"Personal experience: I trained with David for a few years in my late 30s. Short, fat, middle-aged lady. I was injury-prone and was usually running through some kind of -itis before I started training with SWAP. I also tended to roll my ankles a lot, 8-10x per year.
While running with David, he had me running intentionally a whole lot slower, with the exception of targeted workouts. (Obviously.) I went from running 4x per week to 6x per week, and I averaged more miles per week overall. Consequently, I became faster, fitter, and more resilient to injury. My -itises faded into the background, and I didn't sprain my ankles quite as often.
David's philosophies changed my relationship with running, and bit by bit, they improved my relationship with myself. Are they right for you? Dunno. But they changed everything for me."
Angry_Submariner I’ll say this till I die…SWAP should release the number of athletes coached currently and in past years. If it’s as many as I think it is, there’s no way they are giving personalized attention to all their athletes. I was coached by David and I always felt like he was running a puppy mill. But just look at the number of athletes listed on the SWAP pro team here:
. 86 pros coached in some undisclosed distribution between David and Megan. That’s not including their elite level athletes (I know of some that aren’t included in this pro list) and anyone else on their roster.
NicoBear45 Someone sent me a clip from one of Matt Chittim's podcast (very much a SWAP fan boy and athlete I believe) and they explicitly asked how many athletes they coach. David evaded the answer so f*cking hard. He gave some roundabout answer that they don't charge pros, hardly charge anyone really, and if they were to keep a smaller roster they wouldn't be supporting under represented athletes (such a sh*tty manipulative tactic to say that).
Angry_Submariner I honestly think the coaching service now is just to keep them credible as podcasters. ‘We run, we coach, we talk about running and coaching, and we are paid to talk about products that really make us money.’
Angry_Submariner I’ll say this till I die…SWAP should release the number of athletes coached currently and in past years. If it’s as many as I think it is, there’s no way they are giving personalized attention to all their athletes. I was coached by David and I always felt like he was running a puppy mill. But just look at the number of athletes listed on the SWAP pro team here: . 86 pros coached in some undisclosed distribution between David and Megan. That’s not including their elite level athletes (I know of some that aren’t included in this pro list) and anyone else on their roster.
NicoBear45 Someone sent me a clip from one of Matt Chittim's podcast (very much a SWAP fan boy and athlete I believe) and they explicitly asked how many athletes they coach. David evaded the answer so f*cking hard. He gave some roundabout answer that they don't charge pros, hardly charge anyone really, and if they were to keep a smaller roster they wouldn't be supporting under represented athletes (such a sh*tty manipulative tactic to say that).
Angry_Submariner I honestly think the coaching service now is just to keep them credible as podcasters. ‘We run, we coach, we talk about running and coaching, and we are paid to talk about products that really make us money.’
I think this is the Matt Chittim podcast episode referred to. Not sure what timestamp that quote is
Starts at 41:42.
Q: You and Megan carry a larger load and f athletes from a roster perspective than most coaches. I don’t know the exact number, I’ve never asked you the exact number, but I’m aware of what a lot of my peers have from a roster perspective. And you guys have more than that despite all the other stuff you do. You guys work incredibly hard. So can you just talk about what that larger roster of athletes that you coach, how that is potentially beneficial to you guys as science driven people who then see potential patterns that are forming, either positive or negative or trying out different things?
David: So benefits and drawbacks. First benefit is just the rationale that we keep our prices low compared to what we could compared to other coaches and we don’t charge anyone with financial need or athletes that are from backgrounds that aren’t traditionally represented in running so much. So we do that.
If we only represented 20 athletes we could do that from a supply and demand perspective for sure but I don’t know if that would be serving the sport in a broader way.
#2 is that we try to check in with every athlete every day and as a result you just get tons of micro learning, right? Like you’re learning from every athlete all the time about their journey and how it works, about the art of it, about the science of it, in different ways.
Coaching comes down to communication and for us that daily communication is key. And you know I think different strokes for different folks. No downside to someone who wants to charge 750 bucks a month for coaching or you know I’ve heard of pro coaches that will charge $10k a year for coaching. But like we’re not charging a single pro…nor are we going to charge someone who gets on tough times financially, so during COVID 75% of our team didn’t pay because of whatever reason, for a period of time. And that personal connection is meaningful to me.
