Who is Larissa Kleinmann?
This is my life story..... buckle up!
Track & Field
I started running at the tender age of four in my home country Germany. My father was a doctor of sports medicine and an avid marathon runner. I loved watching TV as a kid. In order to be allowed to watch TV, my dad forced me to run one loop around the neighborhood each day. Since I did not want to miss anything, I ran as fast as I could during the commercial break. Each day, I also rode my bike as fast as I could to school because I never made it out of bed early enough to ride slowly. Success in middle and long distance running came fast and so I became and stayed a member of the German national team until the day I retired from running.
Letters with full scholarship offers from various NCAA Div 1 universities flew into my post box long before I graduated from high school. I chose Boston University but transferred to become an Arkansas Razorback after my freshman year. I wanted to contend for team championships, not just individual crowns, at the highest NCAA level.
Despite countless Southeastern Conference individual and team title as well as 5 All-American honors in cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track, I decided to forego my last outdoor season and retired in 2003 instead of turning pro. I was injured at the time, but I primarily retired because running was not my sport. Too many traumatizing defeats had burnt me out not just physically but especially mentally.
Running
I started running at the tender age of 4 in my home country Germany. My father was a doctor of sports medicine and an avid marathon runner. I loved watching TV as a kid. In order to be allowed to watch TV, my dad forced me to run one loop around the neighborhood each day. Each day, I ran as fast as I could during the commercial break. Each day, I also rode my bike as fast as I could to school, because I never made it out of bed early enough to ride slowly. Success in middle & long distance running came at a young age, and so I became and stayed a member of the German national team until the day I retired.
Full scholarship offers from various American NCAA Div 1 universities flew into my post box long before I graduated from high school. I chose Boston University but transferred to become a University of Arkansas Razorback after my freshman year. I wanted to have strong training partners and contend for team championships, not just individual crowns, at the highest NCAA level.
Despite collecting 5 All-American honors in cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track; countless Southeastern Conference individual and team titles; school records; SEC records; as well as an SEC Commissioner's Tropy for winning the mile, 3000m, and 5000m at the SEC Indoor Track Championship 2001, I decided to forego my last outdoor season and retired in 2003 instead of turning pro.
I was injured a lot as a runner. However, I primarily retired because running was not my sport. I loved the adventures of being a runner at that level but I hated racing and interval training. Too many traumatizing defeats had burnt me out mentally to keep going and run for a living.
Professional Cycling
I stumbled into professional cycling during my last MBA semester in 2004 which I spent in the South of France as an exchange student. I took my roadbike with me that I had bought a year earlier when I was training for the New York City Marathon (I had been invited into the women's elite field) because an injury kept me from running. I figured if I was moving to the home of the Tour de France, I better start riding my bike regularly. I loved it. I looked for cycling clubs to join in the area and found Marion Clignet, a retired pro cyclist and Olympic Silver Medalist on the track who would later become my first cycling coach. I started contemplating if I should start racing bikes, but I was frightened I would start hating cycling like I hated running once I started competing as a cyclist.
During an internship in London for Usain Bolt’s management agency in the summer of 2004, I finally decided to give cycling a serious go. I decided to turn pro and give myself 2 years to make it to the world-class level. I trained all winter in the South of France for my first cycling season 2005. 6 weeks after my first cycling race, the German national coach nominated me to compete for the national team. In my first race for Germany as a cyclist, I raced in the prologue of the Tour de l’Aude (the equivalent of the Tour de France for Women at the time), my first time on a time trial bike. I came in 6th, beating several World and Olympic champions. My path to the velodrome was pre-determined on that day.
5 years of pro cycling cut short: I raced the 3000m individual pursuit for 2 years where I was ranked top 10 in the world. Cycling is a beautiful sport but not a culture for critical thinkers who refuse to blindly follow and copy everyone else’s path. I ended up having a fight with the German cycling federation which meant I would not be able to compete at the Beijing Olympics 2008 in track cycling because it was too late to change nationalities. I was recruited by pro teams to focus on road cycling instead. In 2009, I ended up contracting a severe case of mononucleosis while trianing and racing in South Africa and was given two options by my pro team: 1. Compete and risk my health, 2. Quit the team. The day after I was given the ultimatum, I not only quit the team but cycling and sports altogether. I had enough.
Entrepreneurship / Unemployment
Long after I retired from professional sports, I unintentionally found a new passion: entrepreneurship. Even though I did obtain both of my college degrees - BSBA and MBA - from the University of Arkansas Walton College of Business, I never envisioned becoming an entrepreneur. As a typical European, I am used to safety and systems that eliminate almost any financial risk from your life. Good social systems have mostly positive impacts on society. However, safety tends to kill entrepreneurship, because people are not used to facing risk and therefore become fearful of it. As an entrepreneur you have to be a risk-taker and you need to have a mind that can handle uncertainty.
