The following piece was first published by Leadville-based journalist Ryan Sederquist on his eponymous site, SederSkier, earlier this week. It is reprinted here with permission.
If you’re reading this here, you should be sure to add SederSkier to your short list of ski news websites. (Ryan did not ask me to say this, in exchange for reprinting or otherwise.) My bias here is clear — for pretty obvious reasons I’m a fan of independent nordic ski journalists — but he is doing good work here, and you should give him a follow.
By Ryan Sederquist
David Norris and Jessica Yeaton wear many hats.
Yeaton is a physical therapist at UCHealth SportsMed Clinic and Norris works full-time at Alpine Bank. Both are Team Birkie ambassadors and coach part-time at Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club.
Oh, yeah… they’re also world-class skiers (Nordic and skimo), runners, and bikers.
Mixing multi-sport passions with regular-life professions is part and parcel to the newest iron they’re sticking into the proverbial fire: Endurance Training Strategies.
Steamboat Springs’ skiing super couple teamed up with Skylar Weir this year to launch the online coaching platform, which offers individualized training, sport-specific strength, and joint-specific prehab plans as well as nutritional coaching for athletes from all walks of life.
“Sometimes, there’s people who think, ‘Oh I don’t have the perfect set up, I don’t have everything lined up, so how am I going to achieve my goals?’” Yeaton said. “And I feel like our goal is really to help those people.”
The coaching seed was planted when a mountain biker reached out to the two-time Australian Olympian after she won the Birkie in 2020. Since her plate was full pursuing a Doctorate in Physical Therapy at the University of New Mexico, Yeaton passed along the client’s contact info to Norris, who was also coaching her at the time.
“It grew slowly from there,” Norris chronicled.
The couple dabbled in the online coaching space over the next few years, but never actively advertised. When Yeaton broke several ribs and suffered a collapsed lung this spring, however, she redirected her time and energy to beefing up the ETS website, which Norris’ tech-minded brother constructed. One project on the to-do list was creating an exercise database, which entailed Yeaton filming Norris as he struggled through various prehab drills.
“I’m really bad at them,” the two-time American Birkebeiner and five-time Mt. Marathon champion (and course-record holder) said before smiling and adding, “Maybe I’m relatable to the people who watch.”
Weir, another Steamboat Springs multi-sport athlete who owns a Master of Science in Nutrition and Dietetics from Metropolitan State University, already had her own business going. Norris and Yeaton wanted to get legit so they could work with her.
“But we were both way too busy,” Yeaton said.
“Skylar definitely motivated us to get it off the ground and Jess’s injury forced her into having time to do it,” added Norris.
Interested individuals can apply for coaching at endurancetrainingstrategies.com. Prices for the individualized training plans vary by package and personalized needs. The 12-week strength plans start at $120/plan while joint-specific prehab plans run you $100/plan and feature an extension option after 12 weeks. Virtual nutrition counseling — the registered dietician Weir’s domain — comes in monthly memberships and packages that include training and race-fueling plans, lab work review, and other performance nutrition advice. Clients can pick and choose what they need à la carte.
“Every plan has been unique so far,” Yeaton said. Their clients range in age from low-20s to mid-60s and cover the employment gamut of full-time athletes to full-time doctors and everything in between. Many are multi-sport mountain endurance junkies who play on bikes, run through trails, and/or cross mountains on touring skis. Of course, there are traditional Nordic skiers, too, as well as double-pole-focused loppet athletes.
What sets Norris and Yeaton apart is their unique mission — to empower anyone to pursue high-level fitness goals, no matter the stage of life — and experience living it out.
“You can still have your normal life, have a job, prioritize family and things like that and fit training in — it just maybe has to be a little different,” Yeaton proclaimed. “And so I think that is maybe our target audience.”
Meeting people where they’re at and avoiding cookie-cutter plans are Endurance Training Strategies’ core values. Norris sums it up with a rhetorical question:
“How do we give you the best bang for your buck with the one hour a day you have during the week?”
Norris and Yeaton tested out answers on Yeaton during her physical therapy years. In class from 8 to 5 and saddled with four hours of daily studying on top of that, she essentially possessed one daily training hour Monday through Thursday. Instead of fighting the scheduling constraints — or allowing Yeaton to her own activity-addicted devices — Norris’ plan for her future wife was to bulk up on weekend training hours.
