Head of Athlete Development & Nutrition

Experience

• 100+ Race Wins Including Belgium, Nationals, etc.

• 100+ International Race Days in 8 Countries w/ USAC National Team and B.R.E.

• 12-Time Medalist at USAC Nationals for Road and Track

• Former National Hour Record (U18, Merckx)

• 20+ Time Texas State Champion Road and Track

• 12 Years Racing Experience

Accreditation

• USAC Level 2 Coach

• TrainingPeaks Level 1 Coach

• Precision Nutrition Level 1 Coach

• Bachelor's Degree in progress

My Story

Childhood- Not many people know this, but my dad turned down his first professional cycling contract because I was born. Although he continued as a Domestic Elite racer into my early teen years, by then he had long been first and foremost a Coach. I'd been to almost all of the Texas Road, Mountain, and Track races by the time I could speak.

The year after I learned how to ride, Dad became a founding board member of TXBRA. Coaching quickly became his full-time profession, and how he supported our family when I was growing up. Shortly thereafter, he founded GS Tenzing as a team originally exclusively for his athletes. Additionally, WRA (Lone Star Works at the time) was among the first wave of power meter adopters.Thousands of files collected from athletes at the time, back when an SRM was $10,000 and the PowerTap might be the next great thing to hit the market since indexed shifting, served as the actual data pool that many of the current widely accepted power training theories were created from. He and Chloe then created The Racing Post, a regional cycling magazine, and ran that out of our house for a few years before selling it.

I’m not really sure how they even had time to pick me up from school. That was just my environment. I was pinning on my own number in no time.

I have a few memories from my early races at 9-10yr/old, but the timeline in my head starts with competing in my first National Championships at racing age 11 in Pennsylvania, and being on the podium the following year at both Road and Track Nationals. By racing age 14 I was a Cat 3 with several cross-discipline State Titles under my belt, and multiple National Championship Podiums. During this time I would be fortunate to frequently compete with the likes of Lawson Craddock and Chad Haga.  At the end of my 2009 season, just before I turned 15, I earned my Cat 2 upgrade and we moved from Bartonville, TX to Wimberley, TX the following summer, arriving two days before the start of my Freshman year of high school.

Full-Time- The very next year, 2011, we opened the first Williams Racing Academy residency to accommodate. Around that same time, members of our GS Tenzing Junior Development Program were being recruited to merge with the Garmin-Slipstream Junior Development Team (now Education First). As we were doing our introductions, we (the riders) learned that the team was also seeking a new Director Sportif and Coach. Not really thinking I would be taken seriously, I offered that my Dad, already serving that role for our squad, could take over in the merger.

Once we went Garmin, I knew I wanted to be an Elite rider to the fullest extent that I could.  This was when I first invested in having a complete understanding of a proper training regiment. We bought a scientific grade V02max and RMR testing equipment, typically reserved for University studies, and I spent a few days reading through the manuals and setting it up. After running a few tests on myself, Dad, and Payson, we had corrected all calibration and subsequently ran as many of the Garmin athletes, our own clients, and even folks who just wanted to see what their V02 was through the protocol to start compiling data. I must’ve run 100-120+ V02max tests alone, and found calibration errors on almost every single University reported V02max results sheet somebody brought to us for validation.

Beyond that, I was digging deep into the science of training with Power and Heart Rate. There were many times I was running WKO3 right next to my English, Biology, History, etc. in High School. Didn’t think it was weird at the time. TrainingPeaks didn’t have a PMC back then, and I was “shown the light” a little too young perhaps...

World Wide- I had already spent several months in Europe with our own Belgium Racing Experience Camps and done stage races in Canada before the first National Team Invite came down the line in 2012. It was to be four of our Garmin riders with Dad directing, and two other National Talent Pool riders competing on road and track at the UCI Junior Pan-American Games in Guatemala City, Guatemala.

In my younger year, I placed 7th in the Time Trial, 6th in the Individual Pursuit, and we had all of our riders in the top 12 in the Road Race but somehow didn’t manage to cross the line first. Central American tactics and parcours are unlike anything else. That same season I placed 4th on Stage 2 of Tour of the Gila and 7th in the crit, putting me in the unofficial white jersey until I bonked out of a 7 minute lead breakaway on the last stage.

At Track Nationals, we took first and second in the Team Pursuit, adding the first and so far only National Gold Medal to my personal collection.

I was invited on another National Team trip that year as well and raced for ‘Murica in Switzerland in the UCI Tour du Pays de Vaud, Germany at UCI Trofeo Karlsberg, and the Netherlands for a few kermis races alongside fellow teammates Greg Daniel, Zeke Mostov, and Tyler Williams.

In 2013, my last Junior year, I was able to take the win on both days of La Primavera Lago Vista, my favorite Texas race in the Cat 2, 3’s, and was in the lead for the Elite Men’s Texas Cup Points Competition until the State Championships, the last race of the season in the Fall, despite not racing in Texas AT ALL after March that year. I also did one more tour with the National Team in Europe with the likes of Logan Owen, TJ Eisenhart, etc., representing in the Czech Republic at UCI Course de la Paix (the Peace Race), Germany for UCI Etappenfahrt der Rad-Junioren. When all the National Team riders were taken to the airport to go home, Dad picked me up and I prepared for the next month of racing in our second home- Kerkem, Belgium. As a direct result, I earned one of the youngest Category 1 upgrades- a few months before my 18th birthday.