So Roche basically admits the number is way higher than 20. I remember Sage Canaday saying that personalized coaching 20-25 athletes is a full-time job, and he'd never take on more than max 35 but has around mid 20s athletes (the jist of it). And Sage has no weekly podcast and no 2 kids to take care of and no freebie athletes on top that he only coaches for clout. I think everyone who is interested in getting coached by SWAP should be aware of that.. you ain't getting personalized coaching.
"The critics wanted a number. What they got was a mission statement:
'We don’t charge anyone with financial need.' This isn’t just rhetoric; it’s policy. 'During COVID, 75% of our team didn’t pay.' That’s not a business model. That’s a belief system. 'If we only represented 20 athletes, we could do that from a supply and demand perspective, but I don’t know if that would be serving the sport in a broader way.' That’s a vision of coaching as something beyond transactional.
The critics claim this is an evasion. But what if it’s something else entirely? David Roche isn’t just coaching athletes—he’s operating from a moral and philosophical standpoint. The central tenet of his approach isn’t exclusivity, scarcity, or maximizing profit. It’s accessibility, growth, and community.
In a world where coaching can easily become another luxury product—where access is often determined by ability to pay—Roche is making a different choice. And that choice requires a larger roster. It requires flexibility. It requires a different definition of success.
This is why the attacks keep shifting—because if you step back, if you really look at what Roche is doing, it becomes obvious that the critics are asking the wrong questions.
The right question isn’t 'How many athletes does he coach?' It’s: 'What kind of coach chooses to forgo profit to make coaching available to as many people as possible?'
And what does it say about this sport that the response to that isn’t admiration, but suspicion?"
"The critics wanted a number. What they got was a mission statement:
'We don’t charge anyone with financial need.' This isn’t just rhetoric; it’s policy. 'During COVID, 75% of our team didn’t pay.' That’s not a business model. That’s a belief system. 'If we only represented 20 athletes, we could do that from a supply and demand perspective, but I don’t know if that would be serving the sport in a broader way.' That’s a vision of coaching as something beyond transactional.
The right question isn’t 'How many athletes does he coach?' It’s: 'What kind of coach chooses to forgo profit to make coaching available to as many people as possible?'
And what does it say about this sport that the response to that isn’t admiration, but suspicion?"
(1) I would like to know how many athletes he has ever coached for free due to financial need. I’d say that number is zero to 1
(2) I’d like to know whether 75% or anything close eas the actual percentage of athletes that didn’t pay during COVID. I bet the answer is no
(3) coaching more athletes is more money. Sage has 20ish athletes but I doubt those athletes are paying $750 a month. They’re probably paying closer to what an athlete would pay David. except that David doesn’t have 20ish athletes. He has 100 or hundreds. Meaning he is absolutely doing it for the money
To date, ChatGPT and Claude are analyzing this thread.
Will Copilot, Gemini or similar enter in the future? Grok is likely off the table due to its owner's political leanings. If there's one certainty with the SWAP podcast, it's that Roche lets listeners know where he stands on the issues.
Actually I think the next step would just be for a prospective athlete to ask the Roches relevant questions before committing. Based on this thread, the questions to ask would be ones like what is your approach to injury management, how do you adapt a person's training to fit their injury history or current injury status, how do you adjust a training plan based on an athlete's strengths and weaknesses, how do you use objective metrics in evaluating current fitness and planning future training, and does the athlete or the coach own the training data.
Also, to be fair, I just re-read the exchanges from the period of injury I was talking about, and in addition to the exchanges I was complaining about above, there were also a handful of instances where the coach was in agreement with me that some level of caution was warranted, basically once the injury had failed to improve over the first few weeks. So overall it was not a sound approach to managing an injury, but it was also not 100% inappropriate.
I’m sorry this happened to you. It seems like you got things back on track—hopefully you have.
My suspicion is that they would say whatever they think sounds good to get the client. They may even say the right thing but eventually do the wrong thing. A lot of coaches understand a hypothetical but severely miss it in practice. Their pattern of behavior is also not super honest or transparent, so I just don’t believe their actions and words would consistently align. Just a thought.
Coaching relationships really hinge on communication. It takes time and patience to understand how an athlete is responding to training and also how they feel about their training. I don’t think the Roches have that kind of time. They just don’t, unless they only coach 10 people each.
True. The frustrating thing is that it seems to me that it really doesn't have to be this way, that both of them have the theoretical ability to be decent coaches through applying what they've learned from practical experience, even though they're probably never going to be particularly good at interpreting the research they're trying to apply to training--although I only had experience with one of them so can't really speak from personal experience as to the other (maybe the other one is actually an amazing coach!). But yeah, at least with my coach, there were several aspects to the training method that were good ideas and could have formed part of a solid training plan *if* the coaching had in fact been personalized (sounds like that would require a way smaller roster) and *if* the questionable injury management approach were changed.
