We recently connected with Jillian Reyna and have shared our conversation below.

Jillian, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s something you believe that most people in your industry (or in general) disagree with?

Something that I believe in that is often disagreed with is “less is more.” Less is more can mean a lot of things – less volume, less intensity, less stress. Specifically in the endurance sport space, the popular thing to do is train at high volume and potentially high intensity and that isn’t always completely necessary.

Starting with volume: you don’t have to run every single day of the week to make progress and meet your goals. You also don’t have to run super high mileage to accomplish your goals. Cross training is a great substitute that can be included in a training plan to reduce impact while still getting volume, which can help reduce injury.
Next, intensity – don’t have to go hard all the time. Running slower helps you run faster. This seems backwards, but reducing intensity allows the body to recover and allows you to perform your best on race day. Including intensity in our training is important because it is how we get better, but it has to be proportioned correctly in order to benefit us rather than run us down.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a small business owner of a running & nutrition coaching business called Rise & Reign. I have known for a long time that I wanted to do something in the fitness industry. In the summer of 2022, I felt a strong calling and desire to go for it. It was scary, but I had enough people asking me for advice and perspective on running that I knew I needed to go for it.
What was I going to name it? I took my time and brainstormed my vision for the business and what I wanted it to represent. With the help of two creative friends, I settled on Rise & Reign. The meaning behind Rise & Reign is simple – it is all about enjoying the process. My slogan is “Rise to the Challenge. Reign in the Process.” The thought behind this is that there are so many moments between the peak/destination moments of our life. If we are only living for the big moments, then the time in between could be pretty unenjoyable. How do we avoid this? We build our lives in a way that we enjoy. That is my mission as a running coach – to help my runners enjoy the process of everyday training and remind them that the race or metric they are working towards is just the icing on the cake.
I filed my LLC for Rise & Reign on July 27, 2022 and it was official; I was a business owner for my passion – running! Shortly after, I couldn’t contain my excitement and shared the news with my neighbor, who also happens to be a close friend. Andrea asked “do you want a dietitian on your team?” and I replied “of course!” That was that – Andrea joined the Rise & Reign team as a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist!
Since then, Rise & Reign has grown and impacted many athletes across the United States! One of the athletes that I coach (Jen) has since joined the team as a coach herself! She is also a Certified Personal Trainer which helps us expand to strength coaching as well. Expanding the business even further and bringing on a second running coach was a huge and exciting step for us!
Circling back to what Rise & Reign does – we coach adult athletes of all levels virtually on their performance and everyday life goals with running and nutrition. We are proud to have been part of many breakthroughs, personal records and growth for so many athletes and we look forward to continuing to reach and help as many athletes as we can!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I think ultimately what helped me build my reputation in the run coaching market is the way I show up. My guess on what my reputation is in the run coaching market is “lower mileage, higher cross training” as well as “relatable, compassionate and understanding.” As a runner myself, I train with lower mileage and prioritize cross training. I have trained with higher mileage before and I have found that lower volume is what works best for me and allows me to fit in all of the activities I love. My athletes see that this training style, although untraditional, can work. I believe that people would say I am relatable because I work really hard to make others feel comfortable by relating to them in some way. I have a lot of experience with running and competing, so I have likely been in their shoes before from a running perspective. I am understanding if life happens and the training plan doesn’t go perfectly, because I know mine never does! I show up as my genuine honest self and I think that has paid dividends to helping me establish the reputation that I have.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

A story from my running journey that shows my resilience is my most recent marathon. I ran the Boston Marathon 9 months postpartum in April 2024. This was no easy feat (Boston isn’t easy even if you aren’t postpartum). When I started back to running postpartum, I had achiness in my pelvis – specifically the pubic bone area. I have never felt pain like this before, hence, it was likely due to pregnancy and childbirth. I began working with a Pelvic Floor Therapist to address this issue. I was about 5 months out from Boston and knew that I needed to figure this out if I wanted to get to the start line. I had already taken some time off since starting back to running and knew that time was quickly slipping away. I inquired with the Lever Movement team after testing my friend’s device. I started as an ambassador with Lever Movement and got my own Lever Movement system. If you’ve never heard of Lever before, it is a body-weight reduction system that attaches to a treadmill. It helps reduce body weight up to 25%. I utilized this heavily in my training to ensure I was building volume and gaining aerobic capacity without putting too much impact on my pelvis. This was a wonderful solution; however, it meant many lonely miles on my treadmill. It also meant slowing down my pace significantly because I noticed this reduced the pain. I had pelvic floor physical therapy appointments weekly. It was a very gradual and slow process, but eventually, I was able to train outdoors again at full bodyweight! I successfully made it to Boston and ran the race at a much faster pace than I anticipated I would run. I did no speed or hill work in training to protect my body. When things got tough during the race, I reminded myself how lucky I was to be there, to keep it fun, and compared it to contractions – this too shall pass and that I will get through this! Looking back on this experience, I am so proud of my resilience when I easily could have thrown in the towel. It was not easy, it was long and tedious, but I stayed the course and kept the long term goal in mind. This experience is something I will remember in the future when training is challenging – I will remember that I can get through it. I will also share this with my athletes if they have a bumpy training cycle and are lacking confidence going into race day.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.risereigntraining.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/risereigntraining/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/risereigntraining
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/risereigntraining/
• Twitter: https://x.com/RiseReignTrain

Image Credits

Christine Ruth Photography (headshots)