Being fit for life is as easy as an amazing race.

 

Lethbridge College’s Be Fit for Life Centre held its Winter Amazing Race over the weekend.
The race, which was first held last year, promotes physical activity during the cold winter months, when not many want to be outside.

Chelsea Purves, outreach assistant with the Be Fit for Life Program, explains that the program was designed to encourage walking in the winter.

“We wanted to get people walking around Henderson Lake, but we wanted to give people an idea of what else they could do outside,” says Purves.

This instigated the idea of having different activity locations around the lake.

“To put a little twist on it we call them activity detours. They have to stop and participate in all the detours before they can go back to the checking gate,” Purves explains.

The activities were also given a winter twist to them.

Families participated in activities like “snowga,” which is winter yoga, and “snowccer,” which is a winter version of soccer.

Last year, a snowshoeing station was included but the lack of snow trampled that idea for this year.

“Because there’s no snow it’s just a tagging station,” explains Purves. “Last year it was -30, this year it was plus four.”

A ‘Passport to Fun’ is given to each participant to keep track of which activities have been completed.

Once all are complete they entered a draw to win a prize.

 
Prizes this year included an iPad, an Xbox 360 Kinect and Lethbridge Hurricanes tickets.

Volunteer Jordan Mitchell, an exercise science student at the college, worked the snowccer station during the race.

“It was good,” says Mitchell. “A lot of [the activities] were getting the kids running around, so it gave time for the parents to interact with each other [but also] got them playing with the kids.”

Despite Saturday’s heavy wind gusts, Mitchell said the day ended up working out really well. “It was an active family day.”