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 talk with Brad Culp, author of “The Norwegian Method,” about the main tenets of the training philosophy, as well as who should and shouldn’t apply the method in their training.
On this episode, Lennard Zinn shares his decades of experience and experimentation to help answer the question of whether shorter cranks are better.
The TriDoc Jeff Sankoff joins us to talk about how to still apply the principles of supercompensation and progressive overload in a sport as complex as triathlon.
This course will provide you with a strong foundational understanding of how the human body responds to training.
Dr. Stephen Seiler joins us to talk about his new project developing a breathing frequency measure and why it may match up better with perceived exertion than heart rate or power.
Our team of coaches got together and discussed why we do intervals, how to execute them, and most importantly, how to make them more fun.
In this week’s potluck episode, we discuss what coaches should look for in their first conversation with an athlete, how to best do cadence work on the bike, and how to take advantage of group training while not losing sight of your plan.
We talk with HRV expert, Dr. Brad Lichtenstein, about the value of HRV in training, what it does and doesn’t show, and what to be careful of when you use it.
Coach Isaiah Newkirk joins us to talk about why progressive overload is so important to training, and how we can continue to get gains when we can’t add more volume or intensity.
We discuss how to find the right plan for you, using virtual training platforms in the base season, and the state of U.S. Cyclocross.
In this summary episode we discuss how homeostasis is at the core of almost every function in our bodies, including how we train and stay healthy.
Dr. Jeff Breckon discusses motivational interviewing concepts and techniques to empower coaches to better effect change in their athletes.
Dr. Kate Bennett discusses ethical boundaries, dual relationships, and power imbalances that both coaches and athletes should be aware of.
Jack Burke tells us how he trained and raced record-setting climbs on Alpe d’Huez, the Stelvio, and the Mortirolo.
With a plethora of races to choose from, we highlight several events and detail the strengths they are best suited for—plus how to train for the big day.
Lately, the Norwegian method for endurance training has the world abuzz. In reality, its core tenets have been around for decades.
For our 300th episode, our hosts – both old and new – are interviewed by Dr. Stephen Seiler to discuss where we’ve been and where we’re going.
There are numerous exercises that can be used to strengthen the posterior chain. Here we’ll focus on three key movements.