CALGARY – David Greer finally decided to become a team player.

The former national champion cross-country skier, who competed for years on the international stage, recently gave up the sport to focus on school. While doing so, he’s quenching the thirst of competition by running for the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) Trojans cross-country running team.

“I thought it would be fun to join some sort of team,” said Greer, a first-year Architectural Technologies student from Whitehorse.

“When I was looking into it, I never really played volleyball or basketball or anything like that ... I just thought I have done quite a bit of running, and it’s super good for you and gets you in really good shape. I thought it would be fun to do and I’m happy I joined the team.”

The 25-year-old put together an impressive resume during his time in the snow – a gold medal at the 2007 Canada Winter Games, top-25 at the 2009 World Junior Championships, top-30 at the World U-23 championships in 2011 and two World Cup starts were just a few of the highlights.

“I miss doing well. I miss winning races,” Greer said. “That’s always fun and a good feeling, but I’ve done it for so long I know what it takes, and what kind of sacrifice and commitment you need to be able to win those races ... it’s not really worth it for me right now.”

After taking a year off to work construction, Greer decided to head back to the classroom. He admits getting back into the swing of things academically has been an adjustment.

“I hadn’t really done much for school since high school, so it’s kind of all new to me,” said Greer, also an accomplished photographer.

“I like SAIT because you just jump into the meat of it. With university, you have to take some sort of general courses like math or stuff where I’ve probably forgotten most of that, so it would have been tough for me.”

Greer started at SAIT last January and went right through the summer. He plans on finishing in April, and after that – the real world.

His timing couldn’t have been more perfect, as the Trojans are hosting this year’s Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) national championships on Nov. 8.

The transition from skis to running shoes has been an easy one, he said.

He added that he likes the consistency of eight-kilometre races in running, as he raced anywhere from 1.2-km to 50-km while a Nordic skier.

“I’ve always run quite a bit as cross-training when I was skiing full-time. In the summer, we’d do lots of running and running intensities but I just wouldn’t race very often,” he said.

“The endurance side is fairly similar just with the cardio in your lungs and heart, but a little more specific with muscles and leg turnover speed and stuff. So yeah, it does transition well.”

He did, however, mention one glaring difference between the two sports.

“Obviously you don’t get as much recovery on the downhill because you’re still having to run, you can’t just glide down,” he laughed.

Results-wise, Greer has fit in nicely with the Trojans. In his two eight-km races this season, he finished fifth in Red Deer and sixth in Calgary, helping the Trojans men’s teams to a second and third place result, respectively.

“It was actually my first running race I’ve done in quite a while, so I wasn’t too sure what to expect, but it went pretty good and I was able to build on it,” he said about his fifth-place finish in Red Deer on Sept. 27.

Greer hopes to play a big role in the men’s team’s quest for another Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) medal on Oct. 25 at the provincial championships in Fort McMurray.

The Trojans will send a small contingent to Camrose, Alta., this weekend to compete in the season’s final Grand Prix event.

By BRODY MARK
Special to the Star