AW Run Coach

11/01/2026

When I look at these two photos, taken 8 years apart, I see two completely different people. 1️⃣ The strong, but embarrassingly unfit, non-runner. 2️⃣ The multiple times National Champion.

My transformation wasn't an accident. It was the result of working super hard, being consistent and showing up day after day.

I don't sell template training plans. As a qualified sport scientist, I sell a relationship that is based on experience and expertise.

Here is what actual athletes say about my approach:

🌟 On Results: "Andrew’s expertise... has helped me achieve a 2:48 marathon PB aged 46... and trail ultramarathons that ultimately led to my selection to represent NZ." — Mel Brandon

🌟 On Strategy: "If you want to beat him, you need to have done the same comprehensive training... he is always happy to share his knowledge." — Stephen Day

🌟 On Reliability: "He is someone you can rely on—not just to cover the miles, but to turn to for thoughtful training advice." — Daniel Jones

Whether you are chasing a national title, a personal best or your first finish line, you deserve a plan based on science, not guess work or AI.

In 2026, if you want to stop guessing and start really training, I have limited coaching spots available. DM me now and let's get to work.

07/01/2026

Thanks to Bradley for the recognition of Mel. Closing an epic race with sub 4:00/km pace does not come naturally…it is the result of years of specific work, combined with developing a determined and disciplined mindset

https://www.instagram.com/p/DTMtiuNE8wk/?igsh=ZjBwMWZqZnQwcmtt

20/12/2025

Six months ago today, I officially launched "AW Run Coach", turning years of informal coaching, experience, and quiet graft into a dedicated coaching business. What started as a leap of faith has quickly become one of the most rewarding things I’ve done.

I’m incredibly grateful to the close friends and mentors who helped shape those early steps…the people who gave honest advice, read my blog, and pushed me to build something that was sustainable, athlete-focused, and grounded in good training principles.

In just six months, I’ve had the privilege of coaching 15 athletes on a weekly basis, across a wide range of abilities and goals. I’ve also recently partnered with a Christchurch-based coaching team, and I’m proud to be leading their Wellington operation in the new year, expanding the support available to runners locally.

What excites me most is what’s ahead. We already have athletes preparing for the , , and the Miler, with plenty more on the calendar. Early next year, I also hope to welcome a new leading male athlete to the team…a runner a lot like me, taller and quietly ambitious. I know firsthand that with the right approach, athletes like this can unlock performances they never thought possible.

If you’re looking for structure, accountability, and experienced coaching that actually understands you, this is just the beginning. I’m only a DM away.

14/12/2025

Before and after…Mel took the win at Crazyman today, tackling the duathlon for the first time and adding the mountain bike leg to her already stellar run. A perfect Wellington day, tough racing while battling through a slow leak. So good to see it all work out ☀️

13/12/2025

Back on the track today for the first time in six years...spikes on, sun out, and a big grin (mostly when it was over).

Lined up at Newtown Park with three mates for the Distance Medley Relay (DMR) and the 4×400. I ran the 800m leg in the DMR and then anchored the 4×400 just 20 minutes later. We were 2nd in the DMR and 4th in the 4x400.

“Treading concrete” with lactate-loaded legs is a very special kind of hurt, especially when you haven’t done it for years.

Overall, just a heap of fun racing hard with mates, pushing ourselves, and mixing it with a much younger field on a beautiful day. Track racing really does hit different.

07/12/2025

My weakness has always been Nike’s carbon-plated shoes. Sixteen pairs and counting. I've been sucked in by nearly every update, colourway, and whisper of improved foam/plate chemistry. I always had this idea that the next new pair would finally unlock my true potential.

It started back in 2017, when rumours about the original Vaporfly 4% were turning into a roar. I still remember sitting at my son Bailey's primary school concert, pretending to be engaged in a heroic recorder solo while secretly refreshing my phone under my jacket. When the order finally went through, I sighed so loudly my wife shot me the darkest look.

