Down in Chile: two of our co-founders, Max and Moisés, meet by getting lost during a 50k race. Meanwhile, over in Morocco, Kirsten starts her photography career by shooting an ultramarathon for the New York Times.
2012
Max and Moisés both go on to become sponsored by The North Face Chile, climb crazy peaks together and start living for (and from) trail running. Meanwhile, Kirsten moves to Berlin, Germany and photographs lots of trail running for lots of publications.
2016
Max, Moisés and Kirsten go on a two-week expedition together in Patagonia for The North Face Chile. Max and Moi are shooting for an FKT of Cerro Castillo, and Kirsten’s there as the photographer. After the expedition, the trio heads to a brewery (of course) where Vert.run is born with the mission of sharing our trail running love with others.
Baby steps
2017
Vert.run starts out as a mailing list. Max, Moi and Kirsten work behind the scenes like the Wizard of Oz to get free training plans to everyone. We hit 6,000 trail runners on our email training plans and decide: it’s time for an upgrade.
2018
We teamed up with our fourth co-founder, Cristóbal Forno to show us the business ropes of running a startup. We launch the first version of our training platform, which is still there today.
2019
We start partnering with professional trail runners, starting with Hillary Allen and Dylan Bowman, to create affordable training plans. Today, over 13,000 athletes from 42 different countries train with our plans.
Meet the team
Moisés Jiménez
From: Maracay – Venezuela
Moi is an engineer who spends a solid number of hours each day running on trails. This has taken him to races all over the world and led to some awesome results and wins in competitive races.
Kirsten Kortebein
From: Michigan – USA
Kirsten hails from the Midwest and is passionate about flat and steep trails alike. She’s a sport photographer whose first-ever publication was in the New York Times when she was 19 years old.
Max Keith
From: Iquique – Chile
Max grew up biking in the desert in Chile, and then jumped to the trails. He got hooked on our sport, and had great trail results around the world. Max’s motto: The more technical the trail, the better.
Cristobal Forno
From: Santiago – Chile
As a father of two daughters and founder of multiple successful companies, Cristóbal still finds time to run and complete at least two 100 mile races per year. In 2017 he ran Western States in under 24 hours.
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Love what we do? Think you’d be a great addition to Vert.run, and want to join our team (someday?) Write us at team@vert.run!
Trail running & Ultramarathon training plans by world class athletes
No matter where you are, build strength for the mountains with our jumps routine.
A jumps routine is a vital part of trail running training—especially if you don’t have daily access to the mountains. Jumps exercises aren’t a replacement for training in the mountains, but they sure are a good way to prepare ourselves for them.
When done correctly and methodically, this routine will help you feel stronger and more prepared when heading to the mountains to train or race.
Our routine aims to train two things: your strength and your competence in different types of terrain. These skills safely enable you to run farther and more consistently in the mountains.
The point of doing strength exercises isn’t to look good: it’s to prepare ourselves to run efficiently and reduce risk of injury.
A strength routine plays a key role in your development as a trail runner. We need to prepare our bodies to withstand the impact of running long downhills; to avoid fatigue (and thus avoid falling) in technical sections; and to be a strong, compact ally to our minds during climbs.
Quality > quantity. Don’t be shy about cutting the number of repetitions. It’s way better to do fewer repeats, but to do them with control. Then, you can keep building from there.
Even though at-home exercises aren’t as as fun as running down a mountain, you can’t do the later without first dedicating yourself to the former.
A good core routine builds strength in our upper body (our “core.”) This strength keeps our bodies aligned, which helps us maintain good posture while running. Good running posture = more control = safely cruising those downhills we talked about.
Do these exercises at least once a week ( (but don’t exceed three times per week.)
Don’t be shy about cutting the number of repetitions. It’s way better to do fewer repeats, but to do them with control. Then, you can keep building from there.
No races? No problem!
Join our community who's training for a 50k to say "adios" to 2020