Since leaving academia at the start of 2023, Irene Molina Gonzalez has been a champion of science-based, personalized coaching for trail and ultra runners. In a sport where there’s growing problems for coaches including misinformation, non-credential-based coaching, and overall much noise based on trends instead of real science, Molina Gonzalez uses her extensive background in sports and exercise science to improve a runner’s understanding of proper training, nutrition, and recovery.
When she first started trail running in 2017, Molina Gonzalez never expected how the sport would set her life on a new path, “When I ran my first ultramarathon, I knew that this sport was what I was supposed to be doing. I connected to a part of myself that I hadn’t before. I knew that I’d want to start competing in more races and being more involved in the trail and ultrarunning.”
A job that doesn’t feel like a job
Molina Gonzalez began running for the first time in her life during her PhD at the University of Edinburgh (2017 to 2020). She describes her reasoning for becoming a runner, “I was a scientist focused on research of brain and spinal cord repair. It was a very stressful time and running became my way of coping with the stresses.”
Molina Gonzalez progressed quickly, running her first ultramarathon in 2021 and falling in love with the sport further.
As a scientist at heart, Molina Gonzalez couldn’t help but view the sport through a scientific lens. She realized that neuroscience was no longer her greatest scientific interest, “I was having so much fun running ultras and began seeing the sport through scientific perspectives. I wanted to use science to understand how to train smarter and avoid injuries… I realized that perhaps a career in neuroscience wasn’t as much of a fit for me. I decided to study exercise and sports science instead.”
This transition led to her coaching business, Train4 Body and Mind, which she founded in 2023, to help runners improve their speed, prevent injuries and run more efficiently. She currently coaches nearly twenty athletes, as well as many more who visit her for rehabilitation work. She coaches both men and women (only adults), and her husband, Mario, who works as her assistant coach and helps with beginners and road runners.
She describes how this major life transformation into coaching has filled her life with purpose and a new mission, “It’s been so nice because my job doesn’t feel like a job anymore. It’s really nice to be able to help people achieve their goals. Trail competitions can be huge challenges and it’s so rewarding to help people test their limits in ways they don’t often get to do in their everyday life. I feel like I’ve found what I’m supposed to be doing!”
More science, more women
Since launching her coaching business, one of Molina Gonzalez’s greatest contributions to the sport as a coach has been her support of women in trail and ultrarunning. Female participation in the sport has traditionally been lacking (particularly in ultrarunning), which Molina Gonzalez attributes in part to a lack of scientific understanding of women’s exercise science, “It’s really important to educate women on the real science and not to listen so closely to the noise of social media talking about women’s health and fitness. It’s about understanding the balance of both training and life nutrition, so that women can be healthy and train fully for the events they are preparing for.”
As Molina Gonzalez’s master’s capstone research project at the University of Glasgow from 2023 to 2025, she targeted her work specifically for female ultrarunners, “My project examined how the menstrual cycle affects performance in female ultra runners. It’s something so understudied and it’s been really great to contribute to this area of research. I’m hopeful that this study can help many more women be educated about their bodies and learn how to perform better at their sport.”
With menstrual cycle research, Molina Gonzalez finds that social media has promoted many false beliefs and unscientifically based practices, “There’s many people out there who aren’t scientists, or aren’t educated enough, who decide to speak on social media, promoting false trends or sensational hypes about menstrual cycles. They promote using apps to align their natural bodily cycles with training cycles. Research shows that this is much more complex. Every woman responds differently to her menstrual cycle, and some women may not experience meaningful changes at all.””
Molina Gonzalez shares her advice on discerning real-science from fake-science on social media, “Looking at the credentials of the coach or anyone you follow is key. The problem nowadays is that anyone can be a coach or so-called expert. Examine the person’s education, background and make sure they are a reliable source who is trained about what kind of information they are talking about. Above all, make sure you have your own criteria on the subject you are learning about and don’t believe everything you see online!”
Individualized learnings
Molina Gonzalez’s science-based approach is not the only factor that makes her coaching philosophy unique. She also prioritizes the art of being attentive to each individual athlete’s needs, “No two people should be coached the same. When I take on new athletes, I examine their training history, injury history, and personalize their coaching. Each person has different work environments and stresses to consider, as well as motivations.”
