An expert running coach who keeps you healthy.
Coach Dean reads every run you do and texts you back like a coach who's actually paying attention — catching the small stuff before it sidelines you.
Loved by athletes training for
How it works
Connect Strava
One tap. Coach Dean reads your full history and builds your load and injury risk profile from day one.
Dean watches every run for warning signs
Coaching note within minutes. Load spikes, grey-zone effort, form cues. Dean flags what matters before it becomes a problem. Mention a sore knee or missed run and your plan adjusts.
Train through the whole season
Not in cycles of training hard, getting hurt, and starting over. Stay consistent, stay healthy, and actually reach your goal.
Backed by the research
The three things that actually keep runners healthy.
Most running injuries trace back to the same handful of factors. Coach Dean is built around the three with the strongest evidence behind them.
Sudden load spikes
In the Garmin-RUNSAFE study of 5,205 runners, a single run more than 100% longer than your longest in the past 30 days doubled injury risk. Even a 10–30% jump raised it 64%.
Coach Dean reads every run from Strava and flags a load spike the moment it happens — before you stack another hard day on top of it.
Garmin-RUNSAFE study · 5,205 runners
A recent injury
A running injury in the last 12 months is the single strongest predictor of the next one. Nearly half of new injuries strike within two weeks of an earlier problem — often from rushing back too soon.
Coach Dean asks about your injury history before writing a single workout, and stays more conservative with your load because of it.
Epidemiological reviews of running-related injury
Hip & core strength
In a 2024 randomized controlled trial, a guided hip-and-core routine cut lower-body injuries 34% and substantial overuse injuries 52% versus stretching — but only when someone kept runners accountable to it.
Coach Dean builds hip, glute, and core work into your week and checks that you're actually doing it — the accountability the research says is the whole point.
Run RCT · Leppänen et al., BJSM 2024
None of these work in isolation. A runner three weeks off an injury who spikes their long run on Saturday is in a completely different place than someone fresh and healthy doing the exact same run. Coach Dean holds all of it at once — that's the edge.
Prevention. Adaptation. Recovery.
Whether you're trying to stay healthy, managing something that flared up, or rebuilding after time off. Coach Dean handles all three.
Coach Dean
After today's run
Left shin has been a bit sore the last two runs — not sharp, just there.
Classic early-stage medial shin stress. Usually means your mileage ramped a bit faster than your bone remodeling can keep up with. Ice it tonight, skip tomorrow's run, and I'll swap it for a pool session or bike day. We'll ease back in over 4–5 days. If it sharpens at all, ping me before you run again.
Coach Dean
After 2 weeks off with IT band pain
Knee felt fine on my test run yesterday. Safe to get back to normal?
Good sign, but one pain-free run doesn't mean the tissue is ready for full load. Three easy 20-minute runs this week, flat routes only, no tempo. If all three feel clean, we step back up next week. I'll check in after each one and have your IT band strengthening routine ready to go.
Coach Dean
After Wednesday's 5.8mi run · 9:12/mi · 148ft gain
Your last four runs have all landed at moderate effort. 148bpm today puts you right in the grey zone again. No real easy days, no real hard day. That pattern builds fatigue without building fitness, and it's a common injury setup. Try a genuinely easy 40 min tomorrow and Thursday's workout will land a lot better.
Coach Dean
Tuesday morning
Just did a heavy leg day — squats and deadlifts. Should I still run my 6 tonight?
Skip the 6 tonight. Running heavy after that lift is how achilles and hamstring stuff sneaks in. Move tonight to a 30-min easy spin or full rest, shift the 6 to Wednesday, and bump Thursday's tempo to Friday so the legs get a real recovery window. Plan still works.
Coach Dean
Tuesday · intervals Thursday
You've got intervals Thursday, so today's your window for the strength work that actually protects your knees. 15 min: single-leg squats, hip bridges, calf raises, and the side planks for your IT band. I'll keep this in your week every Tuesday so it doesn't slip — it's the stuff that keeps you running.
Honestly the part I always skip. Thanks for the nudge.
Coach Dean
After 9 days off · head cold
Finally feeling better. I lost a week and a half — am I behind?
Not behind, just adjusting. I've rebuilt the next two weeks so you ease back in instead of jumping to where the old plan had you. Easy 3 tomorrow, then we rebuild volume gradually. Your race date still works — I recalculated the ramp. No need to cram the missed miles.
Works alongside the tools you already use
The missing layer between your plan and your potential.
Training without coaching
Apps alone
- ✗ Plan tells you what to do. Nothing explains why.
- ✗ “Workout Complete” is the only feedback you get
- ✗ Load patterns go unnoticed until you're already sidelined
- ✗ Injury questions go to Google
- ✗ No one rebuilds your plan when you miss two weeks
The intelligence layer
Coach Dean
- ✓ Flags load spikes and grey-zone patterns before they become injuries
- ✓ Prescribes rehab exercises and cross-training so you stay fit while you heal
- ✓ Rebuilds your plan around injuries, illness, or missed weeks
- ✓ Works alongside Runna, TrainingPeaks, or any plan you already have
- ✓ Explains what your HR, pace, and cadence actually mean
Free to start, then $15 / month
Cancel anytime, no friction
Private coach
The gold standard
- ~ Weekly adaptation; requires a call to change anything
- ~ Detailed feedback, but often delayed
- ~ Scheduled calls & email only
- ✗ High friction: schedules, logins, check-ins
$150–300 / month
What he looks at, every run
Six lenses on every run.
