The Story
Built by an ultrarunner,
for ultrarunners
UltraCoach exists because the tools we needed didn't. So we built them.
The Why
Lawrence Hester is the founder of UltraCoach. He co-founded FareHarbor, scaling it from a family business into the leading booking platform for tours and activities before it was acquired. He is now the CEO of Expedition, FareHarbor's largest competitor.
Now based in Milan, Italy, he's channeling the same relentless energy into ultramarathon running and building the tools he wished existed.
His ultra journey started with the Bear Chase 100K in Colorado in 2017. Since then he's progressed through Lavaredo 120K and finished UTMB in 2025 — 172km around Mont Blanc through rain, mud, and the deepest pain cave he'd ever entered. He trains before his kids wake up, follows macros religiously, and believes the same grit that builds companies builds ultrarunners.
The Problem
Existing training apps don't understand ultras. They generate static plans that break the moment you miss a workout. They don't adapt to your Whoop recovery data. They don't know what Minetti gradient-adjusted pacing means.
They can't build a crew plan or a race-day nutrition strategy from a GPX file. They treat a 50-mile mountain race the same as a road marathon.
The best ultrarunners rely on expensive human coaches who may only check in once a week. Everyone else gets a PDF and good luck.
The Solution
UltraCoach is the AI-powered training platform Lawrence wished he'd had for UTMB — one that prescribes, measures, and adapts in a closed feedback loop. Not a static PDF. A living system that gets smarter with every workout.
It syncs your Whoop, Strava, and Garmin data. It builds periodized training plans that auto-adjust when you miss a session or come back from injury. It calculates gradient-adjusted pace splits for your exact GPX course. It generates race-day nutrition timing down to the gel.
Prescribe
AI-generated plans tuned to your race, body, and schedule
Execute
Sync workouts, log nutrition, track recovery in one place
Adapt
Automatic plan adjustments based on your actual response
The Long Game
He went back. Lawrence trained for UTMB 2026 the way real athletes train — with his coach, and with UltraCoach alongside: readiness scores, fueling plans, gradient-adjusted pacing, morning briefings. Not instead of a coach. With one. That's how the platform is built to work.
The race ended at kilometer 52. A wet night on the Col du Bonhomme, a caught toe, a re-injured ankle, and a failed hop test at the Les Chapieux medical tent. Stopping was the right call — the kind of call a season is saved by, and the kind the platform exists to help athletes make.
And every question that campaign asked which UltraCoach couldn't yet answer became a roadmap item. The gaps are logged, the fixes are shipping, and the next start line is already on the calendar. Every feature is still tested on him first — if it doesn't make him a better ultrarunner, it doesn't ship. That part hasn't changed.
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