45° and Overcast
Image
LFP Town Crier continues its Young Adult Spotlight series with UW Senior Gabe Nelson.
Gabe is a class of 2021 Shorecrest Graduate. During his senior year, Gabe was recruited by Husky Football, where he played for a year. Unfortunately, he required surgery after an injury which required a year-long recovery. As the author can attest (SPU soccer), Gabe couldn't play at his pre-injury level but despite his injury, Gabe continued to help with the football program.
Gabe is enrolled in the Foster School of Business at UW and decided to take advantage of the Foster Exchange program with the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Gabe completed a semester there where he made some good friends, played rugby and continued exploring Australia and New Zealand on a 6-month odyssey that landed him in Kyoto, Japan.
Now, as part of his coursework back at UW, he's involved with an energy gel startup called Coast. Gabe says "Coast came out of the UW Entrepreneurship 472-473 series, which is a two quarter course where students create a company. My professor is Valerie Trask.
We learn all aspects of startups from guest speakers and our professor. Topics ranging from pitching, to team synergy, to learning how to conduct meaningful interviews.
As students, we pitch ourselves to the class, and then start to form teams. At the end of the quarter, we pitched our startup to a panel of investors and got funding.
My team has two other local kids. Ally O'Neil (Roosevelt HS '21) and Niko Carste (Eastlake HS '21). Our other teammate, Vansh Gupta is from Encinitas, CA (Pacific Ridge HS '21).
Endurance athletes, like runners, cyclists, and rowers, need energy
sources during exercise and competition to maximize performance and prevent the dreaded “bonk.”
He further explains, "energy supplements, like gels, bars, and bites, provide what these athletes need– carbohydrates, which provide energy to the muscles after the glycogen stores have been depleted. However, most energy gels on the market rely on artificial ingredients such as maltodextrin and synthetic preservatives to deliver the carbs.
These lab-created additives are formulated to produce quick energy spikes, leading to corresponding crashes and gastrointestinal distress, which significantly hinder performance.
[We've created] a real food solution created with simple and natural ingredients like dates, apples, honey, and oats.
Real foods are easier on athlete’s stomachs, allowing them to compete at a high level, comfortably. Our formula uses a blend of both quick-release and slow–digesting carbohydrates, and a specific glucose and fructose ratio to deliver sustained energy without the crash.
To put it briefly, our gel allows athletes to Coast."
They've been working with some top endurance athletes, including runners from Brooks Beasts, USA Triathlon Club NW, another LFP local and Shorecrest grad, nationally ranked distance runner Macaulay Franks, who ran for Western WA University and Florida State, and Shorecrest grad Spencer Thurman who went on to run at Cal Poly.
Gabe and his teammates are officially launching their energy gel product at Old Stove Brewing on January 11th, 2025. The event is free and all ages are welcome. Here's a link for more information. You can participate in a 5k run (or walk) or just come by to check it out. Coast's website is: www.letscoast.co
Link to Young Adult Spotlight on Gabe's brother, Zac Nelson.