From there, it escalated to ridiculous levels. After every couple of races, the same panicked question would creep into my head...has the pop gone? Has the bounce died? Naturally, this required a brand new pair for the next race and the next PB attempt. Retired pairs were demoted to workout shoes...Makara Loops and K-Park tempos, until they eventually reached the gear graveyard in my garage. My first Vaporflys still sit proudly on a workbench like sacred relics.

Perhaps the peak of my Vaporfly obsession came during a series of increasingly ridiculous conversations with my mate Nick Horspool. At the time, Gwen Jorgensen had raced in a custom Vaporfly–spike hybrid, and the idea captured our imagination in a way it absolutely shouldn’t have. We spent weeks debating whether we could somehow attach a spike plate to a Vaporfly. We talked adhesives, plate curvature, stud placement, and foam compression like two men who had any engineering qualifications whatsoever. I was very close to removing the spike plate off a pair of Nike Matumbos...the amount of thought we put into that whole thing still concerns me.

As it turns out, a few years later, Nike released the ZoomX Dragonfly. A carbon-plated racing spike that was basically the real-life, professionally engineered version of the shoe Nick and I had theorised in our over-caffeinated Dad chats. Turns out we weren’t completely delusional…just prematurely ambitious!!!

Looking back, my shoe pile became an accidental education. Years of chasing that elusive pop taught me more about foam properties, plate mechanics, and biomechanics than any marketing blurb ever could. Now, as a coach, I draw on that experience. When runners come to me convinced a single shoe will change their life, we go beyond the hype. We talk about foot strike, support, drop, terrain, and purpose...all the things that genuinely matter.

05/12/2025

Marathon Cheating

What set me thinking about race integrity again today was a crazy situation involving a Melbourne based coach, someone who should be modelling honesty and accountability, who was repeatedly faking marathon times and even running as a bandit in a major event. The whole thing was brushed off casually, almost dismissively, and that reaction triggered something in me. It made me reflect on why I care so much about this issue in the first place, and why it strikes such a nerve when someone in a position of influence behaves this way.

My interest in marathon cheating didn’t start online. It goes back to my own experience at the Boston Marathon, a race where integrity is baked into the culture of the event. Boston isn’t just a race, it’s something you fricken earn. I ran there twice and it shaped who I am. The qualifying process, the work behind it, and the meaning attached to the achievement matter so so much. So the first time I learned that people cheated their way into Boston, something in me fired up big time. It felt like someone cutting ahead in a queue that thousands had waited years to stand in.

Then came the Mike Rossi saga, a year after my second Boston, which made these concerns impossible to ignore. His stupid letter, and then suspicious Boston qualifier, the splits that didn’t make sense, the pacing inconsistencies, the missing evidence, became a US national conversation. It wasn’t the scandal itself that fascinated me, it was what it revealed about the lengths people would go to manufacture an identity they hadn’t earned. Mike Rossi’s case pulled me deep into the world of marathon investigation and data analysis, and it became clear that cheating is far more common, and far more varied, than most runners realise.

That’s when I discovered the comprehensive marathoninvestigation.com. The author (complete legend) lays out, in almost forensic detail, the many ways runners compromise the integrity of races by, cutting courses, swapping or forging bibs, banditing, or manipulating digital data. We used to only have the traditional cheating methods, like Rosie Ruiz famously rode the subway to her “victory" at Boston 1980. Nowdays we have the modern methods like promoting a “PB” based solely on Strava best effort data or selectively highlighting segments that paint a performance that never truly happened. They’re not illegal or even cheating, but they are inauthentic, and when used to build credibility, attract clients, or gain commercial advantage, they become a major form of distortion. In reality, it doesn't really matter, they're just a fake performance dressed up as achievement, undermining the meaning of a sport that prides itself on honesty.

For years, these stories interested me on an intellectual level as they seemed to be case studies on human behaviour, ego, pressure, and opportunity. However this most recent Melbourne based situation hit a bit differently.

