Marathoner Soh Rui Yong launches academy
Close to a decade of marathon running has taught Soh Rui Yong many lessons and the two-time SEA Games champion now wants to impart his knowledge to other runners.
That has led the 32-year-old to launch the RunSohFast Marathon Academy on social media last week to provide remote coaching services to working professionals.
He has been mentoring runners for the past five years although those sessions were conducted on a more ad-hoc basis. Soh, who has close to 30 clients now, said: “We do have a community that wants to learn, we do have a community that is willing to invest in their fitness...
“With me, you get the attention, you get the experience of someone who has been through marathons for 10 years, competed at a high level, made mistakes, learnt from them, got injured, learnt from that, ran really good performances, learnt what works and what doesn’t.
“So with me, you’ll avoid all the potential pitfalls that most novice athletes would face.”
With the academy still in its infancy, Soh said his clientele comprises mainly working professionals. He helps his clients come up with individualised programmes that are built around their daily lives and working schedules.
“Once you have family and work, it’s different from being in high school or university where you just show up, the team are there and you train, it’s very straightforward,” said Soh, who has won four national marathon titles at the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon.
“Once you’re an adult, the schedule is very different. Your time is no longer yours, your time belongs to your boss, wife, kids – you may have only one hour of free time a day to do your exercise.
“But the beauty of running is that’s all you need.”
Cindy Ong, who began working with Soh in 2018, said the personalised training plan gave her the flexibility to run while also looking after her two children.
That same year, she achieved her goal of finishing in the top 10 of the Singapore Marathon National Championship. She also qualified for the 2020 Boston Marathon, which was eventually held virtually owing to the pandemic.
The financial consultant said: “It wasn’t easy to take part in organised group training, we did a lot of remote coaching...
“He’s got a lot of experience in racing. He can advise on race execution very well.
“He knows how to advise me how to perform during races and that’s important because a lot of times, we can run very well during training, but we don’t know how to execute it during the race.”
While the demand for running coaches in Singapore is not as high as that in other sports such as swimming and football, Soh hopes to change that.
He said: “It’ll be exciting to see where the academy goes. Once the revenue is coming in, I’m looking at hiring coaches in different countries to have bases there and if you’re very fast and promising, maybe you can become a scholar of the academy – we’ll sponsor your training fees."
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