About
Sam Naney
A Methow native, Sam grew up with nearly as much time with his feet in skis as he did shoes. He took his love for skinny skis all the way to Junior Nationals, then headed for college, skiing for Dartmouth. He continued with post-collegiate racing on the professional circuit during which time he found his way back to the Methow to work with his coach Scott Johnston for the next eight years. After his retirement from skiing and entry into parenthood, Sam joined Johnston’s team at Uphill Athlete where he served as Director of Coaching. In 2021, Sam left UA to lead the Methow Valley Nordic Ski Team as Program Director for two years, and in 2023 returned to coaching full-time with Cascade Endurance.
With over two decades of experience as both a high-level competitive athlete and a coach, Sam blends a grounded endurance training philosophy with his passionate drive to support individuals toward their personal milestones. Accustomed to coaching everyone from professional skiers, trail runners and international mountain guides to active working parents, aspiring first-time runners and aging athletes, Sam brings his enthusiasm to individualized approaches of training principles, and his personable manner with everyone he works with across all ages and disciplines. He is a NASM-certified personal trainer, a USSA-certified Nordic coach and a lifetime member of the heavy metal headbangers. When he’s not working, you’ll find him in the mountains with his two daughters and his Huskies, probably trying to keep up with Alison.
Alison Hanks Naney, LMT
Growing up amid the wheat fields of eastern Oregon, Alison has always been drawn to open spaces. She spent college under the big skies of Montana where she mountain biked, rock climbed, backpacked, and eventually combined sports for big adventure-filled days before finding her true love in trail running. She ran her first trail race in 2000, first 50k in 2003, and has been hooked on long mountain days exploring wild places ever since. In 2006 she began coaching while working at the Seattle Running Company and completing her massage training at Brian Utting School of Massage. She’s worked with athletes ever since. She founded Cascade Endurance in 2010, joined the Uphill Athlete coaching team in 2018, and currently is back full time with Cascade Endurance.
Alison’s coaching approach addresses each aspect of her athletes' training: strength and aerobic fitness, speed, injury prevention, running economy and form, event specific planning, and mental preparation, all while balancing the other aspects of her athletes’ lives. Her professional background as a massage therapist gives her a deep understanding of the way we move and function, informing her athletes' individualized workouts. Alison also coaches a youth running club, and junior Nordic skiers as a member of USSA; she is a certified personal trainer through NCSA and a RRCA certified running coach.
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Solomon Woras
Growing up in small mountain towns Solomon was dragged by his parents, willingly and unwillingly, on many outdoor adventures, including backpacking, whitewater rafting, mountain biking, and skiing. After entering his first cross country ski race at age seven Solomon embarked on a life long journey with competitive endurance sports. After skiing and running in high school he took up Bike racing while attending college in Oregon, culminating in years of racing at the national level, punctuated by several national level podiums and many regional wins in road racing, Cycle-cross, and a little track. After returning to his home town to raise a family, Solomon dipped his toes back into cross country ski racing, has dabbled in Mt. Biking racing, alpine running, and taken up climbing. These days find Solomon attempting to balance work as a carpenter and a father of three active girls, while still pursuing his love of endurance sport and enjoying the beautiful outdoors.
Solomon’s approach to coaching is to cultivate a life long love of self-induced physical suffering and positive relationship with competition. Years of working with professional coaches, self coaching, deploying trial and error and absorbing hard lessons has left Solomon a wealth of practical knowledge he can only share with other endurance nerds.
Steph Bennett
Steph came to the PNW in 2006 from the east coast, immediately drawn to exploring everything the region has to offer. While transitioning from a pavement pounder to a trail runner, Steph was a competitive triathlete at the age-group level in Olympic, 70.3 and Xterra Trail distances. Her exposure to trail running came in 2007 when she stumbled upon the Cougar Mountain Trail Run Series, and immediately became addicted to discovering every nook and cranny in the North Cascades, leading to a 2-day self-supported 82 mile run of the Pacific Crest Trail from Stehekin to Manning Park in 2008. Steph has spent the past 15 years racing up to 50km Ultra as well as plotting numerous self-supported adventures in the Cascades, Adirondacks and completing the Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim in Grand Canyon National Park in 2021. Steph has a certificate in Exercise Physiology from Stanford University and is a certified UESCA Ultra-running coach. She is also working on certification as a NSCA Personal Trainer and Pregnancy & Post-partum coach through Brianna Battles. She currently lives in Winthrop, WA with her partner Ryan, his daughter Rumi, Steph's son Robbie and their crazy dog Riddick.
