Fitness professional, endurance athlete and mountain enthusiast Joanna Ford shares her experience in surviving as a fitness instructor during the pandemic. Get to know her mountaineering journey and her future dreams when it comes to her dream marathons and other events.
Her favorite local races have probably be iron legs is definitely a favorite. I've run that one, three or four time. It's really awesome.
If you haven't tried it and there's different distances spend 20 K all the way up to a hundred. So it's very accessible to lots of different runners.
Check out all the links discussed in this episode as well as Joanna's socials
https://www.meetup.com/CalgaryTrailRunners/
Calgary Road running.
https://www.calgaryroadrunners.com/
https://www.runguides.com/calgary/runs
Livingston Traverse:
https://jfordwelsh.wordpress.com/2019/08/22/the-livingstone-range-traverse/
FKT;
https://fastestknowntime.com/
Great trail divide:
https://greatdividetrail.com/discover-the-gdt/
Hardrock100
https://hardrock100.com/
ironlegs
https://www.ironlegs.ca/
sinister7
https://www.sinistersports.ca/sinister7/
Joanna's Instagram
Instagram: @jford.welsh
Blog: https://jfordwelsh.wordpress.com/
bryon episode
[00:00:00] Well folks, welcome to another edition of Calgary living real estate and lifestyle. I'm your host, Brian Howard. And today I have the good fortune of having a long time. I'm not going to say friend, but maybe virtual friend in the social world media world that we all live in today. Someone I've been following and miring her path and what she does.
Joanna Ford, Joanna. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Brian. Joanna, I been sort of aware of your work, your activities mostly your activities, but I think it has work as well. I think of you as a lover of the outdoors and we're involved in a few groups together maybe a meetup or on or Facebook kind of groups.
And have it have a similar community. And I think we've been, I've been kind of aware of for you for at least a couple of years, but Joanne, tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do and maybe a little snapshot on, on yourself right now. [00:01:00] Yeah. So in my spare time, I like to run in the mountain. And then also more recently I've taken that back country skiing and also a long distance backpacking.
So that's where I spend most of my spare time. And then in my professional life, I manage a fitness center. So I work in corporate fitness with employees, just helping them with stress management and managing the employee fitness center. Very cool. And is that a downtown type job or is it a one-on-one and people's homes?
How has COVID changed that for you in the past couple of years? What's that? What's, how's that? What what's, what kind of work is that? Or what's that work? Yeah. So it's actually, it's a full gym. So we have like group exercise, studios and strength, training, cardio, all of that. And it's changed a lot because of COVID gems have been shut down a couple of times.
So I've got to learn about working from home. I lead like virtual stretch breaks. I teach classes inside my house and my host is very small. So [00:02:00] that's a bit. But yeah, it's been interesting trying to pivot and figure out how I can still be useful when my facility that I manage is closed. Interesting.
Wow. And has the so as a manager of that facility, have you kept working their entire COVID time? Have they figured out how to, you know, use you virtually and not cut you from work? Or you can just curious on that. So I've been extremely fortunate. I've maintained a job this entire time. All of the other fitness staff have been, let go or temporarily, temporarily laid off at some point during the pandemic.
So I'm kind of the last person standing. It's been quite stressful, but I feel like we're slowly maybe coming to the end and hopefully I can hire some people. Very cool. During, I was telling you a little bit about my, my podcasts, had it been going for at least a couple of years now. And I've had like, well between this and a couple of other little activities, I have a least a hundred interviews that have none, and I've really enjoyed it.[00:03:00]
And and you know, it's a little focused on Calgary real estate, but it's more focused on people that I admire in our city and want to meet, want to interview tell me a little bit about your Calgary experience. How long have you lived in Calgary? Where did you come from? What brought you to Calgary?
What strikes you about Calgary these days? Yeah, so I moved to Calgary when I was two. So this is basically my hometown. And I'm in bonus right now and I've lived in bonus four different times throughout. Calgary life. So this is definitely my favorite neighborhood within the city. When I was younger, I wasn't a huge fan of Calgary and I always wanted to move out to Vancouver because I thought it had much better weather and much nicer amounts.