Molina Gonzalez admits that mistakes she made early in her ultrarunning career inspired her greatest learnings as a coach, “With many things I preach as a coach, I have often learned the hard way—from making these mistakes on my own! I made a huge leap in my own ultrarunning career, which led to injury. I wanted to learn how to properly coach myself so as not to get injured, and that led to a focus in my coaching on helping others do the same and be healthy.”
While Molina Gonzalez’s focus through coaching is to help others, she admits she learns as much through her clients as they do from her, “Every athlete shows me something different, and most often takes me back to basic training concepts that I tend to forget about. New clients can help me revise my approach and learn from the many types of experiences and backgrounds unique to each runner. I’ve been very lucky to have a wide range of people I’ve been able to learn from through coaching.”
Train your fueling
While some trail running coaches ignore sports nutrition, Molina Gonzalez integrates it deeply into her coaching philosophy. Commonly used fad phrases in the sports nutrition space such as keto, low-carb, high-carb, or paleo, show a popularity of influencer and marketing based trends, as opposed to scientific sports nutrition.
Molina Gonzalez shares her best advice for trail runners aiming to improve their nutrition, “Most tend to underestimate energy needs and how much you need to practice fueling during training to be able to race with fuel. You’re going to have a rough time with nutrition on race day if you don’t have it dialed in on a day-to-day basis in training. Also, with nutrition, just like with training, it’s key to remember that what works for someone else might not work for you. It’s highly individualized.”
Similar to any scientific field, sports nutrition is constantly evolving. Molina Gonzalez speaks on these evolutions and how new research is impacting trail runners, “One of the biggest realizations is that we can take in more energy as athletes than we previously thought we could. Also, we are realizing that individual needs for hydration and nutrition are much more varied. Understanding the context of each athlete is becoming increasingly important.”
Growing competition, same community
Trail running is becoming a more competitive sport, a trend Molina Gonzalez has experienced first-hand as a coach, “Every athlete I coach is different, but I certainly see an overall rise in competitiveness. The sport is evolving quickly and there’s certainly more people interested not just in training for a race but achieving a certain result.”
But even with the growing competitiveness that Molina Gonzalez has experienced, she admits the community is still very much rooted in the same values of friendship and comradery that first drew her to the sport, “Through competing in more races and traveling for competitions, I’ve made even more friends in the sport. Trail running still has the same draw for me as when I started because of this fantastic community. It’s a sport that is inclusive for everyone.”
In addition to community, Molina Gonzalez has never lost her own personal reasons for running, “Running feels different at times from when I first started. It’s become more a part of who I am and what I do for work, and I’ve had to balance this with my initial enjoyment of just running for fun and to de-stress. I’ve learned that I run to connect with myself and be in nature.”
Coaching Testimonials
Listed below are coaching testimonials from Train4 Body and Mind in response to the following questions:
What have you enjoyed most about the Train4 Body and Mind coaching programme, and how does it compare to other coaching you’ve had?
Erik Moreno, “What I’ve enjoyed most about Irene’s coaching programme is how personalised it is. Irene identified that my knee injury was ITB syndrome by analysing my TrainingPeaks data and reviewing videos of my running form. I went from losing confidence in my running to feeling the strongest I’ve ever felt on the trails, finishing fourth in a trail marathon last May and feeling very confident about my main goal for the season in the Alps next September.
“Compared with other coaching I’ve had, this programme feels much more specific and tailored to my needs. The 1-to-1 calls, clear and consistent communication, nutrition plans for training runs and races, and structured strength training have made a huge difference. I feel supported in every aspect of my training, not just the running itself.”
Hannah Kellett, “I tell my friends that working with Irene is like taking a course on ultra running. She brings so much knowledge, education, and experience to our programme that I feel empowered not just to follow her plan but to truly understand what is happening in my body and how to improve in a safe and intentional way. As I am relatively new to running (and fitness in general), deciding to invest in a coach was quite intimidating. Working with Irene has allowed me to improve incredibly fast because she takes both her role as a coach and my potential as an amateur athlete very seriously. She leverages science and expertise to make me believe in myself and push to my full capability while still keeping it fun and realistic.”
Curious to learn more about Molina Gonzalez’s coaching? View her available coaching services here.
Follow Molina Gonzalez on social media here.
Editor’s Note: Browse through ATRA’s coaching and camp resource here.