When an everyday runner cheats, their actions largely affect themselves. When a coach like me cheats, the impact ripples hugely outward. In my opinion, a coach is supposed to embody the values of the sport...work ethic, respect, transparency. They’re trusted to guide others, manage health, to set standards and to lead by example.

So when a coach fabricates marathon performances on multiple occasions, jumps into a major race without registering, and then casually dismisses it all as though it’s insignificant, it becomes more than a personal failing. It’s a breach of trust and it sends the message that shortcuts are acceptable, that appearances matter more than truth, and that integrity is optional. For anyone who has worked hard for their own results (like me and the legends I coach) and anyone who has earned a place on a start line like Boston, it feels like a slap in the face.

That’s why this bothers me (understatement). It’s not the drama and it’s not pettiness in the comments. It’s rooted in everything Boston taught me about honouring the sport, everything that the Rossi case exposed about deception, and everything my experience reinforced about how easily race integrity can be compromised. The marathon is supposed to be 100% honest. You can’t fake preparation and you can’t bulls*it the distance without cheating yourself.

When a coach repeatedly takes shortcuts and treats them like they don’t matter, it becomes a reminder of why speaking up about integrity really matters, and why the running community has to hold itself to higher standards than this BS we have seen over the last week.

01/12/2025

30/11/2025

A few days ago I wrote about the rise of (the Instagram account exposing fabricated performances) and how it’s opened a window into a whole corner of running culture that most people never realised existed. Since then, I’ve done some deeper digging into the cases they highlight, and the more I dig, the more one thing becomes clear...a lot of these runfluencers don’t actually understand the basics of Athletics.

At the heart of this mess are two very human motivations. Firstly, there’s the pressure. The pressure to maintain a narrative of constant improvement. Influencers need their times to look good because their followers expect it, the algorithm rewards it, and their commercial partners absolutely depend on it (👀 ) If your brand is built on being “fast” or “transforming your fitness,” you can’t exactly post a run that suggests you’ve plateaued, or heaven forbid, gone backwards.

So when the real results don’t quite match the narrative? Well, there’s a convenient shortcut...Strava’s “Best Effort” feature. It’s the perfect optical trick. The “best effort” isolates the fastest chunk of your run, ignoring the fact that you didn’t actually cover the full race distance. For influencers trying to maintain a polished storyline, it’s a dream tool. One tap and suddenly a messy run becomes a PB. For their audience, it looks like inspiring progress and for the sponsor, it looks like proof their product works. However, in my opinion, it’s nonsense.

The second reason is simpler, and honestly, more worrying...a lot of the influencers, often hybrid rockstars, genuinely don’t understand course measurement. They’re shocked when their watch shows 10.12 km on a 10 km course, or when their marathon reads closer to 42.8 than 42.2km. They assume the organiser somehow short-changed them by designing a course that was “too long". That’s when the cropping starts, or the captions with “Strava time.” Sometimes you even get both, supercharged with emojis and cringey self-congratulation.

However courses are measured according to strict standards. Certified courses are measured with a calibrated bicycle using the shortest possible route (the famous SPR) which guarantees they are never short. Runners, on the other hand, are almost always long. We weave, we dodge, we take corners slightly wide, we pass people, we aim for tangents but rarely hold them perfectly. Nobody ever runs the exact distance on an accurately measured course. That’s not a flaw, it’s a feature of running in the real world.

Perhaps the most baffling examples come from the track, which should be the simplest, least ambiguous environment of all. Four hundred metres per lap. Twelve and a half laps for 5000m. Yet somehow we now see influencers posting “5k PBs” after stopping their watch at 5.00 km…while standing randomly on the track having only run twelve laps. It would be funny if it wasn’t so absolutely absurd! The track is literally measured with a steel tape, 30cm from the inside rail to millimetre precision. You can run exactly 5000 metres but only if you hold the rail the entire way, lap after lap. Almost nobody ever does and that’s the beauty of proper measurement, it accounts for reality.

