Erin Alexander
Age: 38
Where I live: Santa Cruz, CA
Where I'm from: Novato, CA
I grew up in Novato, 30 minutes north of San Francisco. I grew up swimming and in high school I competed in springboard diving. At 18, I moved to LA to get my undergraduate degree in Psychology from UCLA, where I also raced for the UCLA Cycling Team on the road and velodrome. From LA I moved to Boulder, Colorado to get my Masters degree in Motor Learning/Sports Psychology (but the real reason I was there was to race bikes). After getting my Masters, I stayed in Boulder and raced for two more years before moving back to California to work as a technical writer in telecommunications in Mountain View.
In July 2001 I had a month between ending one job and starting at a new company, so I bought a longboard and spent every day at the beach in Capitola, and that was that: I was completely obsessed with surfing. For five years, I would dream about surfing, watch surfing movies, care about nothing but surfing, panic if I missed a day of surfing. It was like nothing. Complete stoke.
After a couple years I realized that all of my friends were in Santa Cruz and Capitola, so I moved to Capitola and I've lived in Santa Cruz ever since. I live a block off the ocean and I work from home mostly and so I am super spoiled and happy.
And now I have surfed all over the world: up and down the California coast, southern Maine, the Canary Islands, mainland Spain, the Maldives, and I've taken two surf trips to Indonesia which is definitely my happy place.
In the last three years I have also taken up rock climbing, which is a fabulous complement to surfing. It's another sport with amazing community and opportunity to play all over the world. Since I work from home and surf or climb on most days, I spend all of my time in yoga apparel.
Contests and Events
SURFING/PADDLING
- 2nd Place, 2011 Santa Cruz Longboard Union Memorial Day Club Invitational (Senior Women)
- 1st Place, 2009 Women on Waves Longboard Surf Fest (Senior Women)
- 1st Place, 2009 Inaugural Dolphin Paddle Race (9 mile, women’s 14' division)
- 1st Place, 2005 Santa Cruz Longboard Union Memorial Day Club Invitational (Senior Women)
- 2nd Place, 2004 All Women’s Spring Surf Fest
CYCLING
- All-American, Women’s Road Cycling, 1998
- 1st Place, 1998 NCCA (National Collegiate Cycling Association) National Championships, Team Overall
- 1st Place, 1998 NCCA National Championships, Team Time Trial
- 1st Place, 1998 Colorado State Championships, Criterium
- 3rd Place, 1998 NCCA National Championships, Individual Overall
- 3rd Place, 1998 NCCA National Championships, Criterium
- 5th Place, 1998 NCCA National Championships, Road Race
- 1st Place, 1996 NCCA National Championships, Team Time Trial
Inspiration
I am inspired by the sun and by feeling strong and healthy in my body. When I was learning to surf, I would watch the surf movie Longer over and over (Joel Tudor!).
|
|
|
Kids
