Nicholas Lara, MBA
Co-founder of Defiance Health. Seven-time NCAA Division II national champion. Hall of Fame middle-distance runner. Two decades of experience in elite athletic coaching and human performance.
"Defiance Health is built on a simple idea: high-performance health shouldn't be reserved for elite athletes. It should be accessible to anyone serious about how they want to feel and function for the next 30 years."
Nick Lara co-founded Defiance Health in 2017 to bring together two worlds that rarely meet — the rigorous, evidence-based clinical care his wife Jessica practices as a Physician Assistant, and the human performance principles he's spent two decades teaching elite athletes.
The result is an integrated practice in Centennial and Alamosa, Colorado, where comprehensive labs, hormone optimization, weight management, and recovery science share the same clinical roof — and the same unifying belief that the right healthcare team should help patients perform at their highest level for as long as possible.
Two decades at the highest levels of sport.
Nick competed at Adams State University, where he became one of the most decorated middle-distance runners in NCAA Division II history. His career produced seven NCAA Division II national titles — five individual at 800 meters (three indoor, two outdoor) and two distance medley relay championships — alongside 13 All-American honors and 12 RMAC championships. In 2007 he was named USTFCCCA National Indoor Track Athlete of the Year, an honor selected by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
7× NCAA D-II National Champion
Five individual 800m titles plus two distance medley relay championships at Adams State University
13× All-American
NCAA Division II honors across indoor track, outdoor track, and cross country
2007 National Athlete of the Year
USTFCCCA National Indoor Track Athlete of the Year
12× RMAC Champion
Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference titles; 2007 & 2008 RMAC Indoor Track Athlete of the Year
USTFCCCA Hall of Fame
U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association
Adams State Athletic Hall of Fame
Inducted for career achievements at Adams State University
From competing to coaching.
After his competitive career, Nick joined the Adams State coaching staff and helped the Grizzlies to national championships in men's cross country, women's cross country, and men's indoor track & field. He then moved to Southern Connecticut State University, where he was named the 2011 NCAA Division II East Region Assistant Coach of the Year and helped the Owls to a third-place finish at the 2012 NCAA Indoor Championships.
In 2014, Nick relocated to Denver and built Johnson & Wales University's men's and women's track & field programs from scratch as the program's first head coach. Over his three-year tenure, 16 of his athletes qualified for NAIA National Championships. From 2019 to 2022, he served as Head Cross Country Coach and Assistant Track & Field Coach at Metropolitan State University Denver, where he produced All-Americans, school record-holders, RMAC champions, and athletes recognized for both academic and athletic performance. In 2022, he stepped away from collegiate coaching to focus full-time on Defiance Health.
Healthcare administration and human performance.
Nick holds a Master of Business Administration with a focus in healthcare administration, along with academic training in human performance and physical education. Years of leadership experience in healthcare environments — combined with daily exposure to clinical operations alongside Jessica's medical practice — informs his perspective on how integrated health practices should actually be run.
His role at Defiance Health is operational, strategic, and performance-focused: building the systems, partnerships, and patient experience that allow Jessica and the clinical team to do their best work. He does not provide medical care or clinical recommendations; that's the licensed clinical team's role.
Where Nick fits at Defiance Health. Performance coaching, athletic recovery program design, business operations, and the connective tissue between clinical excellence and the patient experience. The clinical work — diagnosis, prescriptions, treatment plans — is led entirely by Jessica Lara, PA-C and the rest of the licensed medical team.
The model that should have existed.
Defiance Health was built to bridge the gap between two historically separate worlds: high-performance training, which has long understood how to optimize human function, and conventional medicine, which has often treated patients as collections of symptoms.
The clinic exists for the post-collegiate athlete still chasing a personal best. The 45-year-old executive who wants to feel sharper at 60 than they do today. The patient who's been told their numbers are "normal" while still feeling exhausted, frustrated, and unheard. And the lifelong athlete who knows their body well enough to know something is off, and just needs a clinical team that will actually look.
The work isn't glamorous and it isn't quick. It's labs, conversations, protocols, follow-ups, adjustments, and patience. It's done by a real clinical team who knows their patients, in physical clinics that actually exist in the communities they serve.
Want to connect?
For business partnerships, media inquiries, or post-collegiate athlete consultations, reach out directly. For clinical questions or appointments, the team is the right contact.