Recently I photographed @sophieelgort for my @fem_forward project. She's a dear friend who I've known for many years! I've seen her grow from an awesome kid to an amazing woman!!! Her strength and accomplishments are incredible! Below are photos of Sophie, as well as Sophie with Tanja Kok @tanjakok a model from the Netherlands! Tanja is here filming a series for @styletoday_nl and she interviewed both of us for her web series, coming out soon!!!
Here is Sophie's incredible fitness journey:
"My fitness story started young. I always played sports from as young as I can remember. I swam in the summers, skied in the winters, played soccer at school, went to adventure camp where I rock-climbed and kayaked. By the sixth grade I had joined the Asphalt Green swim team in NYC and had practice for that 5x a week and I was really fit - I could do the mile run at school in just over 6 minutes. In the 8th grade, I moved up to Vermont to pursue ski racing full time after having won Vermont state championships the season before while only training on the weekends. At that point, if you wanted to keep going you needed to train full time in order to compete and you had to train enough on dry land too in the off season to stay safe while at the high speeds going down the courses. At Green Mountain Valley School, the ski racing academy I attended, our schedule in the fall and spring included 2 hours of strength training per day and 2 hours of cardio training which I did playing soccer and road biking. In between, we had classes. In the winter, we trained on the hill in the mornings and had class in the afternoons into the early evenings. Then traveled for races every weekend. In the summers, we traveled to snow to train for at least three weeks and the rest of the summer we had to stick to a strict training schedule on our own. I ski raced through high school and I ended up racing for Brown University. At Brown, even though my training schedule felt light compared to in high school, in the off season we still had lifting at 6am 3x per week and dryland training every day from 4-6pm. During the season, we'd train Tuesdays and Thursdays on the hill from 7am - noon and schedule all our classes for the afternoons and evenings, often showing up still in our ski clothes coming straight from practice. We traveled to races every weekend.
So when I finished my senior year season and didn't have a coach telling me to show up at training any longer, I definitely did not take it upon myself to work out. I was also used to being able to eat whatever I wanted and not gaining any weight because I was training so hard. Almost right away I put on fifteen pounds and it wasn't until my second year out of college that I decided I needed to learn how to discipline myself to workout on my own in a way that was manageable, enjoyable and most importantly for me, sustainable. During that couple years off, I missed moving my body and working towards something physical. I also quickly realized that while training on my own made a big difference mentally, I had to change my eating habits too and that it would be a combination of both that would get and keep me in shape.
I think because I always had a coach and a team, I like working out in a group, like I used to with my teammates. I'm not good at going to the gym alone, so I love going to classes and especially making a plan to meet a friend for a class so we can do it together and then tacking something social to the end of it like a coffee or a drink. Then it becomes a social outing for me and not only am I accountable to show up for someone, but it's also enjoyable. I also love trying new things whether it's a new kind of dance class, or gymnastics class at Chelsea Piers. In off season training for skiing, we did obstacle courses, sprints, hiking, biking, soccer, gymnastics.. the list goes on, I guess it was to keep our bodies challenged and new muscles working.
Now, in the seasons where it's warm enough to tolerate being outside, my husband and I like to take walks in the mornings on the water. We pick up a coffee on the way and start our days walking for about five miles before heading home to shower and go to work. We talked about running, but at the end of the day I realize that for me, if I'm doing something that I enjoy and look forward to, I'm much more likely to wake up early and do it every day than something that I'm dreading that I might do a couple times, but then quickly leave behind."
She's wearing and @outdoorvoices top and @the_upside pants....
