About

I'm Shawn Siemers. I've spent 18 years coaching high school distance runners—and the last 8 of those years, my teams have qualified for State. Every single year.

Not because I inherited talent. I coach at a Title 1 school. My athletes are often the kids who got cut from other sports. The "misfits." And yet, year after year, they compete at the highest level.

The difference isn't talent. It's the system.

Before I became a coach, I spent 13 years in software development at Rational Software and IBM. I learned how to build systems that work—processes that produce consistent results regardless of who's running them. When I moved into coaching, I brought that same mindset to the track.

Most coaches copy what successful programs do. They borrow workouts, mimic periodization plans, adopt someone else's philosophy. And when it doesn't work, they blame the athletes, the administration, the budget.

I believe something different: the coach is the system. When you build a coaching approach that's truly yours—grounded in principles you understand, adapted to your context, informed by data instead of guesswork—you can build champions anywhere.

That's what Run by Numbers is about. It's for coaches who are done being average and ready to build something that actually works.

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