An online run coach plans your training around your goal and your life, reviews what you actually ran each week, and adjusts the plan based on how your body is responding. Done well, it is a continuous loop of plan, run, review and adjust, rather than a training plan you download once and follow blindly.
That loop is what separates coaching from a generic plan. A plan from the internet cannot tell that you slept badly all week, picked up a niggle in your calf or had to miss Thursday's session for work. A coach can, and changes what comes next.
Before the first week: getting to know you
Good coaching starts with a proper conversation, usually a call or a detailed questionnaire. A coach needs to understand where you are starting from before writing a single session.
- Your running history and recent race times or parkrun results
- Your goal race, the date and what success looks like to you
- How many days a week you can realistically run, and for how long
- Your work, family and travel commitments
- Past injuries, current niggles and anything that tends to flare up
- Where you run: roads, trails, hills, a treadmill, heat or altitude
What happens every week
Once training starts, the weekly rhythm usually looks something like this.
1. Your sessions are planned
Your coach sets the week's runs with clear guidance on the purpose and effort of each one: which runs are easy, which are quality sessions like intervals or tempo runs, and how long the long run should be. Good plans explain the why behind each session so you know when to hold back and when to push. Most of the running will be easy, for reasons explained in why easy runs should feel slow.
2. You run and log
You do the sessions and record them, usually with a GPS watch or phone app. Alongside the data, you add short notes: how the run felt, how you slept, whether anything hurt. Those notes are often more useful to a coach than the numbers.
3. Your coach reviews it
This is where the value lies. Your coach looks at pace against effort, heart rate trends if you use them, how you handled the long run and whether the hard session hit the right intensity. They also look for warning signs: easy runs getting harder, repeated mentions of the same sore spot, or a drop in performance that suggests you are not recovering.
4. The plan is adjusted
Based on that review, the next week changes. That might mean progressing your long run, pulling back after a tough week, swapping a session for cross training around a niggle, or moving runs around a work trip. This is the part a static plan simply cannot do.
5. You get feedback and answers
Most online run coaches have a set weekly check in plus messaging in between. You can ask about pacing for Saturday's parkrun, what to eat before a long run or whether to run through a tight hamstring, and get an answer based on your own history rather than a forum thread.
The bigger picture a coach manages
Beyond the weekly cycle, a run coach looks after the overall structure of your training: building mileage gradually, planning rest days and recovery weeks, timing your hardest blocks and getting the taper right before race day. For races like Two Oceans or Comrades, this also includes back to back long runs, hill strength and lots of time on feet, built over several months.
A good coach also covers the things around running that affect performance: strength work, fuelling practice on long runs and race day pacing. See strength training for runners and how to fuel a marathon for examples of what this looks like.
Online versus in person run coaching
In person coaching, such as a track group with a coach, gives you real time feedback and company. Online coaching gives you a plan built around your individual schedule, continuous review of all your runs rather than just the ones a coach watches, and the freedom to train wherever you are. For most recreational runners with busy lives, the individual plan and weekly review matter more than having a coach on the track, though some people enjoy combining online coaching with a running club for social runs.
If you are weighing up remote and face to face coaching more generally, we compare the formats in online coaching versus in person training.
Who benefits most from a run coach
Not every runner needs a coach. If you run for fun, enjoy it and are not chasing a specific goal, you may be perfectly happy as you are. Coaching tends to make the biggest difference for these runners.
- First time marathoners who want to get to the start line healthy and finish strong
- Runners who keep getting injured when they increase their mileage
- Runners who have plateaued and keep running the same times
- People with busy or unpredictable schedules who need a plan that bends rather than breaks
- Runners stepping up to an ultra like Two Oceans or Comrades for the first time
What a coach should not do
A run coach is not a substitute for medical care. If you have pain that is getting worse, changes how you run, or does not settle with a few days of rest, a good coach will tell you to see a physiotherapist or doctor rather than trying to train through it. The same applies to chest pain, fainting or unusual breathlessness while running.
If this sounds like the kind of support you are after, you can read exactly how our online run coaching works, from the first call through to race week.
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