It took me long after retirement to find firm ground under my feet. With two business degrees and several internships under my belt, I set out to find a job. 4 years and 400 applications later, I realized there was no future for 30-year-old female overachievers in Germany. Friends told me about a job opening at a Swiss bike manufacturer. I was hired as Sports Marketing Manager and had 10 days to move to Switzerland. One year later, there was a big layoff and I lost my job. I had many talks with the Swiss federal unemployment agency and also a Swiss headhunter. They all told me the same: “you are overqualified; you are too big of a risk to your potential future boss and you are a woman to make it worse; men don’t like their positions to be threatened by a woman who is better educated than themselves.”
This was the moment when I established my life mantra: “Fuck y’all, I am doing my own thing!” I am not relying on anyone else's competence but my own.
I was not willing to waste my energy, time or talent on purely ego-driven institutions and people where performance did not matter. That was the day I decided to become an entrepreneur. Because I had no other choice. I have not looked back since. Having been educated at an American business school has helped me tremendously. My persona is a melting pot of different cultures and diverse life experiences. My personality is stereotypical German but I am also a typical American when it comes to business. I am all about self-responsibility, self-accountability, and results. Not ego. Nor dusty hierarchies.
FLUGPHASE
FLUGPHASE was born late 2012, when 3-time Ironman Hawaii winner Patrick Lange introduced me to the biomechanics scientists behind Newton Running. They taught me the Physics behind running gait. I have since given more than 2.000 running biomechanics workshops to over 18.000 runners in Switzerland, Germany, Austria Luxemburg, and Italy. My coaching concept has evolved tremendously since I started FLUGPHASE.
Coaching biomechanics is an ability you are born with. Either you have the eye for motion patterns and the talent to teach them effectively, or you don’t.
My talent for coaching biomechanics became apparent early. I vividly remember one day after practice on the University of Arkansas track in 2001. It was the first year that women were allowed to race the 3000m steeplechase. I handled hurdling and the water jump well right away. My teammate, however, had trouble with the water jump. I took her to the side after practice, told her what to do, and within 5 minutes of my private coaching session, she got it right. As a child, I always watched pro athletes from any sport on TV, saw how they moved and what they felt while doing what they did; I then went on the street and searched for the feeling myself, until I found it. I then went on to teach my playmates table tennis, basketball, tennis, soccer, you name it.
After years of working on it, 2025 marked the year when I finally introduced FLUGPHASE Global to the world. Now, not only German speakers can benefit from my expertise in coaching running biomechanics. I am ecited to connect with the entire world and re-connect with my dear Americans. I miss being around Americans. Having been educated in the U.S. does shape your personality and disconnects you forever from the culture you were raised on at deeper levels. Your perspectives and attitudes change drastically when you lived abroad.
Sherpahire.com
I founded another company in 2018: Sherpahire.com – the world’s first sherpa booking platform for trekking in Nepal. I doubt Sherpahire will be the last business I founded.
Who knows what’s the in the book for the future. Sports taught me that:
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life never goes according to plan A. Always have plan B and C. Don't dwell for too long if plan A did not materialize.
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you should never look just straight ahead.
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Don’t forget to take occasional glimpses left and right and be open to new paths, new goals, and new doors that are hidden behind a tree.
Team FLUGPHASE
Team FLUGPHASE
Manaslu
Chief Executive Officer &
Chief Analytics Officer
Also known as King of Switzerland - Manaslu I.
He keeps everybody in check and makes sure everyone is doing precisely what he wants.
Manaslu is the King of Analytics. If you book a video analysis, Manaslu always makes sure to pre-analyze your running form to make sure his assistant gazelle does not oversee anything. He sees EVERYTHING and he ALWAYS finds something that is not up to his quality & precision & elegance expectations.
If you want to improve your running technique, he is your master!
Rimo
Chief Financial Officer &
Chief Torture Officer
The King of Money. He expects of his assistant gazelle to bring in at least 99% profit margin, so there are abundent ressources for him to get gourmet lion food, loads of luxury cardboard boxes, and at least 100kg delicious treats every day. He is responsible for FLUGPHASE's pricing strategy. If you believe our services are too expensive, send your complaints to him... if you dare!
Rimo is also the King of TwelvePacks & Torture. He writes all training programs, so you will soon have a sharply defined TwelvePack like he has.
Larissa
Assistant Gazelle
She believes she is the Chief Gazelle but in reality, she has no rights nor power.
She has established herself as a highly qualified, well trained, will-free, and utterly obedient cat personnel.
message from the CEO
Who is...
Larissa Kleinmann