But now as I've built up a community around me, I actually think Calgary is probably one of the best cities you could possibly live in if you're into trails and outdoor activities. I love that we're spinny most of the year. And [00:04:00] we have great access to lots of trails and it's just easy highway drive to get out to the mountains.
So for me, Calgary is the absolute best place to be. Nice. So you're, do you identify with being a trail runner? Like first and foremost, how long have you been a trail runner? What were your high school sports, for example? Yeah. So in high school I kinda dabbled in a lot of stuff, but I wasn't committed to anything.
The sport I did the most was actually wrestling which I absolutely loved. My last year I injured my shoulder, so that kind of put it down for them. And then I didn't carry it on to university because wrestling and university, you weren't allowed to have a job at the same time. And so for myself, that was a bit challenging.
I had to choose between a sport or working a job. So I chose to have a job and that was the end of my wrestling career. But for running, I've always wanted to be a runner. Terry Fox was my idol as a [00:05:00] child. And I always thought it was the coolest. But I always ran on the roads. I never really knew about trail running.
So I discovered trail running maybe in 2009 or 2010. I went out with a group called trail. That a friend introduced me to and we went out and the run was way longer than advertised, like an extra eight kilometers. I think, which to me now doesn't seem like a big deal, but at the time it was a massive deal and I ran out of food and I couldn't believe that we were running for so long and the road runner and me kind of panicked a little bit.
But I got to the end and I felt great and I had a great time. So that's kind of how I started with Trevor. Very cool. This gel trash was still exists in that group. Does this exist in the same way? So I'm still in touch with a lot of the original trail trash members. These are like the very old school, [00:06:00] original ultra runner.
We had an email group that we the leader would send out an email every week, just today where we were going. But the leader doesn't run anymore and he's moved away. The, the it group has kind of dispersed to them. And so you know, how I'm, I think I'm like a normal kind of average person in that I will like, you know, somehow get an email or be on Facebook.
And I hit a link that somethings like that may be of interest to me and I'll join a group. I have done that with meetup, for example, and I and actually Calgary road runners. So when I first moved to Calgary in 2003, I was quite involved with the coffee road runners and their I dunno, their trail running cup or something where they have those series throughout the winter.
And I recently attended a, a meet just before Christmas and, and really enjoyed it. Actually, maybe it was November, but and I haven't done anything for like, with them for 15 years or something. But which are you very involved with a group? I think, I think you are do, are you involved with the [00:07:00] meetup trail group?
Yeah, so I actually I'm on the Calgary Roadrunner board, so I'm highly involved with them. And in addition, the Calgary trail runners meetup group I've run with them for many years, kind of off and on, not a regular attender to the Tuesday evening run. They don't work with my schedule. But I do get out with them and then I've just started posting meetup from there for Tuesday morning, because that does work with my schedule.
So I'm hoping to get some more people out. So tell us about your okay. So as you just to make it normal for any of our listeners here, like I assume with your with your well even road runners, but more of the Calgary trail running group on meetup there's a, like probably what there's, maybe there's a thousand people in that group.
Do you have any idea? And like how many people actually come like, like, is it 12 or 10 or. So that, and it's okay like that. That's okay. Isn't it like, so your Tuesday meeting group, maybe I can go check it out and I can join and you know, [00:08:00] and I can run with you. Is that yeah, so that's, what's so awesome about Calgary trail runners as they're super inclusive.
So their Tuesday evening groups in the winter it's smaller and then it grows to it's quite large in the summer. And it's people of all. The one thing you should know is that often they're running outside a style range. So you do need to be kind of responsible for yourself and know about the trails, because it is possible.
You could get lost and no one could find you. So that is the one thing to know about trail running. But yeah, the groups are very accepting of all. All speeds for running. My Tuesday morning group right now, we only have maybe five people coming out, but we're only on run. Four or five. So I'm hoping it'll grow a little bit from there and then we can have a few more speeds.
