of their athletes are becoming coaches.
“They’re encouraging us to get certification, Nephew said. “I have made a couple of training plans for 50 milers”.
Winter is starting late in the northeast but January should bring colder temps and snow and with them wintery outdoor adventures with Mountain Peak Fitness Adventure Club.
Perhaps you'll find your way into Narnia.
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