Fire Fitness sets the pace, education options for athletes

FIRE FITNESS Road Running Club is hosting its first ever children’s 3K and 5K called Set the Pace on Saturday at the Larry Gomes Stadium. Set the Pace will feature not only as a children’s race, but a career day and school fair to educate students about the sports industry and the scholarship opportunities available through sports.
Chantal Ross-Thomas, CEO and founder of Fire Fitness is hoping to expose students to some of the careers in the sporting industry such as sport psychology, physiotherapists and athletic wear stores.
Fire Fitness hopes to have the event annually and in the future attract international universities and scouts. While many schools and youth organisations have their own 5K, Ross-Thomas hopes this race will become a central go-to event for students.
“We want Set the Pace to get it to the point where scouts will be watching our children. We are showcasing their talent,” she said.
The race is open to everyone from all schools, youth groups and even individuals. Children between eight-11 years will run a 3K while participants between 12-18 will run a full 5K.
Ross-Thomas said: “This event is to show students they have opportunities, particularly if they are not academically inclined but athletically inclined. Sometimes you are using your athletic ability to give you an advantage to get tertiary education opportunities because you can get scholarships through your sporting abilities. You may not be great at maths or physics, but you could be good at sports and use the knowledge in that field to feed your career.”
Tertiary education institutions participating include the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT). At Set the Pace, students can meet with people who contribute to the sporting industry such as sports psychologists from Performance Pursuit who work with athletes, physio therapist Dr Kerry Dollaway; Jamaican, Olympic silver medallist in track and field Grace Jackson; and former national sprinter and National Association of Athletics Administrations of TT president Ephraim Serrette.
“When people hear sport they think coach or hobby, but you could be an administrator of sports in a university, work in sport finance, there is a whole industry waiting to be developed in Trinidad,” Ross-Thomas said.
She encourages parents to attend the race as well so that they could inform themselves of the different opportunities available for their children.
“We have different sports organisations and businesses coming to talk with the students,” she said.
Ross-Thomas is a record holding national swimmer who pursued a career in sports management. She possesses a BSc and MSc from Barry University in Florida in Sports Management, and is a certified personal trainer and corrective exercise specialist. She worked in sports management at the Ministry of Sport and UWI Sport and Physical Education Centre (SPEC), and lectured in sport management at UTT. She left her job at the Ministry of Sport to run Fire Fitness.
She said Fire Fitness uses sports and fitness to develop people and communities. It started out originally as a women’s only studio geared towards women 25-45. Their target group was working women, busy mothers and women who did not feel comfortable in a gym. The Fire Fitness programme creates personalised training programmes for women incorporating strength training and cardio.
From the fitness programme Ross-Thomas challenged women to do a distance running, and in August 2018 they had their first 5K called We Run Arima for adults. Now they are having a 3k and 5K for children.
“It is a kid’s race. Most of the time you have 5K’s that have a kids section but nothing just for them. This is a kids only race for children between eight and 18. They have no adults to compete with,” Ross-Thomas said.
Registration for the event closed on Friday.
For more info: ffrrsecretary@gmail.com or info@firecrackerlife.com