Fleet Feet Nashville Scales a 200-Athlete Training Program Without Sacrificing Personalization

Fleet Feet Nashville

Fleet Feet Nashville needed a coaching platform that could deliver individualized training to 200 athletes while keeping program management lean enough for a small staff. V.O2 delivered exactly that.

About Fleet Feet Nashville

Fleet Feet Nashville is one of Middle Tennessee’s most active running communities, offering year-round programs anchored by events including the Rock ‘n’ Roll Nashville and Run Nashville Half Marathons. The program is led by Brooke Barrett, who came up through the program herself, first as a participant, and now as head coach.

Today, Brooke manages approximately 200 athletes per cycle with 10–15 volunteer pace group leaders. This streamlined model requires a training system that can scale without losing the personal touch.

The Challenge

Coaching 200 athletes as a one-person staff makes features like GPS watch integration, individualized pacing, and efficient workout delivery not nice-to-haves, but necessities. As Brooke explained, the hardest concept to reinforce across a mixed-ability group is training intensity: getting every athlete to run easy on easy days, and hard on hard days requires individualized targets, clearly communicated and easy to execute. She also needed to minimize the administrative burden. Manual weekly calendar updates simply wouldn’t do at this scale.

Why V.O2

Brooke had used V.O2 personally for two years before bringing it to Fleet Feet Nashville’s program. She was drawn to how it pushed personalized paces to her watch and simplified quality sessions. V.O2 was the clear choice for group training based on three main capabilities:

  • VDOT-Based Paces: Every athlete trains at paces derived from their personal VDOT score, rooted in Dr. Jack Daniels’ training methodology. Easy days are genuinely easy. Hard days are calibrated to current fitness. No guesswork.
  • GPS Watch Integration: Workouts are pushed directly to athletes’ GPS watches. Athletes simply follow their watch.  
  • Quality Workout Structure: V.O2’s approach to delivering structured sessions gave Brooke a reliable, consistent format for the workouts that require the most precision.

Beyond training delivery, the V.O2 coaching platform includes a suite of business tools that streamline athlete registration and onboarding, automate VDOT baseline assessments, and facilitate monthly payment processing and reporting. For a coach managing 200 athletes without a dedicated operations staff, that kind of integrated back-office support isn’t just convenient, it’s essential.

Results

Since adopting V.O2, Fleet Feet Nashville has seen improvements in both program efficiency and athlete experience.

  • Administrative time has been reduced to approximately one hour per week. That efficiency frees Brooke to focus on coaching, not platform management.
  • GPS watch integration allows athletes to train with more confidence. Participants consistently cite VDOT pace guidance as a major benefit.  
  • Clear guidance and adherence to training intensity are core to the program. Individual VDOT scores ensure that every athlete trains at the proper pace.  
  • Athletes benefit from a coaching experience that feels personal at scale. V.O2 makes it easy to track individual progress, communicate, and adjust training as needed throughout the program.  

 “VDOT has taken the guesswork out of pacing for our group. As runners, we often want to go a little faster than we should when things start feeling good, but VDOT helps us remember to be smart with pace. VDOT has also been very helpful with our track sessions, doing the thinking for us at 6am. I am very happy with how our athletes have grown this training session with VDOT’s help.”

– Brooke Barrett, Head Coach, Fleet Feet Nashville

Looking Ahead

Brooke is expanding the use of V.O2 into an upcoming summer speed program and looking forward to V.O2’s in-app community features, which will allow pace group leaders and athletes to communicate directly within the platform.

As Nashville’s premier running community continues to grow, V.O2 is ready to scale with it.

 Ready to scale your training program with V.O2?