Happy Ten Year Anniversary, TrainingPeaks!
1 October 2009
Ten years ago, TrainingPeaks got started with a conversation between Dirk Friel and Gear Fisher at a bar in Vail, Colorado called The George (ironically Gear’s real name). A professional cyclist and coach, Dirk was feeling frustrated by the difficulties of efficiently communicating with his athletes. “Man,” said Dirk, “I just wish I had a website or something where everyone could share their workouts!”
“A website?” said Gear, who had majored in civil engineering. “I could build you a website.” At the time, Gear was racing as a category 2 road cyclist, and had been consulting in web development for 2 years. Together, with Dirk’s father Joe Friel, they spent the next year prototyping the first version of the website and all its functionality.
“At first this program was just for our coaches and me,” explained Joe, “but it soon became apparent that it had a lot of merit and, even better, no one else had anything nearly as powerful. It was unique in many ways. So in 2000 we decided to take it public by selling subscriptions.”
Ten years, 30 million workouts, 20 employees, and thousands of members later, the website is still here, although it may look slightly different than the original. From a platform that was initially designed as a communication tool for Dirk and Joe Friel’s Training Bible coaches and athletes, the software has been transformed into a totally democratic system that is used by thousands of coaches, including Carmichael Training Systems, Peaks Coaching Group, Life Sport Coaching, Endurance Corner, and many more.
Not only is TrainingPeaks used by thousands of coaches and their athletes, but it is also the training and nutrition log of choice for hundreds of thousands of individuals who are self-coached or following one of hundreds of pre-built training and nutrition plans designed to help them achieve their fitness goals, from losing weight to running their first marathon, or even competing in an Ironman.
TrainingPeaks is also the official software for a wide range of organizations, including publishers like Runner’s World, device manufacturers like Timex, events like the New York City Marathon, charities like the American Cancer Society, and national governing bodies like USA Triathlon.
In addition to the online program, the company also offers the desktop software TrainingPeaks WKO+, which was designed for more advanced analysis of power meter files by the authors of Training and Racing with a Power Meter, Andrew Coggan and Hunter Allen.
Thanks to all our customers and partners for your support over the last decade! We’re excited to see what the next ten years brings.
As Joe Friel puts it, “TrainingPeaks has grown well beyond what any of us imagined when we took it to market. I am still in awe of what it does for coaches and athletes. And the things I see coming down the line are even more amazing. The best is yet to come.”
Happy training!
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