Team Run Run founder Matt Urbanski on finding flow
- Henry Howard
- 1 minute ago
- 5 min read
By Henry Howard
For 24 hours straight, Matt Urbanski ran loops around a sports complex in Albi, France. Over and over, 1,500 meters at a time, passing his crew station every few minutes. No scenic mountain vistas. No trail switchbacks. Just the relentless repetition of putting one foot in front of the other for 170 loops, until the clock ran out.
Most people would find this monotonous, even maddening. For Urbanski, it was transcendent.
“The thing I’m most happy about with the race honestly, is how I feel like I stayed engaged with the task for a full 24 hours,” the 45-year-old ultra runner and coach reflects. “My mind did not drift to anything other than what we were working on there. I didn’t think about how I didn’t like it or how — there was none of that negative stuff. Not even drifting to think about random things. I was really just engaged in the task for 24 hours and that’s a cool feeling. That doesn’t happen very much in life, at least for me.”
That focus paid off at the 2025 IAU 24-Hour World Championships in October, where Urbanski finished 19th overall with 255 kilometers (158.4 miles), the top American finisher at the prestigious event. It was his best 24-hour performance to date, achieved during what he describes as a year of significant life changes.
He separated from his wife, moved from Europe back to America, and formed a new relationship with Esther, who crewed him through every lap but one at the world championships.
Urbanski is also a running coach and founder of Team Run Run, which has matched more than 2,100 runners with a coach from their stable of dozens of options. For full disclosure, he has been my running coach since April 2025.
From DNF at Rocky Raccoon to Team USA at World Championships
For Urbanski, running isn’t just what he does. It’s woven into the fabric of who he is. He’s been at it since age 5, when he started running 5Ks and 10Ks with his dad. He ran CYO track in fourth grade, competed through high school, and spent his freshman year on the Division I cross country and track teams at the Naval Academy before transferring to the University of Cincinnati.
But it wasn’t until his late 20s, living near Portland, Oregon, that his competitive fire truly reignited. Training five to six days a week with a dedicated group, he set personal records in the 5K, 10K and half marathon. “It was fun to be faster at 29 than I was at 21 in a 5K,” he says.
The transition to ultras came almost accidentally in 2008 when he heard about the White River 50-miler. He tried it, finished with painfully sore feet and legs, but something clicked. His brother Jeff, four and a half years younger, suggested they tackle Rocky Raccoon 100 together in 2011. Urbanski dropped out at 80 miles that first attempt — a rare DNF for someone who “doesn’t quit things.”
He returned to Rocky Raccoon four more times. “The fifth time it all came together and I had the fueling, the gear, the logistics, my crew was dialed in, everything went smoothly,” he recalls. “There were no problems. And it was great.”
That persistence has defined Urbanski’s ultra running career, which now includes over 35 marathons, Western States 100, UTMB, Hardrock 100, and a victory at the 2020 Tarawera 100 in New Zealand. He’s raced everything from 5Ks to 100-milers, competed in 24-hour events, and even completed the triple crown of long-distance hiking — the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, and Continental Divide Trail.
The birth of Team Run Run
His journey took an unexpected entrepreneurial turn after that first Rocky Raccoon DNF. “I came out of there and was like, I’m ready to make changes,” he says.
He quit his wealth management job, traveled and enrolled in nursing school. While studying, he began coaching runners online in 2014, when it was still relatively rare. By graduation, he knew nursing wasn’t his path but coaching was.
What started as a solo venture has grown into Team Run Run, a thriving marketplace connecting runners with over 300 coaches and thousands of athletes. But for Urbanski, the mission remains deeply personal. “I really think that the relationship that gets built between an athlete and a coach, when you have a good coach who communicates well with their athletes, that’s where the value is,” he explains. “Even though AI is awesome and so on, it can’t replicate that.”
The coaching work has changed him, too.
“I’m more patient and mindful about how I talk to myself,” he says. “I think I was probably harder on myself of like, oh, just be tough, work hard. But I’ve learned that in working with athletes, that’s not the way to always go ... Learning to talk with athletes in a way that helps them be their best, I think it’s helped me be my best as a runner.”
A vegan ultra runner and running coach
He’s been vegetarian since age 15, transitioning to a vegan diet in 2012 for health reasons, though the environmental and ethical benefits have since become equally important. The dietary shift coincided with his deep dive into ultras, along with years of consistent training—including a multi-year streak of running at least 30 minutes every single day with his brother.
Now based in Boulder, Colo., (after stints living everywhere from New Zealand to Australia to Portugal), Urbanski balances coaching, business operations, and his own training while co-parenting five children ages 6 to 10.
When asked what success looks like at the end of his running career, Urbanski offers the same answer he’d give before any race: “I just want to cross the line feeling I know I did what I could on the day. I felt like I reached my potential.”
In France, running in circles for 24 hours, staying present for every single one of those 170 laps, he found it. “I nailed it,” he says simply. “I got it. I got out of myself what I could on that day.”
And in a sport where the finish line is always moving farther away, where success is measured not in trophies but in fully realized effort, that’s everything.
Speed drill
Name: Matt Urbanski
Hometown: Boulder, Colo.
Number of years running: 40+
How many miles a week do you typically run: 60+
Point of pride: Top American at the recent 2025 IAU 24 hour world championships, and 19th male overall.
Favorite race distance: “I love so many distances — road marathons to 24-hour ultras to mountain 100 milers.”
Favorite pre-race or training food/drink: “I have a strong gut, so I’m not particular. Maybe a nice espresso!”
Favorite piece of gear: Leki poles for mountain races.
Who inspires you: “Oddly, I don’t really think that way. I love life and simply enjoy all that comes with it.”
Favorite or inspirational song to run to: “I like Empire State of Mind by Jay-Z or maybe Otis by Jay-Z and Kanye.”
Favorite or inspirational mantra/phrase: “Strong and in control.”
Where can other runners connect or follow you:
