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Mark Cullen | Endurance Coach

@markcullenn

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🏃‍♂️ Building better endurance athletes
🏆 Ironman Champs, Competitive Runners & CrossFit Games athletes (@brute.strength)
⬇️ Coaching | Plans | Consults
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First CrossFit Games in the books 🥇 🥈 🥈 . What a wild and incredible experience and a huge privilege to work with these athletes on their endurance preparation and race strategy throughout the CrossFit season and at the Games. . Being able to also contribute the @brute.strength team alongside an incredible coaching staff. Grateful to play a small part in what the team accomplished! . 1on1 athletes: 🥇 @spraguerrrr 🥈 @emma.lawson_5 🥈 @dallinpepper 6th @jhopper3 15th @quads.like.kyra 9th team @gosohardy . What a week. Let’s keep building! . #crossfitgames by @markcullenn
26
3 months ago
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I grew up as a competitive hockey and soccer player, and I’d run here and there off the fitness from those sports. Even back then, I loved the coaching side of things. Learning the ins and outs of training, strategy, equipment, and performance always fascinated me. After my youth sports career, I found endurance sports in university. I was looking for a new challenge, a way to stay healthy, and an opportunity to see what I was capable of. What started with local races quickly grew into a passion for running, triathlon, and eventually helping others pursue their own goals. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to race multiple Ironman events around the world, qualify for and compete in iconic races like the Boston Marathon, and coach athletes ranging from first-time finishers to professionals. Today, my coaching extends beyond endurance sports, working with runners, triathletes, and CrossFit Games athletes who are looking to improve their endurance, performance, and overall athletic potential. I believe great coaching should educate athletes so they understand their training, their bodies, and the reasoning behind the work they’re doing. The values that guide my coaching are simple: integrity, community, and excellence. Integrity means doing the right things consistently, even when nobody is watching. Community is the training partners, teammates, and shared experiences that make the journey meaningful. Excellence isn’t about perfection it’s about showing up, learning, and striving to improve every day. Whether you’re training for your first 5K, chasing a marathon personal best, preparing for an Ironman, or competing on the CrossFit competition floor, my goal is the same: help you become the best athlete and person you can be. If you’re here following along, thanks for being part of the journey. by @markcullenn
10
a year ago
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If you’re a triathlete or runner chasing your next big breakthrough I coach athletes just like you with the tools to perform with confidence and consistency. . Here’s what you get when you train with me: ✅ Custom, periodized run + bike + triathlon programming in TrainingPeaks ✅ Season planning that’s built around your race calendar, schedule, and goals ✅ Ongoing fitness testing (thresholds, pacing, HR zones) to keep you dialed in ✅ Ongoing video call/text check-ins for real-time support and adjustments ✅ Full analysis of both your numbers and how you’re feeling ✅ A blend of science-based coaching and real-world race experience ✅ Support for all levels from new triathletes to world champ qualifiers . Athletes I work with report: 💥 Consistent improvements in pace and power 💥 Better understanding of what actually works in their training 💥 Race-day execution that feels strong and in control 💥 Fewer injuries, smarter training blocks, and more confidence 💥 A sense of structure and support in every training phase . 📸 Swipe to see some examples of athletes I’ve helped get faster, fitter, and more focused across 5Ks, marathons, Ironman races, and everything in between. by @markcullenn
9
a year ago
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One of the great snippets from this pod with Mark where he mentions the power of assigning extrinsic and intrinsic metrics to athletes running piece to give you a more holistic view of your performance. Pair this with specific session feedback relating to what limited you such as " breathing felt chaotic" or "legs felt heavy" can give your coach even better insight in how to adjust the sessions in the future. Check out the full episode through following the link in my bio. We are in a fortunate place at present in the CrossFit space where many of the best coaches are willing to share their insights and processes I think this alone will significantly snowball what progress looks like for the sport in the coming years and I am excited to have more of this conversations. by @markcullenn
1
4 days ago
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New dad life means my hands are often full, but my athletes still need that feedback! 👶💻 Two tools that keep me on top of it: 🎙️ @wisprflow: I talk, it types. Workout feedback and emails done hands-free, even with a sleeping baby on my chest. 📝 @granola.ai: Clean summaries of every check-in, race plan and webinar. Nothing missed, and every call becomes content ideas for me. What’s one tool you can’t work without? 👇 #coachinglife #endurancecoach #newdad #productivity #durablefitness by @markcullenn