Load and injury risk
Aerobic efficiency
Pacing and splits
Cadence and form
Wins and milestones
How this fits your goal
From the athletes
Coach Dean made all the difference in my most recent ultra race. He helped me strategize mileage build, nutrition, apparel, and so much more — and kept me organized and motivated throughout.
Luke S.
Ultramarathon finisher
I'm training for a half marathon and Coach Dean has truly been so helpful! He's kept me motivated and helped to work in cross training and proper pacing. It feels like I'm talking to an actual coach with a consistent personality.
Madie D.
Training for a half marathon
Frequently asked questions
I already use Runna or TrainingPeaks. Do I need Coach Dean?+
Yes, and this is actually our most common use case. Runna gives you the plan. Coach Dean gives you the intelligence layer on top of it: a coaching note after every run, load monitoring, and a direct line for training questions. Keep your Runna structure. Coach Dean adds what no app does.
Text Coach Dean a PDF of your plan and he'll ingest it automatically, then reference it directly when giving you feedback. So instead of “you ran 8:45 pace,” you get “that was your recovery day, 8:45 with 140bpm HR is exactly right, your legs should feel fresher by Thursday.”
Can Coach Dean actually prevent injuries?+
Coach Dean is genuinely good at catching the patterns that precede most running injuries: load spikes, declining aerobic efficiency, and grey-zone effort distribution. He flags them early so you can act conservatively. He's not a physio and can't diagnose anything, but he's the early warning system most runners are missing.
When something does flare up, Coach Dean will prescribe specific rehab exercises for common running injuries (IT band, shin splints, plantar fasciitis, hip flexor tightness) and swap affected sessions for cross-training alternatives like pool running, cycling, or the elliptical so your fitness doesn't evaporate while you recover. The goal is to stay in training, not just to rest and hope.
What are the most common causes of running injuries?+
The research keeps landing on the same handful of factors: a sudden spike in running load (a long run well beyond what you've recently done), a previous injury in the last 12 months, weak hips and core, chronically short sleep, and unstructured, ad-hoc training.
Coach Dean is built around all five. He watches your load on Strava and flags spikes in real time, weighs your injury history when setting your plan, builds hip and core strength work into your week, checks in on your sleep and recovery, and keeps your training gradual and structured. The edge is holding all of it at once: the same big Saturday long run is a very different risk if you're also under-slept and three weeks off an injury.
Can Coach Dean help me if I'm not training for a specific race?+
What type of races can Coach Dean help me prepare for?+
Do I need Strava or a GPS watch?+
Technically no, all you need is a phone number. But connecting Strava unlocks the best version of Coach Dean. He pulls your full activity history (recent paces, long run efforts, workout splits) to build a real picture of your fitness before your first plan is written, and sends you coaching feedback within minutes of every run finishing. It's the feature testers have found most valuable.
If you don't use Strava, Coach Dean asks for a recent race time or your comfortable conversational pace and calculates your training zones from there using the same pace formulas elite coaches use. Those zones get refined over time as you share feedback over text.
What kinds of insights does Coach Dean give me after a run?+
Six different lenses, every time your run syncs from Strava. Coach Dean weighs all of them and surfaces whichever one is most worth saying that day:
- Aerobic efficiency. Pace at HR over time, so you can see fitness moving in the data, not just on race day.
- Pacing and splits. First-half vs second-half, fade detection, whether you went out too hot.
- Effort zone audit. Catches the grey-zone trap where every run lives at moderate effort and nothing moves forward.
- Load monitoring. This week vs your four-week average, week-over-week changes, milestone runs (longest in 30 days, YTD totals).
- Cadence and form trends. 10-run cadence average, with cues if it's drifting in a direction worth nudging.
- Workout-vs-intent check. Did today's tempo land in tempo zone? Did the long run actually stay easy? Coach Dean compares execution to the prescribed effort.
Does Coach Dean build me a training plan?+
How much does Coach Dean cost?+
What training philosophy does Coach Dean follow?+
What happens if I miss a workout or need to take a week off?+
Are there any special commands I can text Coach Dean?+
Beyond just chatting, a few keywords trigger specific actions:
- FEEDBACK: send a note directly to the Coach Dean team. Use this to report a bug, share a suggestion, or tell us something Coach Dean got wrong.
- STRAVA CONNECTION: get a link to update your Strava permissions, including adding or removing the coaching notes that appear on each activity.
- UPDATE PLAN: confirms a full plan rebuild after Coach Dean proposes one. Useful when your goal, schedule, or fitness has shifted.
- UNSUBSCRIBE: get a link to cancel your subscription at any time.
- STOP: stop all messages immediately. You'll also receive a link to cancel billing. Text START to resume at any time.
Everything else is just plain conversation. Ask questions, report a run, tell Coach Dean your knee hurts. He handles it.
Is my data private?+
Stop losing weeks to injury.
Your first 7 days are free. Tell Coach Dean where you're at: staying healthy, managing something that flared up, or rebuilding after time off. He'll take it from there.