Alan Adams
Born and raised in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Alan’s interest in mountain sports and activities was sparked. It quickly became apparent that ball sports were not in his future so he ran cross country, track and ski raced through high school. After dabbling with ski touring and bike racing in college at University of Vermont, Alan wanted to live amongst the bigger mountains of the West and landed in Seattle. He quickly caught the cycling bug with the awesome bike race scene there and raced as a cat 1 rider for the Hagens Berman Elite Team. Favorite races included Tour of the Gila, Hood, Cascade Classic and other multi day stage races with hilly and demanding courses. After a near life-ending crash at the Mt Hood Classic, Alan walked away from cycling for a few years and dove into trail/mountain running from his current home in Bozeman, MT with races like the Rut, Speedgoat and Big Horn amongst other local events. Being an avid ski tourer, he also dived headfirst into Skimo racing and continues to race around the PNW, Northern Rockies and Canada. He fell back in love with cycling after getting talked into signing up for the Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder stage race in 2019, and has focused on gravel and endurance mountain biking ever since. He has raced Leadboat (Steamboat Gravel and Leadville in same weekend), Montana regional events, Crusher in the Tushar, Rasputitsa and many other of the gravel monuments. In 2020, Alan played a fun endurance experiment on himself by climbing 2.5 million feet on bike and skis. Since then, he’s taken a keen interest in formal training techniques working with Sam at CE, training himself and others on the side. Alan’s season highlight in 2022 was winning the Pancake Ride near Whitefish, MT on a course with 150 miles and 14k of climbing, earning himself the Montana State Gravel Champ award. When not training/racing, Alan loves bike packing, ski touring on FAT skis, hoppy PNW IPA’s and time spent with his partner Chelsee in the mountains.
Lindsay Tucker
Lindsay (she/they) comes to coaching by way of a winding career in molecular biology and computer science. A competitive athlete most of their adult-life, she defines herself as aggressively mediocre at a lot of things: she raced bikes at the elite/pro level, has run ultras for 15 years (50k-200+mi) and even dabbled in trigeekery/Ironman. She is a former alpine climbing instructor with the Seattle Mountaineers and has climbed in the Himalayas, Andes and Wadi Rum, Jordan. Lindsay raced City League for a number of years, enjoys ski touring, Nordic skiing and bribing her two little girls with snacks on the bunny slopes of Mt. Baker (the ultimate endurance sport). Lindsay is a mental health counselor in Bellingham, WA that specializes in trauma and is passionate about movement being a part of everyone’s mental health toolkit. Lindsay is a trauma-informed weight lifting coach and a RYT-200 and looks forward to complementing training plans with breath work and mindful movement. Lindsay is 200+ mile specialist and is currently preparing for the Cocodona 250 in May 2024 and can be found training in the Cascades.
Abby Bange, RD
Abby is a registered dietitian with a dual masters degree in nutrition and psychology from Bastyr University. She’s worked in the nutrition field for 15 years and sports nutrition for the last five, focusing on Whole Foods and the big picture of a healthy lifestyle vs. counting calories and hyper-focusing on minutiae. Her approach follows science-based recommendations and helps clients incorporate best practices into their daily lives. Abby has years’ of experience working with people suffering from disordered eating and people wanting to improve athletic performance.
When not working with clients you’ll find Abby in the mountains on foot, bike, or skis, or keeping up with her two daughters. As a working mom, business owner, and athlete herself, she has a unique ability to meet clients where they are and help them reach their goals through small, incremental changes.
The results are in.
“I PR’ed my marathon 6 months after having surgery because I started training much smarter with CE’s help. ”
— Andrea L.
“My two goals were to finish the race and not beat up my body in the process. The training schedule and support from CE helped me attain both of those goals even after I was sick and training was set back. CE helped me above and beyond what I expected. ”
— Dawn M.
“For the last three years I have been plagued by one injury after the other, mostly as a result of self and over training. Since I have been following your guidance my training is well rounded and I have not sustained any injuries. I have been running less miles but performing much better than previous years: feeling great and setting PR’s. I could not be happier and feel well prepared for my next adventure.”
— Gary P.
“I found Cascade Endurance after my second overuse injury as an ultra runner; I had just been diagnosed with a tibial stress fracture and was unable to run when I began working with Alison, but she turned my bench time into an opportunity to correct the imbalances that led to injury. Daily workouts customized for me kept me sane for the three months I couldn’t run. Strategically designed strength and cross-training workouts set me up to come back strong and healthy with the tools to change my stride. I am now running again and feel like I am learning to do it from scratch in a positive way. There are so many subtle nuances vital to the complete training picture that I was unaware of on my own. With Alison’s guidance, I am confident that my goal to return to racing as a healthier, stronger, and faster runner is achievable.”
— Jenny L.
“My goal was to run my first 50 mile race and to build my training as well as my confidence for going into it. Working with Alison definitely helped me achieve my goal through steadily increasing my endurance and strength. I learned a lot about “focused” training and think this made a huge difference for me in that the hard days were specific and goal focused while the easy days gave me lots of time on the trails/roads building my mileage. I had previously been “putting in the miles” with very little focused training. In the month leading up to the race, I felt stronger than ever and not fatigued all the time like I had been leading up to other races. I learned a LOT about balance in training and that was probably the most beneficial.”