12
4 days ago
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Overcooking a session doesn’t earn you extra fitness. It spends extra energy that was meant to be distributed to later in the week. When your coach lightens things up after a session goes off-script, they’re not punishing you. They’re keeping your week (and your progress) on budget so you can continue to improve and not spend weeks on the sidelines injured. . Same goes for racing something like a triathlon. You have a budget for the day and if you overspend on the swim and bike, expect your run to foot the bill for the overspend (hint: slower pace or walking) #running #marathon #crossfit #vo2max #threshold by @markcullenn
14
4 days ago
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Stop being a puppet to your heart rate monitor. Heart rate gets treated like the gold standard for aerobic training in the CrossFit world. I don’t use it as a primary day to day metric for my athletes and here’s why. On race day, nobody wins by holding a heart rate. You race a pace. You ride a power. And you manage it with how it feels. So that’s what I train: → External metric: pace on the run, power on the bike → Internal metric: RPE These two bounce off each other. Over time you learn what 4:30/km feels like on fresh legs vs. hour three, in the heat vs. the cold, on flat roads vs. rolling hills. That’s the skill: an internal intuition for what’s sustainable across distances and conditions. Heart rate drifts with heat, caffeine, sleep, stress, hydration, and excitement. It’s a lagging, noisy signal. Useful context? Sure. The thing that steers the ship? No. I prefer to use it to look at things like HR drift on a similar workout, HRV, RHR. HR is a number 3 metric for me Train the feel. Anchor it to pace and power. Build durable fitness you can actually race with. Do you train by HR, pace, power, or feel? 👇 #RPE #EnduranceTraining #RunningCoach #TriathlonTraining #crossfit by @markcullenn
9
12 days ago
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“What’s the minimum I need to do to keep my run fitness?” 🏃‍♂️ The good news is that maintaining fitness takes far less than building it. The answer will depend a little bit on your current fitness level and training history, but this is a pretty solid spot for most… ✅ Run 3–4x per week ✅ Most runs 40–60 min at RPE 3–5/10. Easy and conversational. This keeps your aerobic engine, your mitochondria and capillaries, ticking over. ✅ One long run of 75–90 min per week. This protects your durability so you don’t start your build from scratch. Make sure to fuel this one with 40g per hour of carbs ✅ Finish 2–3 runs with 4–8 strides or hill strides. 15–30 sec at 80–90% of max speed, using your endurance form, with full recovery between reps. . If you just take 4 to 12 weeks off, you were going to be way behind when you try to restart again, it’s going to take you that 4 to 12 weeks to try and rebuild again before you actually start to move in a positive direction . #running #marathon #triathlon #endurancetraining #ironman by @markcullenn
4
16 days ago
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Every race distance asks something a little different of you. A 400m is mostly anaerobic and how long you can hold on once it starts to hurt. A 5k sits right up near your aerobic ceiling. A marathon is about how much of that ceiling you can hold for hours and how efficient you are. In my training every athlete touches on all of these, all year in some capacity. Speed, aerobic capacity, threshold, economy, durability. None of them ever fully go away. What changes is the priority. That comes down to two things: the race you’re building toward and where you’re at as an athlete. A marathoner with plenty of engine but no durability late in long runs needs something different from a marathoner who’s durable but has no top end. Same race, different focus in development. FYI fractional utilization -> what % your Anaerobic Threshold( LT2) is of your Vo2max #running #endurancecoach #ironman #marathontraining #triathlon by @markcullenn
13
25 days ago
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Most CrossFit athletes have a solid anaerobic engine and can hit big power for 1-5 minutes (400m to a mile). But drag that same effort out to 10-40+ minutes and it falls apart. Your LT2; the point where lactate starts piling up faster than you can clear it is often the problem. Push that threshold out, and teach your body to be able to clear it at a high pace and you’ll see much faster times over that 2mile to 10k distance. Swipe for 4 run workouts built specifically to do that: hard-start intervals, surge tempos, a progression run, and steady-state work stacked on top of short efforts. Save this one for your next training block 📌 #crossfit #running #endurance by @markcullenn
1
a month ago
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Three weeks of Cadi. ♥️ Thanks to @gb.photographers for capturing these rare and beautiful days. taken in British Columbia by @markcullenn
29
a month ago
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Evidence>Affirmation . You can only succeed as far as you have prepared. . In racing, we fall to the level of our training, not rise to the level of our Expectations . #running #marathon #ironman #endurancetraining by @markcullenn
4
2 months ago
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