In 2016, Danielle Pellicano arrived in Aspen and set out on what was meant to be a sabbatical. What she found instead was an opening. In a valley full of active people, she saw room for a more serious kind of training \u2014 one focused on movement, performance and longevity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bryan Welker sat down with Pellicano to learn about her journey, what it takes to build a fitness business here and why she sees herself as a coach first.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bryan:\u00a0How did you first get to Aspen?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Danielle: I had played professional soccer, and when that ended, I moved\u00a0almost straight\u00a0into fitness. I opened my own gym, trained youth soccer players and eventually moved into the endurance world because I still needed something to train for. A lot of athletes struggle with that once\u00a0competition\u00a0ends.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That became Pellicano Endurance Coaching. I spent years coaching endurance athletes through strength work, injury prevention and group training. The model was not very scalable, so I sold the business and headed west.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I drove into Aspen in 2016 after selling in Minneapolis and came here intending to take a sabbatical and figure out what came next.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bryan:\u00a0What made Aspen feel like the right place?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Danielle: When I got to the valley, I kept going to the gyms I could find, and I was honestly surprised. For a place with so much money and so many athletes, there\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0much higher-level training.\u00a0So, I thought there was a real opportunity here.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I ended up being recruited by Amanda Wagner at TAC to\u00a0build out\u00a0their performance center in Basalt. They\u00a0basically gave\u00a0me the space and said, \u201cCreate what you think this could be.\u201d\u00a0So\u00a0I brought my model there and built it out. It was performance training, and it gave me a foothold in the valley.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What I am most grateful for is that it was in Basalt. It taught me very quickly that if you want to make it here, you\u00a0have to\u00a0provide real value to locals and build trust in the community.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bryan:\u00a0And now you are at Snowmass Club?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Danielle: Yes. I am still under the banner of Pellicano Endurance Coaching, but I work within Snowmass Club and remain self-employed, which is a\u00a0really great\u00a0setup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bryan:\u00a0What has been your biggest challenge?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Danielle: One of my biggest challenges is that there are only so many hours in a day. The demand for coaching is incredibly rewarding, but as a strength and conditioning coach, my time is my inventory.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
I never want to sacrifice the quality of what I provide just to fit more people into my schedule. Every client deserves my full attention, energy and preparation, so balancing a growing demand while\u00a0maintaining\u00a0that level of coaching is\u00a0probably the\u00a0biggest challenge I face.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0pushed me to think beyond just trading hours for sessions and to find new ways to help more people without compromising the experience that got me here in the first place.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bryan:\u00a0You frame yourself as a coach, not just a trainer.\u00a0What\u2019s\u00a0the difference?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Danielle: I am very much a coach. That is not a knock on the title of\u00a0personal\u00a0trainer, but coaching is how I have always approached this.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I train\u00a0movement, not muscles. My style is athletic and performance-based, and\u00a0I think that\u00a0is why it resonates with certain people. I want someone to move better, feel better and be better at whatever they want to do outside the gym.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That is also why I draw a distinction between being fit and being athletic. This valley is full of very fit people. But being fit\u00a0and being\u00a0athletic are not the same thing.\u00a0Someone can have great cardio and still struggle with balance, stability, single-leg movement, lateral movement or basic mobility.\u00a0That does not mean they are unfit.\u00a0It just means there is an opportunity to improve their athleticism.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bryan:\u00a0You\u2019ve\u00a0built a reputation for being quite intense.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Danielle: I know. I am not for everybody, and I am okay with that.\u00a0I keep the bar high because I hold myself to a high standard. I push myself as hard as I push my clients. There is a seriousness to that, but it comes from caring. I want people to improve.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bryan:\u00a0What do you see as the future of fitness?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Danielle: I think fitness is becoming more social again, and that is\u00a0a very good\u00a0thing.\u00a0Younger generations are using fitness to build community. You see it in group runs, races, events and things like\u00a0Hyrox. People want something to train for. They want purpose and to show up with other people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That is why I do not worry too much about technology replacing what I do. Online tools and data are useful, but I do not think real coaching will be replaced. Coaching is hands-on. It is eyes on you.\u00a0It is understanding how someone moves, how they recover and what they need.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a place like Aspen, a lot of us are training for life outside. We want to keep our bodies strong enough to ski, hike, bike, run and keep doing what we love. That is a gift, and\u00a0I think more people\u00a0are starting to understand that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Danielle Pellicano is clear that she sees herself as a coach, not simply a trainer. Someone less concerned with counting reps than with how people move, improve and carry themselves outside the gym. In Aspen, where staying power is never guaranteed, that standard, and the drive behind it, may be exactly what has allowed her to keep earning her place.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bryan Welker lives and breathes business and marketing in the Roaring Fork Valley and beyond. He is president, co-founder and CRO of\u00a0WDR Aspen<\/a>, a boutique marketing agency that develops tailored marketing solutions. Who should we interview next? Reach out and let us know bryan@wdraspen.com<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2016, Danielle Pellicano arrived in Aspen and set out on what was meant to be a sabbatical.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[499,103,61,60],"class_list":["post-563155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}