I'm Russ Cox and I'm a triathlon coach. In fact, I've been a triathlon coach for 15 years. In that time, I've worked with a huge variety of athletes and helped hundreds to achieve their goals. My interest in endurance sports started late, in my mid-twenties, but resulted in a two-year career break training and racing around the world. In turn that led to a career change, taking my experience and love of endurance sports and using it to help others.
My speciality is Ironman and Ironman 70.3 racing. The events I'm most experienced with, having raced 18 Ironman and as many 70.3 events myself. Over the last 15 years I've coached age groupers to their first Ironman or 70.3 successes through to qualification for the Ironman World Champs. I enjoy working with athletes who are engaged in the process and want to put in the work to achieve their goals, whether it's their first event or they're a veteran.
I don't just work with Ironman athletes. Triathlon attracts a broad range of participants with as broad a range of goals. I coach triathletes for every distance from sprint through to Ironman and beyond. I also coach athletes working towards other endurance goals in swim, bike and run. I've worked with athletes preparing for 10K swims, bike races and time trials, run distances from 5K through to Ultra-marathons and even multi-day events like the Marathon des Sables.
Beyond my professional work I'm head coach for Bristol and District Triathlon Club. Here I manage our provision of training sessions for the club, deliver group swim sessions and provide swim video analysis for members. I've built up hundreds of hours of practical swim coaching experience and stroke analysis skills.
I'm a full time, professional coach holding a BTF level 2 Diploma and TrainingPeaks level 2 accreditation. My sole focus is working with my athletes to progress them in their sporting journey. Whether that's through online plans and Zoom calls, or in person at a training camp or 1:2:1 coaching session.
Testimonials
I started working with Russ at the end of 2017 in readiness for 2018. Since then I've never looked back, there's been highs and lows but Russ has always given me the confidence to get the best out of myself. I feel in the last 7 years I haven't just grown as an athlete but as a person. I love structure but also understand hard work really does work.
Russ has been my coach now for just under a year. Until signing up with Russ, I had no idea if I was even capable of being a triathlete. Athletics is not something I was interested in during my teens, twenties or even my thirties, but after watching from the sidelines for several years (married to a triathlete) I thought I would like to give it a go. Before this, I had completed the C25k, ran 2 Half marathons and a completed a Try-aTri (I’m certainly not the quickest) I emailed Russ with my background and asked him if he thought it was possible to not only do a Tri, but to go straight in for a 70.3 event.
Russ didn’t hesitate to take me on and my triathlon journey began.
Over the last few months Russ’ support, expertise, and guidance has seen me go from struggling to do 20 miles on a bike, struggling to swim more than 100 meters without being breathless, to regularly completing 2k swims, 10 mile runs, and 50 mile rides relatively easily. His knowledge and guidance has built my aerobic base and given me more confidence in my own abilities than I could have ever imagined. My journey has not been easy, and I’ve had a few set backs along the way, but Russ always takes each week as it comes and makes sure I’m happy, comfortable and confident before moving on, something that I think is invaluable from a confidence point of view when you are so new to the sport like I am.
In 10 weeks time, I’ll be standing on the start line for my first event, and I know I would not be there if it wasn’t for Coach Cox.
If you're interested and want to know more about any of my services get in touch below.
