I left my IT job to become a coach | By Ajith Markose

I didn’t begin my professional life in coaching. Like many, I took a more conventional route first, studying, working in IT, climbing the ladder from developer to project manager over more than a decade.

But sport was never something I left behind. It was always there, quietly persistent, because it runs in my family.

Eventually, that pull became too strong to ignore. I started by coaching my wife, who was a national champion at the time.

What began as part-time involvement slowly turned into a full-time commitment. By 2013, I had stepped fully into coaching, working with national camps and eventually shaping programs at a larger scale.

Looking back, it doesn’t feel like a shift; it feels like I simply returned to where I was meant to be.

Creating an ecosystem, not pressure

If there’s one belief that has stayed constant, despite all the evolution in my thinking, it is this: you don’t create champions by force. You create them through the environment.

Early in my coaching journey, like many others, I thought pushing harder would produce faster results.

But over time, I realised how damaging that can be. When you push young athletes beyond their capacity too early, you don’t accelerate growth; you risk ending it. Burnout, injury, mental fatigue are all outcomes of the wrong approach.

Today, my philosophy is simple. Talent already exists, that’s why an athlete enters the system. My job is not to manufacture it, but to nurture it.

I focus on building the right ecosystem: the right training environment, the right psychological support, the right balance between effort and recovery.

When that ecosystem is in place, athletes don’t need to be forced, they begin to flourish on their own.

That idea of an ecosystem became much clearer to me when I started working with the Reliance Foundation.

It has completely changed the way I coach.

Earlier, a lot of my decisions were based on experience and observation. Now, everything is far more structured and scientific. I’m able to plan training cycles more precisely, monitor aerobic capacity, recovery, and training load much more closely, and make decisions based on data, not just feel.

The biggest difference, for me, is consistency.

Athletes can now train at a high level without interruptions. We are no longer adjusting training because of external issues; we are progressing training because everything around the athlete is stable.

We also have a complete support system now. Physio, strength and conditioning, nutrition, sports science, everyone works together within the same ecosystem. Instead of reacting to injuries or fatigue, we are able to prevent and manage them much better.

And equally important, I look for coachable athletes. This relationship is not transactional.

A coach is not just a trainer; we are guides through a long, uncertain journey. If an athlete cannot align with the philosophy and values of the program, it becomes difficult for both sides to grow together.

Beyond physical markers like VO2 max or lactate threshold, I pay close attention to something far more telling: how an athlete handles failure.

Success in sport is rare. Failure is frequent. The athletes who go far are not the ones who celebrate wins best, but the ones who recover from losses the strongest.

Consistency, failure, and making of elite athletes

When people ask what separates elite athletes from the rest, they often expect a complex answer, something scientific or technical. But the truth is more grounded.

Elite athletes are consistent. They can reproduce high-level performance when it matters most.

You see it in training, you see it in competition, and most importantly, you see it in how they handle setbacks. They don’t crumble under failure; they study it, absorb it, and return stronger.

Physiologically, of course, there are differences: higher endurance capacity, better recovery, stronger tolerance levels.

But those alone don’t define greatness. I’ve seen many talented athletes fall short because they couldn’t manage the mental side of the sport.

As a coach, over time, you learn to recognise these patterns. You observe behaviour, training habits, and emotional responses.

Slowly, you begin to understand which athletes are capable of stepping into that elite bracket, not just through talent, but through temperament.

Why patience matters in athletics

One of the biggest misconceptions I often come across is about starting early, especially when people compare athletics to sports like football or badminton.

In skill-heavy sports, early specialisation makes sense. But athletics is different.

Most world-class athletes in track and field peak later. Many of them only begin to truly perform after 18.

If you start structured, intense training too early, you risk burning athletes out before they even reach their prime.

That’s one of the reasons why we see strong performances at junior levels that don’t translate into senior success.

There is a difference between starting and training. A child can start running, playing, and exploring movement at a young age, and that’s healthy.

But structured, scientific training should come much later, ideally around 14 to 16. Before that, the focus should be on enjoyment, variety, and natural development.

Athletics is not one sport; it’s many. Sprinting, endurance, jumping, and throwing all have different demands and timelines. There is no single formula.

The role of a coach is to recognise the right window of opportunity and guide the athlete accordingly, without rushing the process.

Competition exposure is another major shift.

Earlier, getting athletes into the right races, especially internationally, was a challenge. At Reliance Foundation, a big focus of ours is to plan race calendars properly and identify appropriate exposure competitions for athletes, which directly reflects in performance.

We identified the right marathon for Sawan, entered him in Rotterdam, and he went on to break the national record. Similarly, for Afsal, we placed him in a fast race in Poland, where he broke the 1:45 barrier in the 800m.

The training environment has also improved significantly. Access to altitude is now planned, not uncertain. Recovery setups are better. And most importantly, athletes have stability.

They are not worrying about logistics anymore. They are not trying to manage survival. They can focus fully on training and performance.

For endurance athletes, especially marathon runners, this kind of setup is very important. A lot of the training also happens in altitude, which is something you see across the world at the highest level. That consistency in environment and planning makes a big difference.

Within this system, Project 2:09 came in as a natural progression.

The national record Sawan broke had been there for decades. First, the aim was to break it. Then to bring it down to 2:10, and then to 2:09.

But for me, it’s not just about one athlete or one performance.

The idea is to create a model that can be repeated, where we have more athletes consistently running at that level, not just once, but again and again.

The real reward

People often assume that the most rewarding part of coaching is medals, and yes, there is a certain thrill in seeing your athlete succeed on the biggest stages, break records, or stand on podiums.

But for me, the deeper reward lies in progression. Watching an athlete improve steadily, overcome setbacks, and move closer to their potential, that’s where the real satisfaction is.

It’s similar to what runners describe as a “runner’s high.” As coaches, we feel something similar, not from running, but from witnessing growth.

From knowing that the work, the patience, and the belief are all coming together.

And perhaps that’s what keeps me going, the understanding that coaching is not about one result or one race. It’s about building something sustainable.

A system. A pathway. Not just for one athlete, but for many who will come after.

As told to Aswathy Santhosh