Ryan Carney
Coach, founder of Hudson Valley Track Club, and a runner still chasing his own times on the same roads as everyone he coaches.
Ryan ran Division I at Manhattan College and has spent the years since doing exactly what he asks his athletes to do, which is stack quiet weeks until they add up to something. His marathon best is 2:28:29, set in Indianapolis in November 2025.
He is an RRCA certified coach and a positive psychology health and wellness coach, a combination that shows up in how he works. The training is demanding and the conversation around it is not. Most of coaching, in his view, is helping a runner keep a clear head over a long stretch of time.
Before private coaching he built the cross country program at Pine Plains High School to a state title, which taught him something he still leans on. Teams win because ordinary athletes get slightly better for several years in a row, not because anybody found a shortcut.
He founded Hudson Valley Track Club, which meets weekly on the Hudson Valley Rail Trail and now runs around ninety active members. The club is free and open to anyone. The coaching is separate, and this page is about that side.
The short version
Manhattan College, Division I
Four years of collegiate distance running, and the training education that came with it.
Pine Plains cross country, state title
Built a small school program into a state champion, coaching athletes who mostly were not recruited anywhere.
RRCA coach, positive psychology wellness coach
Formal training in both the physiology of distance running and the psychology of sticking with something hard.
2:28:29 marathon, Indianapolis
A personal best set in November 2025, run on the same mileage first approach he writes for his athletes.
Hudson Valley Track Club
Founded and still leads the club, roughly ninety active members meeting weekly on the rail trail.
How he thinks about training
Four beliefs that shape every plan he writes.
Consistency beats intensity
A runner who never misses a week at forty miles will pass a runner who hits sixty for three weeks and then disappears for two. This is the least exciting true thing in the sport.
Fatigue is information
Feeling flat is data, not a character flaw. The plan changes in response to it, because the alternative is training through a hole and calling it toughness.
The season is the unit
Progress is not measured in workouts. It is measured across a block, and then across the blocks that follow it. Judging a single week is how runners talk themselves into doing something stupid.
You should enjoy the long run
If Sunday has become something you dread, something upstream is wrong. The long run is the best part of the week and the plan should keep it that way.
Work with Ryan.
Coaching is one to one and the roster stays small on purpose. Send a note and he will tell you honestly whether it is a fit.