I’m sorry this happened to you. It seems like you got things back on track—hopefully you have.
My suspicion is that they would say whatever they think sounds good to get the client. They may even say the right thing but eventually do the wrong thing. A lot of coaches understand a hypothetical but severely miss it in practice. Their pattern of behavior is also not super honest or transparent, so I just don’t believe their actions and words would consistently align. Just a thought.
Coaching relationships really hinge on communication. It takes time and patience to understand how an athlete is responding to training and also how they feel about their training. I don’t think the Roches have that kind of time. They just don’t, unless they only coach 10 people each.
True. The frustrating thing is that it seems to me that it really doesn't have to be this way, that both of them have the theoretical ability to be decent coaches through applying what they've learned from practical experience, even though they're probably never going to be particularly good at interpreting the research they're trying to apply to training--although I only had experience with one of them so can't really speak from personal experience as to the other (maybe the other one is actually an amazing coach!). But yeah, at least with my coach, there were several aspects to the training method that were good ideas and could have formed part of a solid training plan *if* the coaching had in fact been personalized (sounds like that would require a way smaller roster) and *if* the questionable injury management approach were changed.
Let's say they are coaching 100 athletes. Even if not all are paying $140 bucks a month that is some decent bank. Any honest coach would be exactly transparent with that number.
But the Roches probably don't need the money anyway. They are already seemingly very rich. They bounce around between Boulder, Aspen and Palo Alto. Megan is so rich she didn't even have to become an actual doctor after all that education.
No, methinks the Roches are more interested in the influence and the power that comes with this coaching mill practice. Some much in that regard that they are willing to take on certain high level athletes with bigger social media followings for essentially free advertising and clout. It's all part of their game and power grab.
And they'll try to play it off as being these saints that coach a select few for "free" and that they still take on "advanced athletes hoping to compete at the national or international levels and BIPOC athletes" despite being at capacity now.
But there is no way they could have the time to "check in every day" and really customize training schedules for 100+ athletes at a time given how much time they seemingly spend on social media, doing a weekly podcast, sometimes interacting with their little kids, and not to mention David's massive training time and schedule and video shoots.
Solution? Just copy-paste a generic spreadsheet plan template that gets people to run more miles with a few hard workouts like 10 x 1-min and then comment "amazeballs" a few times a week? Repeat on a large scale. Charge most of these hobby ultra-joggers $140 a month though so they can say they are part of the "SWAP" cult and wear your silly dinosaur logo.
A smart coach would realise their limitations and have a network of trusted sports med practitioners that they could refer you over to. Then work with them on your rehab and then integration back to the return to play phase. This would also involve a reframing of goals and race plans.
"It’s easy to cast aspersions. Easier still to reduce a decade of coaching to “I’d say…” “I’d bet…” “I doubt…”—guesses stacked on assumptions, speculation masquerading as certainty.
But here’s what isn’t speculation: There are runners who found joy in movement again because of David and Megan. There are athletes who once saw limits but now see possibility. There are people who came to SWAP broken—by injury, by self-doubt, by a sport that too often treats bodies as disposable—and left not just faster, but whole.
Do those stories matter? Or does only the discontent of a few define the truth?
David and Megan walked away from law and medicine—not because they couldn’t cut it, but because they wanted something different. They chose coaching not as a shortcut to power or wealth, but as a path to meaning. To joy. To building something bigger than themselves.
If you want to challenge their approach, fine. But at some point, the critics should ask themselves: are they really fighting for higher standards? Or are they just tearing down the people who dared to build something better?"
Exactly. The nail in the coffin for me was David telling me I didn't need to see a doctor or get an MRI despite my bloodwork and symptoms indicating a deeper issue (spoiler: the issues went deep!) he encouraged me to get my bloodwork done by Inside Tracker (another huge scam) and then "interpreted" for me. He said it was what they see in olympic athletes (eyeroll) and then I responded with a ton of flags and he said "I wouldn't worry about it! 3 days of rest!" Then I went to a real doctor, got an MRI, and 1. it was a stress fracture, 2. they were mortified a running coach would interpret bloodwork and only give interventions in the name of supplements (especially when presenting as an autoimmune condition, plus the x-fracture)....
