Kirsten Larsen – Pasadena Running Coach
Sign up Fee Waived! I am a holistic health & running coach with a focus on helping you heal & strengthen your whole body so you can run freely with ease.
From: $125.00 / month and a $19.00 sign-up fee
Running Coach Description
Pasadena running coach Kirsten Larsen is here to meet you where you are at, whether it’s just starting out, coming back from injury, or in need of a re-set. She also offers offers strength training, nutrition coaching, and additional meetings for assessments, such as mobility, and form, based on a runner’s individual needs – reach out to her if you’d like to customize a monthly coaching package.
*** Sign up now, and waive your sign up fee! Save $19! – Coupon Code: signuplarsen***
Specialties
- Functional training, Rebuilding from injury, illness, or time off, Strength & mobility training, Corrective exercises, Nutrition, and Mindset
- Beginner to Intermediate
- Road & Trail
- 5K to Marathon
Philosophy
My coaching philosophy is that everyone has the capacity to run. There are a lot of components that affect our ability to run well: lifestyles, movement styles, nutrition, mindset, emotional state, stress levels, etc. Joy, Sustainability, and a Whole person approach are important.
I believe that Joy should be at the forefront. Running and exercise should certainly have challenges, otherwise, the transformation won’t happen. However, if the joy gets taken out of it, injury and/or burnout are sure to follow.
I also believe that sustainable training is key to really enjoying your running. And by sustainable, I include a person’s everyday life. A training plan on paper might be sustainable, but conflict with their everyday activities. It needs to be something that allows for the ebb and flow of life.
Lastly, working within a whole person approach has allowed me to look at functional movement, nutrition, and even mindset shifts that help a person really perform & feel their best.
Coaching Experience
I’ve been coaching in various forms for over 10 years. I’ve coached ages 6-60. I’ve coached soccer, running, and building back from injury.
Currently, I train adults who have had either illness, injury, or simply busyness get in the way of their running dreams. We work together with form, mobility, mindset, nutrition, and of course proper training in order to help you find a sustainable and fun training flow that fits into your life.
About Me
Having experienced burnout and loads of injuries at one point in my health and running history, I really went after learning about functional movement, corrective exercises, understanding the mechanics of the human body and running form, as well as how nutrition plays a part in our body’s ability to recover and train well.
I am a holistic health and running coach with a focus on helping people really learn how to heal and strengthen the whole body in a way that allows you to really thrive in your health and running. As a running coach, I focus on helping you connect with your whole body in order to create a body that really runs well. A few of these components include mobility, stability, strength, training progression, nutrition, and more.
I hold certifications in running, running form, exercise nutrition, nutrition for healing the body, integrative nutrition, personal training, corrective exercise specialization, and more.
Big Influences
Jay Dicharry, Krissy Moehl, Eric Orton, Jack Daniels, Scott Jurek, Rich Roll, Catra Corbett, Chrissie Wellington, Greg McMillan, Jason Fitzgerald, David & Megan Roche, Matt Fitzgerald, David Clark, Matt Dixon.
Race History
- Cross Country in High School.
- Triathlon team in college.
- Hiatus from racing during initial working years.
- Then rebuilt as a busy working adult to complete many 5K, 10K, Half, and Full Marathons.
Certifications
- RRCA – Level 2 running coach
- NASM – Certified Personal Trainer
- NASM – Corrective Exercise Specialist
- Precision Nutrition – Level 1 Exercise Nutrition
- Institute for Integrative Nutrition Health Coach
Contact Kirsten
11 reviews for Kirsten Larsen – Pasadena Running Coach
Sarah –
I started working with Coach Kirsten just before the holidays. She understands how to balance the busy demands of life and training. Her tips on my form have really helped me improve. I look forward to the coming training months.
Reena –
I absolutely LOVE working with Kirsten! I had been looking for a running coach for a long time because (like most of the other reviewers) I have been experiencing injuries that have felt so frustrating, but I truly love running. We’re still very much at the beginning of our journey together, but I’ve never felt more hopeful that I will eventually get back to being able to run consistently and regularly again. She is such a warm and kind person, and she is so flexible with helping me find what works and scaling up or down as needed. As someone who has never been on a sports team in my life, never had a coach, and has a very sedentary job, I’m so grateful for her patience and willingness to keep adapting the training so that I can find a pathway back.
