Chris is a lifelong endurance athlete with a diverse academic and professional background. He has degrees and experience in neuroscience, clinical psychology, art, documentary photography, and journalism, and has decades of professional experience in the cycling and travel industries. Most recently, he founded Alter Exploration, which crafts challenging, transformative cycling journeys in some of the world’s most stunning destinations.
Chris was born and raised in southeastern Connecticut. He took up running in elementary school, and it quickly became his sole competitive outlet. Ultimately, he won multiple state championships in cross-country and track.
Chris attended Colgate University and graduated with degrees in neuroscience and art. He spent the next three years at the National Institute of Mental Health conducting research on patients with schizophrenia. After another year researching a stem cell treatment for Parkinson’s disease, he decided to pursue his second passion. This led him to the graduate journalism program at the University of Texas at Austin, where he concentrated in documentary photography. This is where Chris rediscovered his love of cycling, joining the collegiate team before expanding into categorized racing.
In 2012, Chris became the managing editor of VeloNews magazine, a position he held for nearly eight years. It was during that time that he became co-host of Fast Talk.
His cycling pursuits took him around the world to race on the road, mountain, and in cyclocross, to places like Taiwan, Costa Rica, Israel, and throughout Europe. He has stood on the podium at several cyclocross national championships, and is a silver medalist at master’s cyclocross worlds.
Chris is the author of The Haywire Heart, a groundbreaking and critically important guide to heart care for athletes, and the first book to delve into the relationship between long-term endurance athletics and heart health.
He is a cofounder of Fast Talk Labs, with Trevor Connor, and was the COO of Fast Talk Labs and The Paleo Diet until January 2022.
We sit down with Jumbo-Visma rider George Bennett to better understand how he trains, how you can apply his tips, and how pros have vastly different approaches.
Pioneering sports nutritionist Asker Jeukendrup joins us for a discussion on how in-race nutrition is trainable and why you should be training your gut.
There’s a critical distinction between adaptation and recovery. Today, we focus on adaptations—what causes them and how to aid them.
Fast Talk is taking on cyclocross, from training to racing, honing technical skills to riding on nearly flat tires.
Complex training prescriptions are becoming increasingly popular. Does it really need to be that complex? What do you gain from this complexity?
We discuss how to use energy most effectively, to make sure every time you pour a little of that precious energy out, it has an impact.
What exactly are the demands of the Tour—physiologically, psychologically, spiritually? We break it down with the help of a WorldTour physiologist.
What are the most common mistakes we see in athletes—even pros? We hear from a variety of athletes, coaches, and experts who help us avoid catastrophe.
While there are many tools to measure training stress, few measure recovery. Today we dive into how to determine where you’re at in the recovery process.
We discussed the overall polarized approach in episodes 54 and 51. Today, we’re going to talk about the other side: high intensity work.
We speak with Dr. Stacy Sims, one of the leading researchers on women’s physiology and training and performance.
In episode 67 we talked with Sebastian Weber about the concepts of VO2max and VLamax. Now, we discuss how to balance the two systems.
Training zones can have tremendous value when they guide workouts and help us talk about how we train. But training zones can be problematic.
The great thing about gran fondos is there is no “right” way to do them. We teach you how to train, race, and prepare for these popular events.
At the heart of the Xert software is the notion of failure: the idea that we reveal our profile as a rider in the moments when we hit our limits.
Take a deep dive into functional training with Menachem Brodie—what is it, why do cyclists need it, and how to execute it.
We’re breaking down the three rides you should do – long rides, high-intensity rides, and recovery rides.
This episode we take a close look at Sebastian Weber’s concept of VLamax to improve your training.