Tell me about your Tuesday morning group. What time do you meet? Where do you meet and why did you start that? Why did like tell me a little bit about [00:09:00] why Joanna started a Tuesday morning group in, within the meetup group of what is it? Cocktail running group. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. I post on there because I really like what the organizers have done within the Calgary trail Leonard in terms of building a community.
So I just wanted to participate a bit more with that, but my schedule doesn't work for Tuesday evenings. So I was feeling kind of left out lonely, to be honest, like there's no need to feel left out. Cause you can organize one, be the change you want to see you. Exactly. That's kind of the person. I generally, if I have a problem, then I'm like, okay, how can I fix this problem?
So my problem was I wanted friends. So now I've invited. Yeah, exactly. There we go ahead. What time on Tuesday mornings you meet? Yeah. So we've been meeting at seven 30. They don't have to work until 10 and then we've been, [00:10:00] yeah, we've been meeting in Northwest Calgary. So each week we, since switching locations, You don't know it's hill or past kupu, which is right by my house in Beaumont.
So we just alternating location and I'll post it maybe like five days beforehand. So people know where. And then, and then like, is it a, is it a no drop run? Like what happens if someone shows up like running away way slower than you and then becomes miserable for you? Or does that happen with you?
I mean, it happens with me, but, well, I try to be quite descriptive for the run that it's a social run. It's not a workout. So if you're coming to do your tempo, run me. Not come. And you should expect, so I say like, we'll run the flat from the downhills, but probably the bigger uphills we will do a power hike.
So that's kind of the speed to expect. And for me, if there's a huge difference in speeds, then I'll do like a sheep dog. [00:11:00] So I'll run ahead and then run back and repeat, which is more fun than just like standing in place and getting cold while you're waiting for something. So that's a good strategy. I think I love how you call it sheep, dog run.
I've never heard that. I mean, is that a common term amongst runners? I learned that from an incredible runner called her name is Bernadette Benson and she's one of the original trail trash members. She's got a bunch of Canadian national records, so she would come out with us and she would shoot dog.
So. It's neat. That that's really neat. Maybe I'll just share a little bit. So you know, I came from, I started running in the actually when my first child was born and then like mid nineties and I ran as a way to cope with stress and, you know, and becoming an adult in my late twenties and And and so, but somehow, you know, maybe naturally gifted or whatever, and, or did it enough that you know, had a good engine.
And so, but, [00:12:00] and, but I, I got into adventure sport. What is called, what is that sport called adventure? You know, we have groups of, for adventure racing, right? Yeah. And it was all about keeping the group of four together and finishing together. So we really got into like, you know, pushing each other and hanging off like ropes since like you know, last acts going up Hills on bikes and everything was.
Push them together. And so, but then you know, more recent years as an aging and getting slower, but still training with fast, fast people are faster people. Like, I actually can't believe when they would run and they would go ahead and then just stand there. They wouldn't run back for me, like a sheep dog.
But now if I like, I, I, it kind of upset me. Like what kind of person or, you know, mentality is that need to run ahead and then stand and wait if the corner or whatever. I was like sheep, dog back. And that's a. And it's good to have as I'm getting older and slower. Thank you. And so I, so I, I guess I want to commend you on your work and like what I, you know, you're, you're just thinking, [00:13:00] you know, maybe you're a personal trainer wherever, but I really see you as in our community, you know, athletes in Calgary as a, someone who gives a lot to the community.
And I just you know, and I think it's, it's a work for you. You know, you're, you're sharing your thing. And promoting it. Can you maybe just comment on that? Do you do you feel like in terms of community and work why do you do it? You're on the executive of the Calgary Roadrunners and and yeah, maybe just share in terms of the work.
I know it's not work, it's a volunteer work, but yeah. Thanks. Well for me, try running has been truly life-changing, it's changed my whole like mental mindset and outlook, and it's been a true. And when I started try running, I didn't even have my license. I took a long time to get my license. So the leader of child trash would actually pick me up for each friend, drive me onto the run, drive me back.
