I coach runners across distances from half-marathons to 100-mile mountain ultras. Trail racing, first ultras, big goal races in the mountains. If that’s your thing, we’ll work well together.

My approach is patient and goal driven, but I’m not interested in training plans that blow up the rest of your life. You have a job. Maybe kids. Definitely other priorities. The plans I build account for all of it. Consistency beats heroic training weeks followed by burnout every time.

I work with beginners and experienced runners alike. What matters is that you show up ready to do the work and communicate when life gets in the way. That’s how real progress happens.

Personalized Training

Training is an experiment with one subject: you. I build plans grounded in exercise science, but the real work is paying attention to how your body responds. What works for another runner might not work for you, and vice versa. We figure that out together.

Structured Planning

My approach is methodical. Workouts have purpose. Recovery has purpose. The schedule exists for reasons I can explain, and I welcome questions when something doesn’t make sense. Coaching works better when you understand the why behind what I’m asking.

Mental Game

The psychological side of running gets equal weight. Long ultras break people down mentally before they break them down physically. I pay attention to where your head is, not just your legs. If something’s off in your life, that affects training, and we address it.

Honest Communication

Tell me when workouts felt terrible. Tell me when you skipped one. Tell me when life stress is piling up. I’m not here to judge. I’m here to adjust and keep you moving forward. That only works if we’re both straight with each other.

I started coaching formally with Team RunRun in late 2023, but I’d been doing the work informally for years before that. Friends training for their first race. Colleagues curious about ultras. Kids through Girls on the Run. The formal title caught up with what I was already doing.

My athletes have ranged from true beginners working couch-to-5k programs to experienced runners chasing 100-mile finishes. That spread has taught me to meet people where they actually are, not where I assume they should be, or they think they are.

I grew up in Buffalo, NY and now live in Ann Arbor, MI with my wife and dogs. Our two kids are off at college now. I wasn’t a runner in high school. Soccer and swimming took up that space. Running found me after college, initially through runs with my Dad, and it stuck.

My day job is in software development, and I have a particular interest in where technology and health intersect. It’s a different kind of problem-solving than coaching, but the two feed each other in ways I didn’t expect.

Racing is great, but it’s not really the point for me. I’m in this for the experience of moving through woods on singletrack, hours from anything resembling urgency. I’ve been running 100-mile events since 2013. Those races have taken me to places I’d never have seen otherwise and introduced me to people who’ve become close friends. The running community at that distance is small and a little weird, and I mean that as a compliment.

I read a lot about running, both the science and the stories. The technical side comes from Noakes, Lydiard, Jack Daniels, Jason Koop. The narrative side from books like “Born to Run,” “Once a Runner,” “Running with the Buffaloes,” and Murakami’s “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.” Both types shape how I think about the sport. Coach Matt Urbanski has been a direct mentor, and working with him sharpened how I approach athlete development.

My Dad picked up running later in life and got genuinely obsessed with getting better at it. That rubbed off on me more than I realized at the time. Watching someone discover the sport as an adult, with all that beginner enthusiasm, stuck with me. It’s part of why I enjoy coaching newer runners.

The running community in Ann Arbor keeps me honest. People here push themselves, fail publicly, talk about what went wrong, and show up again. That attitude bleeds into how I coach. Growth happens when you’re willing to be bad at something for a while.

My first 100-mile attempt was at Hallucination 100 in Hell, Michigan. Around mile 60, I stubbed my toe on a stump, tried to catch myself, and jammed my other foot under a root. What followed was the kind of slow-motion fall where your brain has time to think “this is going to be bad” before you hit the ground. Spectacular to witness, I’m sure.

I kept moving for another 20 miles, a stubborn mix of running and walking. Every step sent white-hot pain through my leg. At mile 80, my body made the decision for me. I couldn’t go further. When I finally looked at the damage, my leg was black and blue from toes to hip. I’d been running on a stress fracture.

At FatDog 120, I went off course by 10 miles. In the mountains. At night. Finding my way back onto the route and still finishing taught me something different than the Hallucination DNF did. Both races live in my head when I’m coaching. The one where I pushed too far and paid for it. The one where I solved a problem and kept going. Knowing the difference between those two situations is paramount!

• Certified UESCA Ultrarunning Coach

• 50k: 4:17:04 (4/27/13) The Trail Marathon, 2 OA
• 100 mile: 20:58:30 (9/9/22) Hallucination 100 Miler, 5 OA

• Rob Raux & the Hallucination 100 ft. Sarah Raux – Podcast