Head Coach of RunByRyan
Ryan Bjellquist-Ledger started running before he could walk, literally. When he was an infant acid-reflux upset the timeline for some of his gross motor milestones so to keep up his parents put him in a moon rover bouncer and blocked the stairs; Ryan made the most of the situation and has not been sitting still since.
In 2001 he ran his first race at the Westfield New Jersey Turkey Trot in the 1 Mile Run when one of his friend’s parents agreed to introduce him to the concept of training. The same lessons he learned then are a part of what Ryan brings to his coaching today: having fun, staying relaxed, and trying the best you can.
In 2005 Ryan went to his first team practice for track and field with the local YMCA and thought the warmup lap was practice. The jubilation of winning the lap was quickly subdued by the 45min of heaving and puking while barely standing until the end of practice. The lesson of patience and consistency remains at the heart of his coaching principles.
By high school Ryan embraced his stride, the smallest of the lot, trying to make the 7th spot on Varsity. From the summer practices as the slowest and sweatiest runner to eventually the team captain by his senior year and an ambassador for the school to the rest of the county within the sport. Ryan Bjellquist-Ledger embraced his nickname and initials, RBL, and found friends in his competitors and a drive to learn from every coaching philosophy in the county, running with every school team’s practices.
When considering studies for college, he discovered Exercise Physiology, essentially the closest anyone can get to majoring in running and ran for Concordia University Ann Arbor on a scholarship for Track & Field and Cross Country, a time that set him up for becoming a student of the sport in ways he couldn’t imagine.
His Freshman year he got his first major injury with a stress fracture in his foot. This was then followed by his coaches resigining on the 4th of July with no replacement announced until arriving on campus for summer training camp. Unfortunately, the coach was an interim coach with no prior experience but plenty of good intentions before another coach took the helm 6 months later. Just as he started to find his stride an Achilles tendon injury all but erased his collegiate elgibility.
By the time he was able to race again only the seniors knew that he could be their top runner and his first mile back was an 11:30minute mile, having had to relearn how to run again at physical therapy. Grateful to be running again, but having failed to PR in any single event, Ryan felt burnt out upon graduation in December 2015.
He went to Michigan State University where he worked at a Sports Performance Clinic, owned and operated by Dr. Joe Eisenmann, working with atheltes from all sports and backgrounds and even a semi-professional Women’s Soccer Team captained by Fátima Leyva, former captain of the 2000 Women’s World Cup Mexican National Team, before heading south to the University of Texas at Austin Human Performance Lab for his Master’s of Exercise Physiology, working under the world renowned scientist Dr. Ed Coyle.
Ryan initially was going to pursue a PhD but realized how much he cherishes the interactions with people and seeing their development and made a difficult decision to pursue collegiate coaching. By summer’s end Ryan began his first true coaching position as an assistant coach at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. Splitting his time between pacing workouts for the men and women during workouts, taking splits at races, and working at 24 Hour Fitness as a personal trainer, Ryan felt closer to in alignment with what he was destined for. Unfortunately the position was temporary by design with the team and without the experience to secure the head coaching position that opened following the season.
Ryan was able to fortunately secure a role as a contractor at Under Armour Connected Fitness, the owner of Map My Run which afforded him his first opportunity to apply his exercise physiology knowledge to technology and indirectly 100,000’s of people. Riding the bike next to runners with heart rate monitors, hooking others up to metabolic carts, and even running tests himself, it felt like being paid to be a professional athlete, coach, and scientist all at the same time while getting to see the app he used as a kid and the Samsung Galaxy Active Watch 2 come to life as a result of his work; really it felt like living the dream, but like most dreams, they end, as the relationship between Under Armour and Samsung did not prove to be as profitable as either side had hoped, sales were below forecast, and Under Armour was struggling internally having just changed leadership with no sign of the stock prices improving and therefore layoffs aplenty.
His last day was Valentine’s Day which felt like the perfect day for a breakup. With Under Armour as the premier sponsor of the Austin Marathon, running with the local Under Armour Run crew Raw Running and former co-workers felt like the perfect send off for this running chapter.
Over the next two months Ryan searched for a home that aligned with his education and values and found WHOOP, a Boston-based fitness wearable company with an emphasis on sleep, stress, and cardiovascular stress tracking democratizing health for the everyday person. Over the course of the pandemic professional athletes and business executives joined WHOOP to get the next level performance. Following 3 years across support, product, and marketing, Ryan realized that it was time for a change to pursue his larger callings beyond the corporate walls.
Coaching beckons and while as an athlete himself, Ryan wanted to do something more for others and get back to coaching people just as passionate about performing and living life to the fullest as himself. He knows that age, while inevitable, does not have to be a defining limit for everyone, and certainly not as early as so many of his peers have found it to be. At 29 Ryan achieved a personal best in every event from the 400m to the marathon and everything in between and shows no sign of slowling down. And thus, RunByRyan was born!