And so I had a ton of help when I started trail running from other people to enable me to get into the sport.[00:14:00] And because it's been so incredible for me, it just gives me such a sensitive free. I feel it's really important. And it's very rewarding for me to try to share that with others. So yeah, I, I do whatever I can to try to make running more accessible to other people who might be interested in getting into it.
And in particular trail running, because for me, I always won. I ran on the roads, but I found it painful and uncomfortable. And I was very focused on the split to my watch. And I get very frustrated when I didn't that. But when I started trail running and I could just find my effort and how I felt and became a lot more in touch with my body it opened up whole new doors that I didn't even know existed.
So yeah, that's, that's important to me to share that with other people also, well, we thank you for it. Tell me a little bit about I understand why you live in bonus, like knowing Calgary or, or, you know, and our city. And can you tell us a little [00:15:00] bit about do you own your own home and bonus?
Have you owned real estate in Calgary? Has it been a positive experience? And when I say that question you know, we are a boom bust economy, or seem to have been in my time here since 2003. And I understand it was like that before I got here. Any comments on that? So, yeah, so we bought her house about six years ago.
So we're in bonus for an older 1950s bungalow, which is quite typical for bonus. And one thing that I love about bonuses, it still has a kind of small town field, even though it pretty central in. So I used to work downtown and I could drive downtown in less than 20 minutes, but to get out of the city, I don't even have a single light.
I can just drive straight out of, out of the city. So for me, it's incredibly convenient in that regard. And then also we had a dog. So it was important to find an area with lots of off-leash area. [00:16:00] So the river is right here and then you have green spaces, which go west out of the city and then the whole past kupu area up at Windsport.
So yeah, it's been, it's been great for us in terms of the boom bust. We bought our house, I think when it was really highly valued. So I don't know if we got the best deal in that regard, but it looks like the value is going up again. So yeah. I dunno, we just wanted to live in bonus. So we weren't too picky about what the house cost.
It was more about the location. Right. And I mean, you're not aware, like I'm aware I'm into it. I guess you bought it in 2014 at the peak. If you bought it in 2015, it was not the peak you mentioned about six years ago. So it's probably closer to seven years ago. And and so 20 13, 20 14 was the peak, but at the same time, you know, you're just paying your mortgage down and and you know, you're not noticing because, you know, Oh, so good for you.
And and and so recently in the past year, our prices of single family detached homes have gotten back up to that peak [00:17:00] level of our last high, which was 20 13, 20 14. The same can't be said about condoms. Condos are still about 18% less than they were at our last peak. But I mean, it's funny, Joanna, if you had bought that same house in someplace, like, I guess Victoria or an nine.
Or maybe, you know, the Burlington you would be looking at probably at least a $500,000 gain and your money. So I just, just for fun. Okay. So what do you, how are the word ability of our homes in Calgary or like some of the. Affordable homes in the country in terms of a major center. So currently we're seeing a lot of people come here and my suspect right now our inventory, I mean, maybe I'm getting boring here, but our inventory is really low.
And so we're seeing that turnaround. Yeah, I think our property we're on an amazingly huge lawn with mature trees and just like, we live really in the best place, really quiet streets. So if [00:18:00] someone wanted to buy just like a quiet. Detached home. I'm pretty sure that we can get good value. Oh, I know you can.
Yeah, right now. And I'm confident you can. The other thing about a place like bonus is and something I'm hearing more about people that are more interested in is like the potential to suite the property. You know, have a detached garage, put a carriage house on top of the grass, maybe care down the existing bungalow and put up two infills.
You have a lot of options there in that neighborhood. Have you done that? Have you considered Sweden your property or is that an option for you? No, but I'm almost a hundred percent sure whenever we fell, that's what will happen. So I think we're going to stay here for a long time. Just as it. Great. And what about the boom bust economy?