Also, PS – Kirsten has an amazing podcast called Resilient and Thriving — if you’re thinking of working with her, check it out! It’s like all her wisdom distilled into these little gems. So helpful for people who are feeling stressed and overwhelmed but want to find their way back to balance and health. There are episodes on everything from nutrition to mentality shifts to help tackle things from multiple angles!
Hongyu Wang –
I highly recommend Kirsten as a running coach! I have worked with Coach Kirsten for 10 months and I improved so much. I started looking for running coach after recovery from lower back/foot injury. I was sporty but never into running. With Coach Kirsten, I started from only being able to run 5min/3min interval to run 8 miles (around 90 min) straight. I am now able to control my cadence around 180spm; able to do 8 miles aerobic run with heart rate controlled at 135 bpm. I enjoyed various interval trainings too (strides, cruise, yasso etc). All of them improved my strength and endurance a lot. I also enjoyed the supportive strength training programs she sets for me on the non-running days. And most importantly I am injury-free the whole time! Thank you Kirsten!
Gilbert Ramirez –
“I never thought I would be able to…”, is a common phrase I kept repeating while training under Coach K. From March to August of 2024, I completed my first race, a 5k, and a half marathon at Moro Bay. I tackled these goals with confidence because Coach K helped me build realistic expectations, dynamically scheduled my training routine when things in life happened and gave great in-person feedback on my form and how to improve.
Coach K is empathetic and follows up weekly to check in on your progress. I appreciate all her expertise in running and nutrition as she answered all my questions thoughtfully and thoroughly. I recommend Coach K to anyone who wants to tackle their “eventually” running goals and make them a reality.
Jay –
Kirsten is smart and supportive and realistic and motivating and lovely to work with. You’ll be in good hands working with her.
John Dyson –
I have been working with Coach Kirsten for months and the results speak for themselves. I never imagined I could run a 5K, I have and finished strong! She’s helped me patiently on my form, strength, mobility, balance and endurance. I really appreciate her encouragement and science backed guidance. She’s a rock star and I’m so grateful we found each other!
Amanda Yoshioka-Maxwell –
Kirsten is THE BEST. Im a long-time runner but I have had consistent pain/injuries on runs for the past year. With Kirsten’s help and strengthening exercises I am nearly pain-free on all runs and have not felt this strong in 15 years. I cannot recommend her more, especially if you are coming back from an injury.
Elyssa Warner –
I worked with Kirsten for about four months from March-July 2022, leading up to the start of my formal marathon training program in mid-July. I stopped in mid-July b/c that is when my formal marathon training program, which I had used before and knew how to use, started. I was probably a hard case for any coach because I had A LOT of medical issues (not running injuries), including two cancer diagnoses, the treatment of which left me with chronic pain and weakness, and a massive abdominal surgery that I was still recovering from when I started with Coach K. Also, I didn’t really have any running goals when I first started with her – I knew I was heading for another surgery in May and had a marathon in November, so had signed up with a running coach to try to make the most efficient use of my time to prepare for the marathon in the context of all my medical issues. I feel like we may have gotten off to a rocky start – I felt like I had to keep repeating that I had upper body weakness and pain and for example, could not do core workouts that were mostly plank variations. At first, I felt like I was being told to work up to my ability, and I think that probably was not the right message for me, as my ability for a plank-heavy workout was usually less than half of the workout, which was very discouraging. I was hoping for different workouts that didn’t rely so much on plank, and Coach K and I did eventually get there, and I found those workouts challenging but do-able. The other thing I think we got off to a rocky start with was that some of the descriptions/files had errors, some of which made it impossible to do the exercise b/c the description made no sense. Again, this was something that I think Coach K addressed after I pointed them out to her. Aside from a somewhat rocky start, I think Coach K vastly improved and seemed to understand where I was coming from somewhere in the middle of my time with her. I was then getting workouts that I could do most of, and the exercise descriptions started making more sense. Additionally, she was always super responsive to my questions (and I ask a lot!) and available for chats about the workout plans. In terms of helping me with my running, I give Coach K 10 gold stars 🙂 At about the mid-way point of my time with Coach K, my May surgery got canceled, and that allowed me to have an actual running goal to prepare me to start marathon training. Coach K set out a plan and I achieved my goal, and the crazy thing was that it felt easy. I am also now 3 weeks into a difficult marathon training plan, and am meeting most of my pace and distance goals. I