Online Running Coaching
I’m Martin Cox. I’ve been a distance runner for five decades and a coach for 25 years. I provide 1:1 personalised online running coaching for athletes who want to improve their performance and achieve their competitive goals.
I have coaching experience at every level, from beginners to national-standard athletes and international-level professional athletes with major championship medals to their name. I coach across road, track, cross-country, trail, mountain and fell running, from one mile to 100 miles and beyond. If you love competing and want to improve, my aim is to help you understand what you need to do to maximise your potential.
Who Do I Coach?
VO2max Coaching is for runners of all ages, abilities, and levels of experience.
You might be relatively new to structured running and looking for general guidance. You may have reached the point where generic training plans or AI coaching apps have stopped helping you get faster.
You may be an experienced amateur looking for a more individualised approach to training to achieve a new personal best.
You may be a professional athlete returning from a bad injury, trying to find a way out of a period of over-training and stagnation, or looking to make that ellusive next step to the highest level of your sport.
You may be wanting to run a faster road 5K or marathon, take on your first mountain race, attempt an FKT, or prepare for your first 50K, 100K, 100 mile, or 200 mile ultra.
Whatever the distance and surface, and whetever your starting point, the common factor is that you want to improve. You want to understand your training, make the best use of the time available to you, and see how far your potential can take you.
The Cost of 1:1 Online Running Coaching
My coaching service costs £140 per month.
This includes a fully personalised training programme, ongoing communication and programme adjustments based on your training and feedback. I am directly available by text, phone and email on an unlimited basis to answer questions, deal with unforeseen circumstances, and provide guidance throughout your training.
I deliberately keep the number of athletes I coach small — usually around 20 at any given time. This allows me to provide the level of individual attention, communication, and ongoing adjustment that I believe genuine one-to-one coaching requires.
What Will My Training Programme Look Like?
There is no single training programme that works for every runner. Although the fundamental principles of endurance training have remained remarkably consistent over generations, every athlete is different.
We all respond differently to training stress. Our physiology, psychology, work, family commitments, lifestyle, and previous experience all influence what constitutes the right training programme.
Every athlete I coach receives an individualised training programme built around their goals, current level of fitness, and available time. Your training needs to work alongside your lifestyle, work, family, and other commitments if it is going to be sustainable and effective.
Your program will specify the duration and intensity of individual sessions, helping to remove the guesswork from training. Some sessions will challenge you, while others will deliberately allow you to recover and absorb the training.
Nothing is set in stone! Training is a process, and your programme will evolve along with your running. Your feedback and training data allow me to adjust your training as you progress through each training cycle, responding to changes in fitness, fatigue, health, circumstances, and upcoming competitions.
The program come in the form of a pdf document (see below), detailing each day’s training along with extensive workout notes. If your next race is in three months time, your program will provide workouts for the next three months.
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Coaching Is a Partnership
Effective coaching is a partnership between athlete and coach. The training programme is important, but it is just one small part of the process.
Good coaching means getting to know the athlete, understanding what motivates them, recognising when something isn’t working, and guiding them through the inevitable highs and lows of training and competition.
After over 25 years as a coach, I have learned that even the most talented athletes don’t always respond as expected. There is no perfect formula. The best coaching comes from applying sound training principles while recognising the individual in front of you.
To help me help you, I ask that you provide regular subjective feedback through an online training log named Attackpoint (see below). Your feedback helps me understand your lifestyle, how you are responding to the training, and whether adjustments to the programme are needed.
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Training, Nutrition, Strength and Recovery
To reach your full athletic potential, training needs to be considered as part of the bigger picture.
I take a broad approach to endurance performance, incorporating strength and conditioning, cross training, recovery, psychology and stress management. Where necessary, I help athletes prepare for extreme environmental challenges such as altitude, cold, and heat.
Applying the principles of sports nutrition consistently to training and racing can be tough. I help athletes develop practical approaches to fuelling, hydration, and diet that support their training and allow them to perform at their best.
Ready to Start?
If you are serious about improving your running and want a training programme built specifically around you, your goals and your life, I’d love to hear from you.
Get in touch via the contact form to tell me about your running, your goals, and what you want to achieve.
Alternatively, you can get in touch by email at: vo2maxcoaching@icloud.com