Sports
Nicole Wood: From Elite Performance to Running Entrepreneurship
The founder of All Out shares her journey through triathlon, training in Boulder, and creating technical running apparel.
In an interview on Girls Who Run, Nicole Wood details her journey from elite triathlon and a sub-2:47 marathon to launching a sports brand. The All Out founder explains how years of intense endurance training inspired technical gear built for runners.
Running since childhood, enduring years of rigorous endurance training, and channeling that experience into creating a brand designed exclusively for runners. That is the journey of Nicole Wood, a 2:47 marathoner, former top amateur triathlete who qualified for Kona, and founder of All Out, an athletic apparel brand. In a conversation on Girls Who Run with Mariana Real and Marcela Fanti, Nicole shared the behind-the-scenes story of her athletic progression and how sport turned into a business.
Born in Paraguay into an active family, Nicole took up sports early through her parents' influence. At age 18, after her marathon debut was postponed due to the cancellation of the 2012 New York City Marathon in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, she temporarily transitioned to triathlon. Results followed quickly: after winning her age group at Ironman 70.3 Foz do Iguaçu and qualifying for the World Championship, Nicole decided to take her training routine to the next level.
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The Boulder routine and the school of high performance
The pursuit of athletic growth took Nicole to Colorado, specifically to Boulder, one of the world's premier training hubs for endurance sports. There, under the guidance of coach Michael Lovato and competing for the University of Colorado collegiate squad (CU Tri Team), she spent years dedicated almost entirely to training, eating, and resting, logging up to 30 hours of weekly training.
Living and training alongside elite triathletes offered fundamental lessons in resilience and all-out effort—a concept that would later inspire the name of her brand. However, seeing the purely professional lifestyle up close made Nicole realize that her goal was not to race professionally, but rather to keep sports as a lifelong passion paired with academic and business endeavors.
Transition to running and breaking records
After competing at the Ironman World Championship in Kona in 2018, Nicole decided to close her chapter in triathlon to focus on road running and track. During the pandemic, with adapted training routines reaching up to 130 km per week, she broke Paraguay's national record in the track 10,000 meters and shifted her focus to the marathon distance.
Her official marathon debut came in Rosario, Argentina, paving the way for consistent progression that led to a personal record of 2:47 in Berlin. For Nicole, athletic maturity brought an important shift in perspective: the realization that long-term consistency and emotional balance yield far better results than excessive pressure.
The founding of All Out and hands-on product design
A family heritage spanning over three decades in the textile industry combined with Nicole's move to São Paulo and her marriage to Antônio. Immersing herself in the city's vibrant running community and training groups, she identified a gap in the market for apparel combining minimalist design, technical fabrics, and genuine utility—such as functional pockets for gels and phones without sacrificing comfort.
Thus, All Out was born, developed in-house with patterns tested in real-world training and major races like Chicago and Valencia. The brand emphasizes innovations such as four-way stretch fabrics and functional cuts tailored to running biomechanics.
Today, balancing her routine between business and training for major races—such as the Boston Marathon and the Rio Marathon—Nicole is pursuing the Six Star Finisher medal from the World Marathon Majors while expanding the brand's footprint across the running ecosystem.
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