Raise your average.
Transform your standards.
A method built over thirty-two years of running 1,249 marathons, nineteen Marathon des Sables, and ten Guinness World Records - distilled into a training relationship with Rory for clients who are ready to commit to a different standard.
Don't build a plan. Build a life that the plan can live inside of.
Most training programmes treat you like an input-output machine. Mine treats you like a human being with a family, a job, an injury history, and a finite number of springs left in your legs.
We will measure things - kilometres, sleep, heart rate variability, nutrition - but the real work is in the small, boring standards you'll hold yourself to on the days no one is watching. Everything else is downstream of that.
- Rory Coleman, Cardiff - Wales
Four pillars hold the method up.
The method rests on four load-bearing columns. Each is non-negotiable. Each is developed in parallel - never one at a time.
- I01
Standards
The quiet daily disciplines that determine whether a race plan survives contact with real life.
- Morning weigh-in, resting HR, sleep quality
- Training debrief on every session - what worked, what hurt
- Weekly reflection call, fortnightly calibration.
- II02
Training
A block-periodised plan built around your life first, your event second - revised every week.
- Aerobic base, threshold, and long-day work per block
- Heat, altitude, and pack-weight adaptations for your A-race
- Strength and conditioning mapped to injury history.
- III03
Nutrition
Fuelling for the season, the session, and the eight hours you need to feel human afterwards.
- Race-day macro strategy tested on long days, not race day
- Daily fuelling built around when you train, sleep, and eat with people you love
- Practical hydration and electrolyte plan for your target conditions.
- IV04
Recovery
The part of training that actually builds you. Done with the same discipline as the work itself.
- Sleep hygiene, stress load, and travel planning
- Deload logic - when to back off, when to push
- Long-horizon joint health and career longevity.
Nineteen crossings of the Sahara.
The MdS is our laboratory and our proving ground. The training, nutrition, kit, and mindset we develop there translates to any multi-day, self-supported, or heat-dominant race on Earth.
- Heat chamber programming and real-desert field testing
- Kit list refined over four decades of finishing
- Guidance from first race to podium bid.
Photo · Ian CorlessCardiff, Wales. Six AM. The work begins.
Rory Coleman has completed 1,249 marathons and nineteen Marathon des Sables, holds ten Guinness World Records, and has been alcohol-free for over three decades. He has coached over a thousand clients both elite and first-timers, through every distance from the London Marathon to the Grand Union 145.
He works by application only, from Cardiff, with a small cohort of clients at a time. The waiting list for the 2026-7 Sahara block is currently open.
The 2026-7 seasonin order.
- Oct 2-10 2026MDS 120 MoroccoSahara Desert, Morocco
- Nov 6-8 2026Druid ChallengeRidgeway, England
- Jan 9 2027Country to CapitalWendover, England
- Apr 3-13 2027MDS LegendarySahara Desert, Morocco
Watch the work.
Common questions
Asked before applying.
Do I need to be an experienced ultra runner to apply?
No. Rory has coached over a thousand clients — elite and first-time — from a first marathon to a podium bid. The application asks about your starting point precisely so the plan is built from where you are, not from where someone else started.
How does the coaching actually work?
Around four pillars — Standards, Training, Nutrition, Recovery — developed in parallel, never one at a time. You get a block-periodised plan built around your life first and your event second, revised every week, with a weekly reflection call and a fortnightly calibration.
What happens after I apply?
Rory reads every application personally and replies within two working days. If your timing and goals fit the current intake, the reply includes an invitation to a short call. If they don't, he'll say so honestly — and tell you when a better time to apply would be.
I carry an injury history — or I'm not sure my age fits.
Say so in the application. Strength and conditioning is mapped to your injury history, and the method is built for long-horizon joint health and career longevity — deload logic included. Age has never been the deciding factor; standards are.
If you've read this far, you already know.
The next cohort opens in small numbers only. Share your background, your goal, and the reason the timing is now. I read every application myself and will reply within two working days.