“Insane amounts,” he reminisced. “(She would) get like 15 hours in a weekend sometimes.”
“In a way, it really worked as a different approach,” Yeaton said of the year leading up to her Birkie skate victory.
Flexibility in routines is one pillar of their coaching philosophy. So is variety — in intensity and modality.
“I think out of convenience we fall into the routine,” Norris said. “But trying to push new trails, new efforts….I think that creates a new stimulus for people.”
Yeaton and Norris have never met an endurance sport they didn’t like; they’ve biked the entire White Rim trail together and won the Grand Traverse co-ed title last winter in addition to their trail running and mountain and gravel cycling exploits.
“I think training should be enjoyable,” said Yeaton, who went the last couple years of her professional career sans rollerskis. “I loved mountain biking and felt like it really helped fitness-wise.” She feels cross-training spices things up and helps with injury prevention. So does strength training — an epiphany she applies to herself and clients.
“That’s something that escaped me as an athlete, big time. I think I always felt like it was for performance — and I do think it is — but I spent a large chunk of the end of my last few years of my high-level skiing where I was pretty injured,” she said. “Now, strength training is a huge part of what I do, not because of the direct performance effects, but the indirect performance effects. Because you’re able to train more when you’re able to tolerate loads and you need strength training to tolerate those loads.”
Yeaton and Norris both believe one of their roles as coaches is to provide accountability and relieve clients of day-to-day decision fatigue.
“I think that’s a huge component of when you’re busy and you just want to be told what to do,” said Yeaton, who knows she’s more than equipped to write her own plans, but finds she does better when Norris designs them.
“People have other ideas,” she continued. “It is really relieving to have someone help you.”
[Listen: Jessica Yeaton and David Norris join the SederSkier Podcast]
A day in the life
David Norris walked away from his post as one of the best long-distance skiers in Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center’s deep arsenal a couple years ago… sort of.
After accruing national titles, world championship teams, and World Cup starts, it seemed he’d exhaustively explored his U.S. Ski Team potential. Then, in 2022, he relocated to Steamboat Springs to join the SSWSC coaching staff and proceeded to take the Nordic world by surprise.
On SuperTour weekends — after waxing and testing skis all morning for his SSWSC athletes (whom he obviously also coached) — Norris would casually hop in and destroy the senior competitions. In the process, he inadvertently earned a spot on his third U.S. world championship team. Despite breaking a pole in the 50-kilometer classic, Norris recorded a 22nd-place finish (as the second American after former APU teammate Scott Patterson) in Planica in 2023 (photo below).
Embed from Getty ImagesHe closed out the season with his third 50-kilometer race in three weeks, going from the Birkie to Planica to Oslo, gliding to a 17th-place at Holmenkollen. Last year, Norris sprinkled in World Cup stops at Canmore — where he finished in front of Pål Golberg — and in Minneapolis, where he was the fifth-best American in the 10-kilometer individual start. This year, his banking job has forced him to back off from his coaching duties. Even though he’s consequently reduced his overall training volume, Yeaton believes her husband’s quality has improved.
“He’s thriving,” she said. “People are shocked — like, he likes his desk job.”
Norris agreed, adding that the mental stimulus from his commercial loan online classes is a good change of pace, too. Each day consists of a run or a bike; Norris said he tries his best to coordinate one of those with his spouse. Often, the couple commutes across town together to their respective workplaces.
“We have this really cute existence,” said Yeaton, who rides to the trailhead, puts in a couple of hours, and then finishes at work for her first client around 10 a.m. “Steamboat is great… it’s like, living the dream.”
For the most part, Yeaton and Norris never have to say, “do as I say, not as I do” to the athletes they work with. The integration of their sporting philosophy — and perhaps more importantly, their experience in efficient time management — resonates because they walk the walk. And they’ve done it for a long time, at different stages, at different levels.
“There’s this idea of how everything should be. How a race calendar needs to look, if you’re full-time or not and you know, we’re both different on that front,” Yeaton said.
The two-time Australian Olympian admitted she’s more of a natural homebody. Even though her close relationship with Aussie coaches keeps a theoretical World Cup door open, maintaining the necessary FIS-point level requires a level of commitment, travel, and stress she’s no longer interested in.
