Country of Residence
United States
Age
16
Project title
Cadence | Pressure-Sensing Insoles for XC/TF Runners
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
Cadence is a shared set of pressure-sensing insoles and a coach dashboard that helps high school cross country teams catch injury warning signs, like a high force output around the heel, before they become injuries.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
cadencelabs.tech
Project Category
My project is an existing project that I started
Project Stage
Pilot-Stage (We’ve tried an activity or two)
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
I run varsity cross country at my high school, and earlier this season, my teammate and friend Alex got an ankle stress fracture. Even worse, he didn't realize what was happening until his foot hurt so bad until he could barely walk. He was the #3 runner on our team and a core part of our squad, and I watched us lose one of our best runners to something nobody on the team could see.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
Alex isn't rare. Prospective studies of high school cross country found that 34-47% of girls and 26-48% of boys get injured each season. Coaches see pace and mileage, but they can't see how each foot is hitting the ground. The early signs of an overuse injury, like a rising loading rate or one leg taking more of the load than the other, show up under the foot before they show up as pain. By the time a runner says something hurts, the injury has usually already happened.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
Cadence is a shared team kit: pressure-sensing insoles and a coach dashboard. Each runner does a 10-minute screening run once a week. Cadence insoles track the distribution of force across the runner's foot, then flags green, yellow, or red when injury patterns occur. AI turns those numbers into a short note a coach or athletic trainer can read and act on. Cadence never diagnoses though, a human always makes the call. Right now, my cofounder and I are building our first insole and we are scheduled to finish by the end of November. Next, we will finish a full pair, screen my own team, and check strike detection against slow-motion video.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
While we're still building Cadence, the response we've gotten so far has been strong: dozens of coaches have told us they're interested, and after talking with VC scouts, we're in conversations to raise a pre-seed round. Impact starts with my own team. Over the next six months I plan to use Cadence on my own team, and have version 1 of the team kit ready by January. Then we take it to other programs in Texas. Success looks like a coach getting a yellow flag on a runner two weeks before the pain starts, tapering his mileage, and keeping him on the course instead of in a boot. I want the next "Alex" to get a red flag instead of a stress fracture.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
Pressure insoles already exist, but nobody has built them for a high school team. Consumer insoles like NURVV Run cost about $300 per runner, and NURVV went insolvent in 2023 after raising $9 million because one insole per runner never scaled. Research insoles like Moticon are sold to labs. ARION sells to brands and elite teams. None of them fit a coach with a high school budget and 40 runners. Cadence flips the model in three ways: 1. It's a shared kit - A team kit of 3 pairs covers up to 40 runners. Each runner does a 10-minute screening run once a week, so the whole roster rotates through. 2. Comparison to their own baseline - we compare each runner to their own baseline, not to a population average. The injury signal shows up as a change from a runner's normal force output (one leg starting to take more of the load or one pressure zone receiving more force). 3. AI insights - A built-in AI coach turns the numbers into a short note that a coach or trainer can easily read, evaluate, and act on. Cadence never names an injury or recommends treatment, a human always makes the call.
How many people are on your team?
2
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
Jaxson (me) - I build the hardware (insoles + kit) and software (website + coach dashboard). Tripp Somers - leads marketing, coach outreach, and funding outreach, and he helps build. We each own our respective lanes and decide the big calls together. We also partner on some outreach and conversations with investors. We'd like to add an advisor who has shipped a hardware product and someone in sports medicine to check our data.
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
Over the next three months, Cadence goes from a working sensor to a team kit. By the end of November, we'll finish our first insole, then a full pair. In December and January, we'll screen runners on my own team every week to build each runner's personal baseline. Since we don't have a lab, we'll check our strike detection against 240 FPS slow-motion video so we know the data is right. Our goal is version 1 of the entire team kit by January 14. At the same time, Tripp is turning the dozens of coaches who've told us they're interested into real commitments. Our goals are signed pilot letters from five outside programs and our first founding teams who put down a $100 deposit and get their price locked for the first year. We'll pitch to Texas track teams during Q1 2027, when track and field season starts. Over the year, we want to close our pre-seed round, run pilots across several schools, and link screenings to real injury outcomes so our AI gets smarter.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
Most people don't know how common running injuries are until it's their teammate, so we start with Alex's story. When he got injured, it made the problem real for everyone on our team, so that's how we explain why Cadence matters. Tripp leads our outreach to coaches at XC/TF meets and events. We want what coaches tell us they wish they could see about their runners to shape what we build. My own teammates will be our first testers. Every runner who does a screening sees their own foot data, and we want them asking questions, telling us what's confusing or doesn't work, and becoming the ones who bring Cadence to their next team as they run in college. As we grow, we will activate others in three ways: 1. Coaches who pilot Cadence will refer the coaches they compete against. 2. We'll bring in athletic trainers and people in sports medicine to help us validate the data we get. 3. We'll share what we learn from our screenings openly so even teams that never buy a kit learn valuable tips to prevent injury.
