Higher Running was founded in 2014 by Sandi Nypaver and Sage Canaday with the goal of offering thoughtful, evidence-based run coaching rooted in real-world experience. From the beginning, our focus has been on helping runners improve through individualized guidance, long-term development, and genuine care for the athletes we work with.

Our Core Values

Joy
We believe joy and high performance go together. When you love what you’re doing, you train more consistently, recover better, and race with more confidence. Joy isn’t something we save for the finish line. It’s part of the process every day, in the hard workouts and the easy miles.

Kindness and Respect
Every athlete deserves our full attention, whether you’re chasing an Olympic Trials qualifier or your first trail race. We treat our athletes, our coaches, and each other with kindness and respect. That means listening, being honest, and truly caring about people.

Integrity
We never use plug and play plans. Every plan is built from scratch for you and adjusted based on how training is actually going. We look at every run and every comment. We do what we say we’ll do, and we’d rather do things the right way than the easy way.

Excellence
Excellence isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing what’s right for you, right now. Some days that’s following the plan with focus and hitting your paces. Other days it’s listening to your body and knowing when to back off. We hold ourselves to that same standard in how we coach, with care and attention to every detail. And when excellence is built on joy, respect, and caring for the whole person, it lasts.

Whole Person Care
You’re more than your training log. Sleep, stress, nutrition, work, family, and everything else in your life affect how you run. We check in on all of it because coaching the whole person is how we help you stay healthy, keep growing, and reach your goals.

Let’s train at a Higher level.
Let’s climb Higher summits.
Let’s live with Higher meaning.
Let’s run Higher, together.