The Long Story

 

My start in endurance sports was in 2007 when a friend of my asked me if I wanted to do a 5K with him that weekend. It was the summer before my senior year of college and my aspirations to play college baseball or hockey had recently fizzled so I agreed to the challenge. To show how little I knew at the time about proper training, a couple days before the race I hopped on a treadmill at my local gym and jogged out the 3.1 miles to make sure I could do it. Keep in mind that, at this time, this was the first time I had run more than a couple laps of a baseball field in one bout. Despite this, I finished that ‘training’ run and the 5K that weekend, in what was by my (and my friend’s) standards a tremendously slow time. Nonetheless, I had established a PR for the 5K distance and was set out beat that PR and conquer other challenges. Essentially an Endurance Athlete was born.

 

This set me on a path that would eventually lead to many 5K’s and 10K’s, half-marathons, triathlons, cycling races of all kinds, a couple obstacle course races, an adventure race, and  my most beloved and competitive sport of Duathlon. I have seen many podiums in Duathlon, but the achievements I am proudest of are winning my age group at New England Regionals, cracking the Top 50 at the 2016 Duathlon Nationals, overall wins at local Duathlons, completing a half iron distance duathlon,  competing at the World Championships in Australia, and ranking as high as 10th in the Nation and 2nd in my Region in my age group.

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While my love for Endurance Sports and training/coaching/treating others was starting to grow, my passion for helping people be physically active and healthy was already there as my first stop after undergrad was pursuing a Masters in Public Health. My number one mission with this degree was always to get more people physically active as I saw this as a solution for many of the developed world's problems with chronic disease and growing healthcare costs. While I worked with agencies to do just that in my local community, as I got further into Endurance Sports, I needed dive deeper and deeper.

 

My obsession for Endurance Sports became so strong that I had to pursue Coaching as a career as well. I wanted to know more and more about what made an Endurance Athlete what they were, how to train, how to avoid/recover from injury, and everything else that goes into pushing one’s self to their personal limits. This passion led to me getting my Masters in Exercise Science and Nutrition (graduating with the Gold Medal of Honor for finishing first in my class), being certified as a Triathlon Coach, Cycling Coach, Strength and Conditioning Specialist, Personal Trainer, and Physical Therapist Assistant with an Advanced Proficiency designation in Orthopedics. I worked at a Trainer/Coach/Therapist at a Physical Therapy and Wellness facility, triathlon training center, Quinnipiac University’s Strength and Conditioning Department, the YMCA, for a Youth Triathlon Team, and currently at a Physical Therapy Clinic specializing in orthopedics and sports medicine.

 

I can honestly say that each of these experiences made me the well-rounded and complete athlete, coach, and clinician I am today. Through all of my education, training, and experiences as a coach and an athlete, I found myself needing to get my perspective and knowledge out to the world, not just one person at a time, but to as many people as I could. Seeing Endurance Sports from all these perspectives I wanted a different online resource and coaching platform to exist...Endurance Strong! I say this for a couple reasons. First, most websites, books, newsletters, etc. out there seem to miss the mark on one level or another. There are those that rely on the experience of well-known coaches or athletes, but fly in the face of scientific research. There are those whose advice is well-researched, but lacks the ability for practical application. There are strength coaches that think endurance athletes should train like team sport athletes or endurance coaches that don’t know the basic strength training principles. There are Physical Therapy based resources that focus purely on therapeutic exercises but not on the other needs an Endurance Athlete needs specifically.

 

My second reason is the high and ever increasing cost for quality coaching. This frustration I feel more as an athlete, as I started out as a clueless runner in need of guidance and to this day still like turning to other coaches for their input. I feel that I was in the same boat as many of endurance athletes in the fact that despite my high level of commitment to my sport, I couldn’t afford quality coaching. The price to enter races, travel to them, and get the equipment necessary for them is high and climbing higher. Adding a quality coach to the mix at their current prices is not feasible for many endurance athletes. I hope you noticed, I kept using the term ‘quality coaching’ above. This is because it is too often the case that an endurance athlete seeks out the coach offering the best deal or the price they can afford. The result of this is bad coaching or coaching that is generic and not good for that individual. 

 

Lastly, while my time as and endurance athlete and coach have been largely positive, there have been bumps in the road just like most endurance athletes have faced. Despite the knowledge of how and dedication to staving off injury, there have been several times where I have been forced to the sidelines. These experiences were tough on me. Not only is there physical pain, it is mentally tough having to give up what you love for any period of time. I have gone through the mental spiral of worrying about losing fitness, gaining weight, getting angry, getting sad, getting your hopes up when feeling better again and getting even more frustrated when an injury comes back. Overcoming these physical and mental obstacles has given me additional knowledge and experience that helps round out what Endurance Strong is and provides a lot of the passion behind it's goal of creating a positive social impact.