Our coaching philosophy is oriented around the knowledge that you have a committed family and/or professional life. Maybe you’re not a parent or maybe your kids are now adults. Maybe you work full-time—or more, staying at home with young people. 21st Century adulthood is busy and all-consuming, leaving few hours of free time for you to explore your running goals.

We (Greg and Kyle) are full-time fathers, husbands, professionals, and part-time athletes. We’ve figured out how to train and recover inside of the context of our family and work lives, and we can support you in doing so as well. Up front, we will say that we haven’t discovered a magic training formula, and while we know you have limited time, you will need to set aside a reasonable number of hours for running proportional to your goals.

If you’re itching to run your first 5k, half-marathon, marathon, run over the winter for the first time to take aim at a Grandma’s PR, or you’re excited to try a 50 mile trail race and you’re a busy parent and/or professional, we may be the right training facilitators for you. Whether you simply want to finish a goal race or run as fast as your talent and training/recovery time allow, we are confident our approach can help you.

We have each utilized our personalized training approach to meet our own race goals. In the past several years, Kyle, a former NCAA Division I hockey player, finished 6th at the Superior 50 mile on an average of fewer than 5 hours per week of running (top Northland finisher), ran a 4:41 1,600m time trial on the track, and won the Harder ‘N Heck half marathon. Greg, a 50 year old former collegiate runner, trained for and won the USATF Masters Trail Half Marathon while focusing on just two “big” running workouts per week, and took second place at the Superior 50 mile. More importantly, we both recovered quickly, had fun, and didn’t make unreasonable sacrifices in our family lives.

Not all people who can race fast or coach themselves well are great coaches. If we aren’t the right coaches for you, we will help you find somebody who is! But if you’re reading our posts, and you feel like we might be a fit, reach out.

Like all effective coaches, we utilize science, experience, and feel in designing and tailoring your training. Here are some essentials about our approach that we would want every person to know in advance of reaching out to us.

• We believe open and frequent communication is essential to a coaching relationship.
• We view training as holistic. Running is just a part of your life that must integrate with the diverse aspects of living.
• Your goals must be ambitious and attainable to be meaningful and motivating.
• There are innumerable complex ways to train for a race, but your two most important runs per week are designed to: 1) Get you to the finish line healthfully, and 2) Get you there as fast as possible relative to your talent and goals.
• Most of the running we prescribe is gentle and conversational. Consistent, comfortable running (think 3-5 on an effort scale of 10) is the most important kind of running you can do.
• Anybody can find an online training program for any kind of race from 100 meters to 100 miles. There’s nothing wrong with most of those programs. The challenge is in implementing a generic training plan in a way that jives with your very unique needs.
• Coaches don’t simply prescribe training, they help support and facilitate improvement related to your body’s complex and individualized response to training. Getting to the finish line of your goal event will most likely come down to how well you recovered from your runs, whether or not you experienced an untimely illness or injury, how effectively you adapted your sleep and nutrition to your running, and how psychologically prepared you are for your goal event. Most athletes, we coaches included, also struggle with good decision making related to those factors.
• We aren’t afraid to push clients, but we believe in the power of positivity and relationships as the prime motivators of humans.

If you’re still reading, drop us a note by filling out our form on the Coaching page.

-Greg and Kyle