The Athletic Life: Jason Walker

Jason Walker: A different kind of athlete in a different kind of bike sport of Cyclocross

- Sarah Shaffer

Question: Jason, we heard you moved to Wenatchee from Reno. What brought you to our area?

Answer: Multifactorial decision. Honestly, the impetus was the vaccination laws and schedule in Nevada.

Kerri and I aren’t anti-vax, but we definitely don’t agree with the currently recommended vaccination schedule. We started looking at states with vaccination laws that allowed flexibility.

Washington was the top choice since I grew up in the state and had most of my family living here, Kerri’s were in Portland, and I could be close to work.

We considered Spokane but Wenatchee won out due to proximity to Seattle (to pop over for work), access to the outdoors and the climate.

Question: What do you do for work, do you have kids or dogs? Tell us a bit about yourself.

Answer: I work at Microsoft, playing with spreadsheets and data; I’ve been there 22 years. I have two kids — Louden who is about to turn 10, Lander who is 8 and a little dog named Pepper (we think she’s two or so). And I’m married to Kerri, who owns a business locally.

Question: What do you enjoy about Cyclocross? We heard you got sixth in the nation for a Cyclocross competition this last year.

Answer: It was probably one of the best all-around races I’ve been a part of, all things considered, and not necessarily because of my finish.

Cyclocross is very dynamic, I think that’s what I like most about it.

For those who’ve never seen it, it’s basically a road bike with skinny mountain bike tires and you race on a course normally less than two miles over grass, pavement, dirt, sand and various barriers for between 45-60 minutes. It gets really fun when it rains or snows.