Why LOAD exists
I built the coach I needed.
I'm Nick Buckley-Mills: a Team GBR age-group triathlete who has spent 25+ years building technology companies. This is why LOAD exists, who it's for, and why I'm the one building it.
Team GBR
Age-group athlete representing Great Britain.
Ironman, 70.3 and marathon
Multiple finishes at all three distances, built around a full-time career.
25+ years in tech
Leadership at fast-scaling technology companies, including Meta, Stripe, CircleCI and Microsoft.
1 · The problem
The problem
I lived.
Plans are everywhere. Judgment isn't.
I've raced Ironman and 70.3 for years, around a full-time career. Like most committed amateurs, I've trained from plans, apps and coaches. Great coaches have helped me through plenty of hard weeks. But their time is limited, and life doesn't wait for the next check-in. Most of the decisions that matter happen between sessions, when nobody is there.
For nearly two years I've been running an experiment on myself: talking my training through with general-purpose AI. For a while it felt like the future. Then it contradicted itself between sessions, lost the dates of my training blocks, forgot my thresholds and mixed my training up with unrelated chats. I was spending as much time re-explaining myself and moving data around as I was training.
That's when I saw the gap. Plans are cheap and everywhere. What I actually wanted was judgment: something that knows my whole situation, remembers last winter, and will say “not today, and here's why”.
2 · What I believe
You're more than your numbers.
The same session can build you or break you.
A body isn't a machine with separate dials. Fitness, sleep, work, stress, mood and injury all feed into each other, so no single number, whether it's a threshold, a power zone or a training load, can tell you what you need today.
That's why the same session can build you in March and break you in June. Training isn't a straight line. How you adapt depends on everything else going on in your life.
So the numbers are information, not orders. How a session felt, how ready you are to train and how you slept all count. Stress followed by proper recovery makes you stronger. Constant, middling tiredness doesn't. The training approach you keep enjoying for years beats the perfect plan you drop in six months.
Off-the-shelf plans can't see you. Adaptive plans see your workouts but not your life. A prescription written weeks ago, even by a great coach, can't see this week. LOAD keeps a clear view of you as things change, and adjusts the next step.
3 · Who it's for, and why it's different
The job you hire LOAD to do.
When my week doesn't go to plan, help me decide what to do next, with someone who knows my whole situation, so I stay consistent and arrive at race day ready.
When life moves my week
LOAD builds the week from the conversation and keeps the context: the work trip, the poor night, the niggle.
When I can’t tell if I’m absorbing the work
It reads your sessions and what you tell it about how you feel together, and explains its reasoning so you can push back.
When I’m planning a race
It turns an agreed approach into a week you can follow, and keeps the whole season in view.
Why it's different, and better for this job.
Plan generators
Build a plan from your data. Good for the average athlete, less good for your actual week.
Single-method coaching
One method for every athlete. It works well if the method happens to fit you.
A general AI chat
Clever in the moment, but it forgets you, has no athlete record, and leaves the data plumbing to you.
LOAD
One continuing conversation grounded in your own record. Training numbers computed in code, reasoning shown, sources credited, and injuries sent to professionals.
4 · Why me
Why me.
Most coaching products start with a method and fit you to it. LOAD starts with you, and draws on any model, technique or principle that suits.
I'm an age-grouper with a demanding career, which is exactly who LOAD is for.
In endurance sport
- Team GBR age-group athlete
- Multiple Ironman, 70.3 and Marathon finishes
- 20+ years of cycling: time trials, amateur racing and club riding
In technology
- 25+ years building and scaling tech companies
- Meta, Stripe, CircleCI, Microsoft, and three M&A exits
- CRO, President and General Manager roles
I'm not a sports scientist or a coach. That's why LOAD credits the people whose methods it draws on, and sends injury and health questions to professionals. I'm a builder who races, and I use what I build.
Invite only, small groups, triathlon first.
If this sounds like the coach you've been missing, ask for an invite. Invited athletes get a direct line to me.
Questions? [email protected]