I’m a lifelong endurance athlete and a professional endurance coach since 2016. And while I’ve seen quite a bit of success in my time, it’s not without a number of setbacks along the way. 

I was a highly ranked high school cross country and track distance runner. Then competed at the collegiate level before succumbing to a bicycle accident early on. I continued to run competitively as an enlisted soldier in the US Army where I ran my first marathon in Berlin (1994 Finish of 3:07). It was at the Berlin marathon that I realized how little it mattered about how much I could run, but rather how well I could compete – I needed to be smarter, not faster. You see, I went through the half way point of Berlin in 1:16, feeling great, in control and well on my way to sub 2:40 marathon – or so I thought. I had no idea about race nutrition and took on too much crap during the race that didn’t sit with me. I crashed hard in the last part of the race and essentially walked the last 5km to finish with a time of 3:07:56. 

Fast forward to my 30s and I’m now a civilian, working crazy hours, networking with my cohorts at the bar nearly every night and running exactly zero miles per week. Work was going great! But physically I was beginning to fall apart. I ballooned to almost 200 pounds and at the age of 40, realized that I had to change my lifestyle before the damage was irreversible. 

I started running again, joined a gym to get my strength back on track and found a coach to help guide me in my goal of completing an Ironman. That first year of commitment was rough! But with a lot of support from my wife, family, friends and my coach, I went from barely able to run a mile to completing my first Ironman in less than 12 hours. Along the way, I lost a lot of weight, gained a ton of strength, looked better than I had in more than 10 years and most importantly, just felt great about me, my life and everyone around me!

It was that learning experience and process that encouraged me to switch careers and pursue coaching. I had gotten so much out of the experience, that I wanted to learn as much as I could and then share everything I’ve learned and continue to learn.