have used this plan 3 times before, once after all my medical issues, so I know what it feels like to go through this plan. I have to say that whatever Coach K did for me has been GREAT, as reflected by the three weeks of marathon training feeling relatively good/easy. I feel more prepared to get through the program than I did the last time I used it. Moreover, Coach K helped me adapt the plan to my current running abilities right before I started it, since we had overshot the baseline that the plan assumed you have. Also, I like that Coach K focused not just on running, but on overall fitness – we did strength, core, cardio, balance, and stretching/recovery stuff, variations of which I had been doing on my own for about 10 years. I truly believe that a person needs a variety of exercises/workouts and to include strength to really get the full benefits of exercise, avoid injury, etc, and I am glad Coach K was able to provide a well-rounded program for me that included all aspects of fitness. Additionally, I liked that Coach K understood that I had been exercising on my own for a loooong time, and when we started, she figured out what I had been doing on my own, and then built a plan that pretty closely resembled what I had been doing, not in terms of the workout, but in terms of number of runs per week, which days I did strength vs cardio on, how long I spent working out each day, etc. I think that was important for me because if I had too much sudden change in my workout routine, I don’t know that I would have stuck with it. All this being said, I did enjoy working with Coach K after we got through the rough patches at the beginning, and I think that reflect that Coach K both was learning to work with me (a medically/physically difficult person) and getting more into the swing of run coaching (and ironing out her materials to be understandable/not have errors). I would definitely work with Coach K again, and I have no doubt that if I did, it would be a five-star review since I believe she improved greatly in the first few months of us working together. In fact, if I could just rate Coach K on the last half of my time with her, I would definitely give five stars!
Tammy Kelley –
I worked with Coach Kirsten for about 15 months, beginning in February of 2021. I was a beginner runner that had been going it on my own for a while, but I wasn’t making much progress and had several injury issues with my back and reoccurring shin splits. Within a few months of starting I had started balancing out strength deficiencies and was learning that a lot of my issues were from not properly strengthening my body and a lack of flexibility. In May 2021 I ran the Bolder Boulder, which was an awesome experience. By September I ran in a 10K trail run and didn’t feel like I was going to die after running all those hills! By November I had lost 35 pounds and was in probably the best shape of my adult life. On top of my running 2021 was probably the hardest year of my life personally. Kirsten taught me some life skills that saved me when I was at the end of my rope. I am still using journal dumping and tapping to help me with whatever is trying to take over my brain. I will forever be grateful for Kirsten helping me both physically and mentally. I am able now to take was she taught me and apply it to my life. Live well and run free!
Cassie Gardener Manjikian –
I can’t recommend Kirsten highly enough! We’ve worked together nearly 2 years, and as a busy working mom of 3 kids 3 and under, I was struggling to find balance with my weight, nutrition, exercise, energy, self-care, stress and overwhelm. I initially chose to work with Kirsten for nutrition counseling, and at the time didn’t realize how my problems were interconnected, and how her holistic approach could help me address underlying root causes, to heal and transform all areas of my life. From the beginning she truly listened and assessed my situation with fun, creative tools, to help ground me in my “why” and think outside the box about setting visionary goals. From there, each week she helped me develop small, easy, practical, customized habitual lifestyle changes, which ultimately amounted to a true paradigm shift. I already considered myself pretty healthy and enjoyed occasional running, but suffered from hip/knee/pregnancy-related injuries, and thought that maybe I should transition to a lower-impact sport. But over 8 months, she supported me from injury assessment, to physical therapy, to strength training, to running coaching — so that I beat my 18-year-old-self’s marathon time at more than double the age, injury-free! My husband and I both lost 15-20 pounds without even trying; I’m the strongest I’ve ever been; and best of all — I’m confident that I have the skills and perspective to maintain this lifestyle moving forward. I’m excited to continue working with her as a running coach as I set my sights on more goals, like trail races and triathlons. Thank you, Kirsten!
Aryeh Laufer –
Worked with Coach Kirsten for 6 months and my running improved on all levels. My stride, pace and endurance dramatically improved. Kirsten created an individualized running program for me and made changes to it as needed. I learned so much from her in our time working together. From proper nutrition, stretching, warm up, core and muscle strengthening to everything related to running. I’m forever grateful and Coach Kirsten.