In many ways, Jace Mendoza is a typical twelve-year-old. He likes to play video games with friends, watch YouTube videos, and eat pizza. But one thing sets Jace apart from his peers: He’s training to become a world-champion speed skater.

From the time Jace could walk, “he’s always tried to get to the finish line first,” says his dad, Jeff. Introduced to traditional “quad” skates at a kindergarten class party, he quickly moved to inline skates, convinced his parents to enroll him in speed-skating lessons, and then entered any race he could. “The adrenaline from winning made me want to keep going,” he says.

A three-time indoor USA Roller Sports national champion, Jace recently broke three national records in his age division. As he prepares for inline speed skating world competition next May, he’s also working toward his long-term goal of becoming an Olympic speed skater on the ice.

Quiet and polite, Jace wears glasses and is dressed in a racing suit as he waits to step into the rink at the Ann Arbor Ice Cube, his home ice rink, on a fall Saturday. Like Olympic speed skating gold medalists Apolo Ohno and Erin Jackson, he’s learning to transition from inline skates to the ice. (Inline speed skating is not an Olympic sport.)

Today, he’s working with two-time speed skating Olympian Jilleanne Rookard, who’s running drills for young skaters in the Wolverine Sports Club. As Jace skates lap after lap, he tries to keep up with a high school senior. Jace’s feet are fast from skating on wheels, Jeff says, but he’s having to learn a different technique to turn the corners efficiently on long blades.

Jace’s weekly speed-skating regimen also includes inline training: two outdoor sessions on Belle Isle in Detroit (moving to indoor rinks during the winter months) with the Wolverine Speed Team, and two indoor sessions with his Skatin Station team in Canton. In between, the seventh grader works out at home, and, weather permitting, skates a five-mile stretch of the Border to Border Trail through Ann Arbor.

Jace’s parents met when they worked together at what was then Oakwood Hospital’s emergency room in Dearborn, where his mom, Zen, was a physician, and Jeff was a nurse. They married in 2010.

Zen—short for “Zenzile,” a Zulu name that means “you are responsible for who you become”—is African American and grew up in Palmdale, California. Jeff, who is Filipino American, was raised in Livonia. Jeff says he was an “average Joe” athlete who tried all sports; Zen is a Temple University Athletics Hall of Fame inductee in volleyball and was a track-and-field standout in high school.

“We’re more interested in raising brains than raising fast feet,” Jeff says. But, he adds, “We’re in the mindset of ‘We are all in.’ If our kids put in the work and they have a dream, it’s gonna happen.”

Justin, Zen’s son from a previous marriage, declared in eighth grade that he wanted to play soccer at an Ivy League school. He’s now a senior on Yale’s soccer team. The brothers—Jace calls Justin “Bubba”—are very close.

Zen works as a locum physician and travels to hospitals on contract to fill in where needed. She often visits Justin in Connecticut while nearby for work. Jeff, who’s now a nurse for Trinity Health in Livonia, often drives Jace to his meets, as far away as New York and Florida.

“I see his goals and how far he’s come and how hard he works, and it gives me goosebumps,” Jeff says. “So I’m willing to do anything for him.”

The family lives in Superior Township, and Jace attends Achieve Charter Academy in Canton. After homework, he does what he calls his “mom work”: Zen uses free Khan Academy videos to keep Jace a step ahead in academics.

“Dad is fun,” Zen says of Jeff. “I can be really intense, and he [Jeff] pulls me back, so we balance each other really well.”

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Home Ice Advantage

On a Sunday morning in November, a meet at Skatin Station draws speed skaters from western Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Chris Hartley, who’s coached Jace from the beginning, is there with the home team. He says that to excel at skating, “You have to want it, and Jace wants it really bad.” He also “has a great support system, which is essential.” Today, Jace’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, cousins, and friends are cheering for him from the sidelines.

Spectators can feel the wind created by the pack of skaters who race at speeds up to thirty miles per hour, making tight turns on the hundred-meter rink-turned-track. Jace has a half-dozen races this morning—from 300 to 1,500 meters long—“skating up” for a few of them to compete with bigger, stronger teens.

But Jace is used to challenges. He fell at nationals a couple of years ago. He’s lived through pandemic disappointments and event cancelations. And he’s endured a couple of serious injuries. A terrifying fall during practice last year lacerated his liver in three places.

Because he was forbidden from impact sports during his three-month recovery, Zen and Jeff purchased a skate treadmill that was made-to-order for their basement. It arrived on a trailer from Texas, took three days to install, and is now a key part of Jace’s training regimen.

During today’s meet, he wipes out on a wet patch of floor, but gets up to finish the race. Near the end of the meet, his body pushed to the limit, he darts off the rink and throws up in a trash can. “I almost didn’t make it!” he says.

After he loses a race, he skates over to congratulate the winner, a fifteen-year-old from Chicago. “I’ve learned not to be a sore loser,” he’d explained at the Cube. It’s best to “just move on.” After a relay, Jace smiles and laughs with the group, comparing notes.

Jay Ingram, the coach who will bring him to Germany for a world competition in May, calls Jace an “anomaly” in the skating world. He says “he’s in a class with [Olympic gold medalist] Erin Jackson” and has a bright future in the sport.

But for now, he’s still a boy who needs his mom. He’s quick to find Zen after a race and plops onto her lap, stretching out his long limbs, and breathing hard. “Good race, Jace,” she says.