I mean, being your age and I mean having, I dunno, maybe friends that move in and out of the city from other places how has, how has that effect, and in terms of your own corporate work, as a fitness trainer, you see people [00:19:00] like huffing and puffing and. Yeah, maybe trying to improve their lives. Maybe they're going through like some heck.
Have you seen the boom bust economy of Calgary lake positively or negatively affect your own community or your own network and how do you deal with that? Yeah, I see it a lot because I work in corporate fitness though. Most of the fitness centers I've managed are with oil and gas companies. So I see it firsthand for sure.
And before I managed fitness centers, I was a personal trainer before. So, yeah, the pay and finding clients was really easy during the boom. And then during boss, it's pretty amazing to see and pretty sad to see so many people get laid off and reduced wages. But also now that I've been training for 13, 14 years now and been in the industry for awhile and you can kind of see that it comes and goes.
And so even if you're in a bus cycle, it'll, it'll come back. [00:20:00] Right. It's good to be aware of that. Yup. Joanna, I just realized we were coming sort of to, you know, we, I want to be cautious of your time and our listeners' time, but we haven't talked much about the mountains and you really, really caught my attention.
I know it must've been a two years ago when I was follow you on Strava and I see these big routes of yours, big runs in the mountains. Can you tell us a little bit about some of your favorite Application type days in the mountains or runs or traverses or routes that you've done. And do you have any maybe upcoming goals in the next sorta season?
Yeah. So one of the biggest traverses, the most exciting to verses I've done was with my friend Ariel. We did the Livingston range traverse. So if you drive south to crow's nest pass, they'll notice this Ridge line just west of highway 22 and it's 35 kilometers long. And it's a lot of sustained scrambling over 3000 meters of climbing.
And you just see this original line, it just calls to [00:21:00] you. So a few years ago, Ariel and I was actually our third attempt and we finally managed to complete that traverse in a single. And for me that was super rewarding. Unfortunately we thought the finish of the traverse, like the official traverse was the Frank visitor center.
And then after we finished, we got a message from the guys who hold the F Katy and the finish finishes actually highway three by a couple of kilometers. So we have to go back and repeat the traverse at some point to get like the official route. But we're actually really excited to do it again. I get the the fastest known time
for women, for sure, because no other women that I've talked to, like I only know people who've done it as an overnight. So any women out there who want to do the traverse in a single push, you should do it though. We have a time to go again. [00:22:00] But yeah, the meal time is quite quick. I don't think we could beat that.
And then one other like big thing that I have done that I'm really proud of was hiking the GDT last summer with some friends. So that is a route from Waterton to Mount Robson. It's a thousand kilometers. Wow. I heard Robinson and I'm thinking Robinson's way up north. And I hear a water ton. I know where that is.
Yeah, there must be another mountain called Robinson. Okay. But it's not, it's the one that Mount Robson. Yeah. So that was a GDT great divide trail. Isn't it? Yeah. Okay. Exactly. So I had had that in my mind to just do you know, someday or infection, maybe like 200 miles at a time or something. And then my friend, Alicia sent a message saying, Hey, I'm applying for this grant from the Vancouver international mountain film festival, and we're going to hike the GDT.
Like, do you want to come? And so I just said, screw [00:23:00] it. Like, why wait, let's just, let's just do it. So I joined the team and we got the grant and then yeah, in 2020, we attempted is actually supposed to be 1100 kilometers. The hike north of Mount Robson. But we got hit with some really terrible weather.
So we failed at Mount Robson, which is the more common exit, but that's another one I'll just have to do again. You don't believe me. How long did it take? 18 days. That's fast. Yeah. So we're doing like 50 or 60 K per day. Yeah. And so that's like when we talk about the trail running community and how amazing it was, I had so many people meeting me to help us with resupplies and to feed us whenever we had a road costing or something, just to make it a bit easier.
So we had a lot of help and I don't think it's possible to do it in a fast [00:24:00] time without having a whole community to support you. So that was super cool and very, like, just amazing to see all those people come around and support us. Oh, and then, sorry, in terms of goals, I got, I got into the hard rock 100 finally this year.