“I would go and race everything if I could,” contrasted Norris, who mulled the idea of another Birkie “cooldown” at Holmenkollen — until he remembered mid-conversation that the iconic race had been swiped from the FIS calendar this winter. The 33-year-old turned down his Period 1 World Cup starts because of work and said he doesn’t intend to chase down a World Championship slot this year or an Olympic one next year.
“I feel like it’s one of those things that you can pour so much into it and then it can come down to so many different aspects,” he said of the quadrennial event, perhaps the only missing item on his résumé. “I don’t want to deal with all that stuff… I think I’m happier just racing what I want to race.”
He knows — even though he genuinely doesn’t think he’s past his prime — that the U.S. team is getting harder to make, too. Also, at this point, he’d rather give back to the Nordic community — not get in the way.
“I don’t want my ski goals to take away from opportunities for the young and up-and-comers,” he said. “If I do anything in skiing, hopefully it’s good for U.S. skiing. Not distracting or pulling away or taking resources.”
Norris passed on relationships with his most loyal Alaskan sponsors to younger APU skiers. Back in Steamboat — even with his other commitments — he is still making time twice a week to help out with SSWSC, where Yeaton also coaches part-time.
“I have awesome relationships with all of them, so I miss not being at practice (every day),” Norris said of his club kids.
Plus, it’s not like their race calendar isn’t robust. Both will hit Colorado loppets like the Alley Loop and Snow Mountain Ranch Stampede (”that was probably the most fun race I did last year,” Yeaton said regarding the latter), with the American Birkebeiner on February 22 standing as their key target race. They’re also going to hop in local skimo races to prepare for their Grand Traverse title defense. If he can catch a ride to Bozeman, Norris might sneak into that SuperTour weekend… and maybe a few others.
Maybe the World Cup can’t be counted out quite yet.
“Never say never,” Yeaton laughed.
“Every year it’s kind of an evolving plan. He’s spontaneous…I wouldn’t trust anything he says….”
But their mode of operation doesn’t appear to be rooted in mystery. Rather, it seems to be about maximizing life — and sports — within their present circumstances. The principle is woven into the fabric of their individualized coaching approach and belief that excellence is worth pursuing for a lifetime. Sometimes, that approach — like their own career trajectories — doesn’t fit into the onlooker’s preconceived box.
“I think it’s hard because a lot of people are like, ‘So are you retired?’… and he just keeps you guessing,” Yeaton said of her husband.
“I would love to see David — say he’s too busy this year — come back and crush some international races the following year. It’s a cool example, too, because there’s this idea that once you hit a certain age and certain point in life, you’re done and can never be fast again.”
The wall many run up against, however, is a lack of motivation. As good as she is, even Yeaton at times wonders why she’s stretching herself with another round of intervals or intentionally humbling herself in a 100-mile bike race. For the 32-year-old, it comes back to how goals inherently provide purpose and “flow to your life.”
“I actually love the process and the balance, and I do need that,” she said. “I think a big thing is I have a sense of gratitude for the ability to do these things, and I’ve had to kind of take that approach. Because sometimes — you do, no matter what — you obsess over your performance and you’re always going to measure yourself. So finding that has been huge for me and a big shift.”
“It’s good to make yourself uncomfortable and hurt,” Yeaton concluded. “If you’re not feeling every day something is a little uncomfortable or stressful, then you’re not growing. So it’s good. Get in those races.”
Norris explores the outer limits of his comfort zone on the trail running scene. This summer, he won his fifth Mount Marathon race, placed 23rd in UTMB Mont Blanc OCC and was the runner-up in the UTMB Whistler 50k.
“Every race I’ve done, it’s a new place, new trails; it’s like I’m exploring,” he said before adding that new distances and nutrition equations provide another frontier to be conquered. “It’s like a new puzzle to try and figure out and that’s been super fun.”
In other words, every hat Norris and Yeaton wear is one they genuinely enjoy putting on.
“More than anything,” Norris reflected when asked about his ‘why’ — “I just love it.”
Ryan Sederquist writes at the bottom of each article on his site, “Welcome to the fourth-largest Nordic ski specific website in all of Lake County!” Seriously, though, you can find out more about Ryan here. His website is here and his podcast is here, or search for “SederSkier podcast” anywhere you get your media.