That's really the point that ties this back to my previous post... the runfluencer world is increasingly obscuring reality and blurring the line between performance and presentation. When you mix that with paid coaching services, you get a very dangerous cocktail. People teaching others about a sport they themselves do not properly understand, while using manipulated or misunderstood data to build credibility they haven’t earned. If you’re going to coach others, if you’re going to take their trust and their money, then at the very least you should understand Athletics 101.

We need experienced coaches who understand the fundamentals and people who care about getting it right, not just making it look good. Running doesn’t need to be packaged up into a highlight reel to be inspiring. The real thing is already good enough.

Rant over...this time, I promise.

24/11/2025

Over the past month, I’ve been watching, with growing interest and sometimes disbelief, the rise of an Instagram account () dedicated to exposing fabricated running achievements. What started as a small, observant corner of the internet has now built a wide following and earned strong support from across the running community. Honestly, it’s not hard to see why.

They’re not going after everyday runners who get a split wrong or accidentally record a dodgy GPS track. They’re calling out something far more deliberate...people knowingly inflating, distorting, or outright inventing performances to build an online persona. And most of those “people” aren’t runners trying to impress their mates, they’re influencers or runfluencers as I like to call them. Individuals building their brand off achievements that simply didn’t happen.

What stands out is how often the pattern repeats. Confident claims, questionable evidence, and then, when challenged politely, a rapid pivot to defensiveness and aggression. Usually blocking anyone who dares to ask a reasonable question. It’s become almost predictable. However predictable doesn’t make it harmless.

As someone stepping into the coaching world, properly and professionally, this behaviour hits a nerve. I have a formal degree in exercise and sport science and I’ve spent decades in the sport, competing at a high level well into my forties. I work hard to build credibility based on knowledge, results, and honesty. To see unqualified influencers parachute into the sport, label themselves coaches, and then pad their résumés with performances they have clearly never run...well it pi**es me off more than I expected.

Coaching isn’t about online flair, it’s all about trust. People rely on you to guide their training, manage their health, and help them grow. When someone with no grounding in physiology, biomechanics, or even basic training principles starts giving advice purely because they’ve built an audience on fake achievements, it’s not just misleading...it’s bloody dangerous. The sport deserves better than that and runners deserve better than that.

None of this means people should be bullied or harassed. I don’t endorse that, and I don’t think anyone benefits from pile-ons. But honesty isn’t harassment and asking questions isn’t bullying. In a sport built on the simplest, purest measure, the clock, the truth matters most. If you cut the course, lie about splits, or create a persona based on fiction, you’re just undermining the very thing that makes running special...the fact that effort and outcome are real.

That’s why I support the work of this Instagram account. They’re not perfect as no one examining human behaviour in public ever is, but the overall contribution is positive. They’ve created a space for truth in a landscape increasingly crowded with noise, spin, and manufactured narratives.

That’s the real point...running has always had a built-in honesty. You can’t fake three-hour marathon legs, or sub-16 5K lungs, or the months of quiet discipline behind every PB. Influencers may be able to fake a story, or a screenshot, or a Strava share, but they can’t fake the sport itself.

So yes, I really care about this and so should you. I care because I love running, because I’ve given most of my life to it, and because I believe coaching should be grounded in truth, knowledge, and respect for the craft. Rant over :-)

17/11/2025

Race week is one of the most confusing parts of training and it’s something I always wanted more guidance on when I was starting out.

So I’ve put together a clear, practical blog covering the best race-week workouts for every distance: 5K, 10K, half marathon and marathon.

It includes:
• The ideal “prime” session 6–7 days out
• The shorter midweek tune-up
• Options for beginners to advanced runners
• The marathon workout I use with every athlete

If you’ve got a race coming up, this should give you a solid blueprint for feeling sharp, confident and ready.

Read the full blog here: https://awruncoach.wordpress.com/2025/11/17/the-definitive-guide-to-race-week-workouts-for-every-distance/