In The Spotlight!

Alexandra (Alex) Cassiopeia Forte was born in New York City and attended school in Easton, Connecticut. 
She began running cross country and track (long distance) in high school and continued after graduating from Dickinson College (Carlisle, PA) in 2003.  Later, while living and working as an English teacher overseas (Japan and Thailand), Alex started taking interest in outdoor cycling.  What began as a slight interest soon spawned into an obsession; so, upon returning to the States in 2006 for graduate school at NYU, Alex started training for and racing in duathlons and triathlons around the country.  After finishing her graduate program in English Education, Alex took her teaching degree and moved to Chicago to teach at a charter high school on the southside.  An unexpected turn of events, however, landed her in Culpeper at the beginning of this year to explore other directions of life and work.  Recently, she has started working as an indoor cycling instructor (SPINNING and RPM) and Personal Trainer at Gold's Gym.  Additionally, Alex is a certified USA Track and Field (Level 1) coach, tutor, and ESL teacher.  On days when she is not at the gym, she can often be found riding and working with her mother on their horse farm in Locust Dale.

......on a more intimate note........

1.  What shoes do you run in
- Adidas Response (running) and Shimano (cycling)

2. Your favorite pre-race meal, you favorite healthy snack -
- Definitely oatmeal with bananas and cinnamon.  Love it!  My fav snack has to be PB&J sandwich.  Usually on spelt or yeast-free bread.

3. What events do you prefer - ie: sprint distance..long distance ,
- For tri and races, the sprint distance (I hate swimming longer that 1/4 mile).  Anything on the track or cross country, though, long distance.

4. Why do you like to run?  What do you get back from it?
- Good question.  I could go on and on about it, but the short version is basically that it lets me "get away" from whatever is going on in my life.  When I am running (and cycling as well) I fall into a rhythm--a zone--and I am the only person there.  It's like meditation.  When I finish, I feel so much more relaxed and centered than I did before.  Some people say, "it's like a drug."

5. What gifts/talents/skills are you willing share with the run club -?
   ( ie: leading group runs/ organizing an event/ organizing a pasta dinner/ helping with youth run program  etc...)
- All the above!  I love hosting people for dinner and pre-race prep parties (although I will have to ask my mother).  Anything with youth is a for sure, and I can share some of my coaching skills (but full training and nutrition programs would be at a price- gotta make a living). 

6 . finally, your favorite ever run race and/or triathlon competed in and why!!
- Hmmmmm.  It's a tough call between the XTerra off-road tri I did in Connecticut a few years ago, a tri I do every year in Madison, Wisconsin, and the Chicago Accenture Tri.  For different reasons, but the one thing they all have in common is individuality.  The location, people, course, and attitude at these races is wonderful.  If you every get a chance to do one of them, I highly suggest it.  The XTerra race because it is so hardcore and extreme; the Madison race for it's natural beauty and hospitable staff; and the Chicago race because of it's precise course mapping and very well-organized start. 

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." (M. Gandhi)