So I've been up, I've been applying since 2013. So that's my big goal for this year. I explained to our listeners, what is the hard rock? 100, I should know, but I'm, I'm a little bag myself. So it's one of the original mountain hundred mile ultra is it's down in Southwest Colorado. Matt and I have done a lot of road tripping down in the area, so I've experienced, but the mountains are like down.
And it covers a hundred miles and about 10,000 meters of climbing. And there's a lot of off trail kind of Alpine cross-country you get up over 14,000 [00:25:00] feet in altitude, considered a very rough, very challenging ultra. And they only allow 140 runners in each year. So it's very challenging to get into this.
Plus you have to run qualifiers and then enter the lottery and then hopefully your name gets drawn. So I've been trying to qualify people. Congratulations, and look forward to watching that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm super excited. You should YouTube. It. It's a very cool. Yes. And we'll share a link here on the notes.
And so Joanna, you you're fast you, you do race like do, do our look, do, do our local 10 K road race ever these days, or have you, I assume you have. And, and so you're doing the hard rock 100, so that's a race. And so do you raise the, like the sinister seven or the like the local trail running racist around here?
The grizzly. So, yeah, I do some [00:26:00] races, I guess. I haven't been racing much recently. I've ran sinister seven three times. Actually. I did it once with a partner and I've done it twice solo and I attempted it last year, but I didn't finish. Cause it got smoky and I have, yeah. They can tolerate smoke. So hopefully it Hardrock.
There's no smoke. Yeah, like my favorite local races have probably be iron legs is definitely a favorite. I've run that one, three or four time. It's really awesome. If you haven't tried it and there's different distances spend 20 K all the way up to a hundred. So it's very accessible to lots of different runners.
I don't run road races, to be honest. Yeah, well, I mean, when I started running, I'm not very fast on the road. If you ever see me run, I have a super awkward stride. I'm just not very good at road running. [00:27:00] So I was trying to get under 20 minutes for the 5k this summer. And I think I ran like 2017. So yeah, 20 minutes, 17 seconds.
That is fast folks for the listeners who don't know it's, it's quite fast and fast is a relative term. Sure. I mean, the world-class women world-class might do, what did they do? 13 minutes. Do you know? That's like the best runner in the world. Right. Yeah, there are definitely some 15 something like the fastest.
So you're, you're fast at 20 minutes go, but I'm surprised to hear that you would even have that goal. If you don't think of yourself as a road runner, like you wouldn't have a 5k, but you, do you still speed train a train for the trail, I guess obviously. Yes. Well, I was, again that had to do with the Calgary road runners.
We were putting on a virtual race series. And so there, you just admitted your time each week. I don't do a ton of speed training, but I have friends that [00:28:00] sometimes influenced me. I'm very highly suggestible. If you challenged me to something, I'll probably try. So that's usually where my, if you send me a text and say, Hey, Joanna, do you want to join me for intervals?
I'll be like, fine. I love doing intervals, but I, I just cannot do them myself. So you might just find that text coming from me. Oh God. Okay. And I really, the one time type of stuff, not strength, training speed trading, a love is where you listen to music on the trails, and then you'll run really hard for one song and then jog for an easy.
Hmm. And I could, yeah, I could do that indefinitely. It's so much fun. Cause you go uphill and downhill with your intervals. And you can do really any length of time. You just recover during that every second song. So if you count that as be training, I do that quite often. Very good. Well, I feel like I have a million [00:29:00] other questions.
Oh, I just can't help. Let this one go. What about the ski ski back country skiing. You said that's something fairly recently that you've gotten into and I, again, I'm falling on Strava and I saw some like pretty epic long day and like some high vert in relatively short time, I guess it was you and Matt and that was launching himself off a cliff, like off of a jump.
It seemed like, I don't know if you remember my, I commented on his pitcher or something. Tell me about that. How long have you been back country ski. And is that relatively new? I think this is my fourth season. That was actually with my friend, Colin, Matt? Yeah. So Colin, just his hours, like go hard all the time.
