My education includes a PhD in English. I love reading because literature gives us insight into the human condition, helping us answer the question of what to make of our existence. Yoga and endurance sports do the same. They teach us how to use our bodies and minds to make sense of our souls. I learn from my training and practice sessions every day. By paying disciplined attention to form and breath during your workouts, you’ll improve your sport performance, as well as your mental focus. I help your training and racing become a fulfilling part of your life experience—another way to build strength (in the form of sport skill, speed, and endurance), flexibility (the ability to maintain equanimity on hard days and through stressful situations), and balance (engagement in various healthy, wide-ranging, complementary activities). You’ll gain insight about what to make of your existence.

My coaching is guided by three principles: balance, communication, and transparency.

Balance
To paraphrase Finely Peter Dunne, the job of the coach is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. In sport training, as in yoga, we need to play the edge, taking the body (and mind, and spirit) up to its limits to see what’s on the other side—to learn about our essence—but not to push so far that we do harm. This means that often my job is to hold the athlete back: to leave things out, rather than putting them in. Only through recovery do we receive the gains of training, so rest is essential for your physical and mental balance. You have to take it easy to be able to go hard.

Communication
I love to talk about multisport training and racing. My coaching clients like to talk, too; it’s not unusual to share a number of e-mails in a single day, and I like to check in with my athletes during periodic workouts together.

Transparency
Why are you doing what you’re doing? Every workout should have a clear purpose. If you don’t know what you’re getting in a workout—how it should feel, why it is scheduled—you’re wasting your time and money. This fits into the bigger picture, too: you need a sense of what your training, racing, and sport bring to your life and to your world. Let’s work together to connect your mind, body, and soul with something bigger.