After making the podium on multiple occasions, I won my first Belgian Kermis in Overmere just days before my 18th birthday. Then, as if by magic, my Facebook Messenger Inbox and Email filled up with different team offers for my first season as an Elite U23 rider.

Having fully embraced the idea of the “Blue Collar Route” and cutting my teeth in the Belgian Domestic Pro circuit rather than the US Domestic Pro Circuit, I rejected several offers to race the UCI North America Calendar for the 2014 season. Myself and another teammate and inaugural Academy resident left Belgium with signed contracts for the following season.

The Hour- After returning home from Europe, and much procrastination, I shifted my focus to the American Junior Hour Record. I was to do it fully Merckx-Style (Drop Bars, Steel Frame, Box Section Rims, No Aero Helmet) in the spirit of the event and the rules at the time. Including coming to a full stop to fix a slipping seatpost while the clock was running, I completed 38km at the Alkek Velodrome in Houston. My final Junior race was a solo hour on a former Olympic Qualifying Velodrome closed just for me. It didn’t feel as poetic as it sounds.  

We later learned it was actually a world record, but a month after completing this challenge, the rules changed back to allowing aero equipment (and now another WRA rider, Luke Mullis, now holds the national record, keeping it in the family).

Cutting Teeth- I spent 2014 living in Belgium racing for a professional development team.  I was 18 years old and hungry. However, doing all of my own cooking, having only a basic understanding of Dutch, and living in an 8’x8’ unfinished attic with an Israeli and Estonian in downtown Brugge was where my real life experience came in a hurry.  With a girlfriend back in the States, struggling to finish races, racing in races that were over my head at the time, and then having to be the team’s truck driver, too (it’s a long, dumb story), I started to crack. To grab some sanity, I would make and find friends to couch surf until I could arrange better accommodations.

Among the couches were Belgian National Paracycling Champion, World Champion, and Olympian Kris Bosmans, a mechanic for Team Sky, and others.  In the meantime, every time I’d leave to train or race, my food would disappear from the pantry or refrigerator, and my kit would disappear from the drying line, etc… and I totally came apart.

HARD RESET- I took a break that Fall once back in the States, and that break stretched and stretched until it became two years off of the bike.  I gained 50 pounds. But I also helped start a company, NARA Speed. During this time I directed camera crews on set and on location for Pilot shows for Esquire, Discovery, History, and others across the country.  I was also taking college classes and working a real job that paid the bills in Physician Recruitment, with a cubicle, incandescent lighting, and quotas. Not exactly my cup of tea after all, but I gave it a fair shake and I respect those who do that sort of thing day in and day out.

While things have been going well in these areas, I missed being fit.  I missed Europe. I missed the ritual of pinning on a number. I missed the smell of embrocation.  And then my Dad would send me texts from races saying one of his riders was in the break, or won, or just did something significant.  I began paying more attention and becoming a fan of those in the coaching family, particularly those who were headed to Belgium and Italy.

I started asking questions about how certain riders were doing, and my Dad would share interesting tidbits about their training, how he was pulling some more out of the athlete...and it just flowed back into me.  The more I thought about it, the more I missed it all. I started reaching out to some of the WRA clients, offering up my experience and help for races and in the training and development process.

Pivot Point- My Dad is constantly doing research and crunching data and basically out in the forefront of training.   And with Chloe, the family is one of the very few ways that Americans get over to Belgium and Europe in general to race, train and live.  I’ve been able to work with some of the best people in the television and video production industry, and I’ve been around some of the best car builders in the world...and I realized then that I’d been sitting next to one of the best coaching minds whenever I was at my desk, at the dinner table, or in the van on the way to the race.   I just never really thought about it, because it was...Dad.

The more we talked about it, the more interested I was in where the science was headed and how to get the best out of athletes.   The more we talked about it, the more I wanted to get back to Belgium and use my experience living there and as a racer to help those in our program.

So- I’m 23 years old, former Cat 1, also formerly 220lb, but currently in the 3’s. I get it. I’m young.  But I also have 10 years of racing experience from the youngest junior category to the cat 1’s, and I’ve raced at the highest level you can without a pro license.  This is also 8 years of using a Powermeter. I’ve made mistakes. It takes a lot of them to get that far. I’ve done some things the hard way. I’ve also had the good fortune to live this sport and do so with one of the best coaches and programs on the planet. I’m working on a degree in sports science, and I share an office with the head coach of the Williams Racing Academy. If you’ve made it this far, I encourage you to check out our podcast.

I’ve taken the time to write my bio here (thank you for taking the time to read it), because I want you to know where I’m coming from as an athlete and as a coach.  You may not want to work with a coach my age, and that is understandable. I’ve known the coaches we have on our staff since they came to WRA as athletes. I have the utmost respect for them as athletes, coaches and people, and I know that we, as a coaching family, have a coach that will suit you from a personality standpoint, speciality, and skill set. That being said, my passion is to turn my experience into the tools and guidance you need to reach your goals, or even your dreams, and I’m excited to see your potential realized with us.