And we tour quite a lot together and he's a very good skier, so yeah. So whenever we're out, it's never like a chill, relaxed pace. It's ours. We have to. The fastest for whatever reason. But it's super fun. I really like it. And last year I actually won an entry to a skimo race. So [00:30:00] this year I'm going to try the kicking horse, deep dreams.
Skimo race. I'm going to be there. Oh yeah. Okay. Well, I'll be in my like heavy back country gear. Cause that's all I. But I'm pretty excited. What's your feet. I can lend you like gear. I think they're a size eight and a half or nine, please. It was a little bit big, but not that big. Maybe, maybe you should try them.
I'm I'm serious here. We can talk more about that. Okay. So you want an entry and that will be your first your first female race. Cause I was just going to ask you, have you thought about skimo racing? Well, to be honest, I'm not a very good skier, so I know. So you'll enjoy the skimo schema racing is like absolutely why I love fish, but it's mostly insane because you go as fast as you can.
On the latest possible gear that you can find or care to spend in terms of money. And then you survive going down, even when you're a good skier on [00:31:00] skimo gear. It's terrible. Yeah. So that's why I think I kind of want to stay in the gear I'm used to because I don't. Yeah. I promised my husband that I wouldn't die.
I'm like, I don't know what the I've never been on a course. I don't know if there's cliffs, you can fall off or something. My very first skimo race was probably 2009 and it was at kicking horse and it's probably the most challenging course in Canada. I was like, I've been skiing all my life and I consider myself quite a good skier.
And I was kind of shocked at the terrain. Like I had no idea, like some of this, and I had actually was I the ski to kicking horse a lot and had never skied some of the shoots that they put us on that day, which was awesome. So that's, there's two courses. And there's a, like a competitive course and then more of a recreational course, but Joanna, you should probably do the competitive of course, but be prepared.
I don't just take it easy maybe. And certainly [00:32:00] there, there's a very, very few people doing it, but there should be more so hopefully you'll draw others as well. Yeah, I think so. I mean, honestly, as long as there aren't. It's fine. Yeah. I mean, you're not going to, like, there are certain shoots that are steep, but a fall would just need a slide down on the snow.
Yeah. Yeah. We'll be fine. Yeah. I was actually like analyzing the stope angles. I'm like, oh yeah. I skied that before. Don't think I'm going to die. So I'm excited. Do I have it in your, your, your grown-up you went to university, did you study Physical education or that they're about something like that.
Yeah. Yeah. So I have a bachelor of science in kinesiology, and then I did some additional education beyond that. So I'm, I think they call me a clinical exercise physiologist. They keep changing the acronym. Yep. And so you, and you've worked in this city or boom-bust economy and oil and gas and see all the different sectors and I've chosen that kind of you know, fitness [00:33:00] lifestyle and helped others.
Did just for fun, what profession, other than your own that you've been doing, would you like to attempt, or maybe would have liked to attempt any thoughts on that? Yeah. I strongly considered going back to school for geology. I trained a lot of geologists and this is more during the boom, but I also took a bunch of geology courses as options as part of my degree.
And I love it. So whenever I'm scrambling and looking at the rocks and the fossils and stuff, I just, I think geology is so cool. So I'm not going to go back to school, but that would be my alternative. And finally two last questions. What advice would you give your younger self? And secondly, how do people reach out?
What are some ways to you know, follow Joanna and maybe, maybe some what's the best way to maybe connect or what words of encouragement would you give our listeners? How do we find you on meetup for example, or Calgary road [00:34:00] runners. Okay. So advice for younger self, I think would just be, yeah.
Chill out now. Don't look at your watch so much and just relax. Cause it took me a long time to figure that out. In terms of finding me, I think I'm very open, very easy to find. So it's J Ford that Walsh on Instagram is very easy. And then on meetup, just Google Calgary trail vendors and their meetup page will pop up.
And I just post on there for when I'm doing, when I'm leading group. Thank you for being on the show. Thanks, Brian. This was fun. It was fun. Okay.