Exactly. The nail in the coffin for me was David telling me I didn't need to see a doctor or get an MRI despite my bloodwork and symptoms indicating a deeper issue (spoiler: the issues went deep!) he encouraged me to get my bloodwork done by Inside Tracker (another huge scam) and then "interpreted" for me. He said it was what they see in olympic athletes (eyeroll) and then I responded with a ton of flags and he said "I wouldn't worry about it! 3 days of rest!" Then I went to a real doctor, got an MRI, and 1. it was a stress fracture, 2. they were mortified a running coach would interpret bloodwork and only give interventions in the name of supplements (especially when presenting as an autoimmune condition, plus the x-fracture)....
Exactly. The nail in the coffin for me was David telling me I didn't need to see a doctor or get an MRI despite my bloodwork and symptoms indicating a deeper issue (spoiler: the issues went deep!) he encouraged me to get my bloodwork done by Inside Tracker (another huge scam) and then "interpreted" for me. He said it was what they see in olympic athletes (eyeroll) and then I responded with a ton of flags and he said "I wouldn't worry about it! 3 days of rest!" Then I went to a real doctor, got an MRI, and 1. it was a stress fracture, 2. they were mortified a running coach would interpret bloodwork and only give interventions in the name of supplements (especially when presenting as an autoimmune condition, plus the x-fracture)....
Remember that these people are not just running coaches, one of them has a medical degree (which comes up often, and might actually encourage people to use them - a team of coaches that includes a stanford doctor).
Still blows my mind that western states added her has a medical director or what not, but that's a different s show.
"It’s easy to cast aspersions. Easier still to reduce a decade of coaching to “I’d say…” “I’d bet…” “I doubt…”—guesses stacked on assumptions, speculation masquerading as certainty.
But here’s what isn’t speculation: There are runners who found joy in movement again because of David and Megan. There are athletes who once saw limits but now see possibility. There are people who came to SWAP broken—by injury, by self-doubt, by a sport that too often treats bodies as disposable—and left not just faster, but whole.
Do those stories matter? Or does only the discontent of a few define the truth?
David and Megan walked away from law and medicine—not because they couldn’t cut it, but because they wanted something different. They chose coaching not as a shortcut to power or wealth, but as a path to meaning. To joy. To building something bigger than themselves.
If you want to challenge their approach, fine. But at some point, the critics should ask themselves: are they really fighting for higher standards? Or are they just tearing down the people who dared to build something better?"
Thanks for your input, David. Now go take care of your kids instead of having a nanny or whomever do all the work for you!
True. The frustrating thing is that it seems to me that it really doesn't have to be this way, that both of them have the theoretical ability to be decent coaches through applying what they've learned from practical experience, even though they're probably never going to be particularly good at interpreting the research they're trying to apply to training--although I only had experience with one of them so can't really speak from personal experience as to the other (maybe the other one is actually an amazing coach!). But yeah, at least with my coach, there were several aspects to the training method that were good ideas and could have formed part of a solid training plan *if* the coaching had in fact been personalized (sounds like that would require a way smaller roster) and *if* the questionable injury management approach were changed.
Let's say they are coaching 100 athletes. Even if not all are paying $140 bucks a month that is some decent bank. Any honest coach would be exactly transparent with that number.
But the Roches probably don't need the money anyway. They are already seemingly very rich. They bounce around between Boulder, Aspen and Palo Alto. Megan is so rich she didn't even have to become an actual doctor after all that education.
No, methinks the Roches are more interested in the influence and the power that comes with this coaching mill practice. Some much in that regard that they are willing to take on certain high level athletes with bigger social media followings for essentially free advertising and clout. It's all part of their game and power grab.
And they'll try to play it off as being these saints that coach a select few for "free" and that they still take on "advanced athletes hoping to compete at the national or international levels and BIPOC athletes" despite being at capacity now.
But there is no way they could have the time to "check in every day" and really customize training schedules for 100+ athletes at a time given how much time they seemingly spend on social media, doing a weekly podcast, sometimes interacting with their little kids, and not to mention David's massive training time and schedule and video shoots.
Solution? Just copy-paste a generic spreadsheet plan template that gets people to run more miles with a few hard workouts like 10 x 1-min and then comment "amazeballs" a few times a week? Repeat on a large scale. Charge most of these hobby ultra-joggers $140 a month though so they can say they are part of the "SWAP" cult and wear your silly dinosaur logo.
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