We Help Kids Fall In Love With Running

Coach Tim wants kids to be kids. He focuses on nurturing athletes’ relationship with the sport of running, providing a positive social and athletic environment, developing young athletes, and helping them reach their potential. But he’s determined they reach that potential long after he’s done coaching them.

Coach Tim coaches distance runners, does his best to keep up during workouts and runs, creates training plans, directs running events, pours chocolate milk, shovels snow off of tracks, and more.

Head Coach Tim Geldean formed his youth distance program in early 2020 and has been coaching it year round ever since. He started it as a middle school division of REAL Training, ran it under the Rock Creek Track Club umbrella for a stretch, and has now formed his own club in BOCO Distance Project.

Concurrently, Coach Tim coached with two high school programs beginning in 2019. He was a volunteer assistant with Lyons High School for two seasons. Then he spent a successful five-year stint as an assistant coach, helping to build the storied Niwot High School distance program.

Over the years, Coach Tim has coached multiple USATF Junior Olympics Nationals All-Americans, high school state champions, Nike Cross Nationals competitors, and runners who have gone on to run collegiately.

Coach Tim found running as a young high schooler in the Chicago suburbs. With the encouragement of his coaches (Jim Wessendorf, Bruce Gilbert, and Don Richardson), he fell in love with the sport and went on to run at North Central College. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Physical Education and was part of multiple Division III cross country and track & field championship teams. He was fortunate to spend those years running and learning with one of the all-time greats—Coach Al Carius. Al’s guiding principle that drives Coach Tim to this day is “run for fun and personal bests.” Besides a record number of team national championships over more than half a century of coaching, Al’s greatest legacy might be the vast network of coaches he mentored spread across the country today. Coach Tim works hard to honor Al’s legacy by providing an optimal balance of fun, competitiveness, and athletic development in his own coaching.