Your Coach: Hans-Jörg Stolz | Triflow Coaching

About me

Hans-Jörg Stolz

I am a certified triathlon coach and a competitive athlete myself. Years of racing, a deep grounding in sports science and nutrition, and a broad athletic background are what I bring to your season.

For the past six years my life has been built around triathlon. In that time I have worked through every part of it — training prescription, sports science, nutrition, equipment and race strategy — and I still read and study almost daily.

That mix of practice and theory is what lets me build training plans that genuinely fit the athlete in front of me.

Preview image — Klartext Triathlon #62 — Triathlon coach · Ruhpolding

Portrait of Hans-Jörg Stolz — Triathlon coach · Ruhpolding

Hans-Jörg Stolz in the aero position on the time-trial bike

How I got here

From ten years of strength training to the full distance

Sport has always been part of my life. I spent over ten years training seriously with weights, alongside mountaineering, cycling, hiking, ice hockey and skiing — there is hardly a sport I have not tried. At some point the question started to interest me: how far would I get if I concentrated on one thing instead of many?

Triathlon appealed to me most because it asks for three disciplines rather than one. Swimming, cycling and running load the body in completely different ways, and bringing them together is a task in itself. A few years ago I decided to build my life around it.

How quickly it went says more about the method than about me: after one year of focused training I finished an Ironman in 9:17. A year later it was 8:34, along with 3:51 on my first half distance — today the personal best there stands at 3:47. Jumps like that do not come from training more, but from training right. In that time I came to understand how the body works at a biological level in endurance sport, and how fitness can be built to a plan.

Coaching followed naturally from that. Year after year I worked through every part of the sport, and I still do so almost daily. Passing that on and watching someone move forward because of it is simply something I enjoy — more than keeping it to myself.

The record in detail

What is behind the numbers

8:34 over the full distance

A time like that is built over months of carefully managed load, not on one day. Your season is built on the same principle.

12 overall podiums

Twelve overall podiums in triathlon racing. Getting a race right is a skill of its own — and it goes into every race plan I write.

Certified coach

A recognised, formally examined coaching qualification. It means I can explain what I have experienced as an athlete, and transfer it to you.

10+ years of experience in competitive sport

Over ten years of training seriously, the last six in competitive triathlon, alongside nutrition and sports science. What I pass on, I have tested on myself first — and that is what your plans are built on.

What it cost me

The mistakes I want to spare you

Not all of my experience has been good experience. I know first-hand how heavy the load gets when triathlon meets work and everything else that makes up a life. I pushed my limits and hit the wall more than once — overtraining and burnout included.

That is why I ask my athletes about more than training data. How you sleep, what is going on at work, how settled things are around you: for me that belongs inside the training decisions, not next to them. Ignore it and you are only steering half of it.

I learned that most clearly on myself. For the 2025 and 2026 seasons I set out to finish the full distance under eight hours. In terms of fitness I was close. But I do all of it myself — no sponsor, no training group, and the coaching business to build alongside. At some point the maths stopped working.

I called the project off without ever making an official attempt. That was not an easy decision. For the past few months my focus has deliberately been on coaching; racing at that level may come back, but not at any price. That is exactly the judgement call I make for you, before you have to learn it the hard way — because in the end the sport should make your life better, not eat it.

Podcast guest

Klartext Triathlon #62 — the full conversation.

In January 2024 I was a guest on the German podcast Klartext Triathlon. A good seventy minutes on the move from strength training into triathlon, the 8:34 long distance after two and a half years, my plans at the time — and on doping, respect in sport and the mental side that rarely gets talked about.

The coaching did not exist back then, so the episode is not about Triflow — it is about me. If you want to know how I think before booking an intro call, this is the most honest version there is: unedited, and asked by someone else. Note that the conversation is in German.

Open the episode on Spotify