Alexis Crossley racing to sustain fitness — her own and others’

Just a little more.

Alexis Crossley comes from a household and neighborhood where craving, pursuing and doling out more enrichment is the norm. Especially if that enrichment comes via competitive exercise.

The way she recounts her upbringing in Cole Harbour, N.S., on the outskirts of Halifax — and the way she represents the place as one of its products — one might think anything less would draw a wave of concerned glances.

Reached by Pucks and Recreation nearly a full year after garnering her bachelor’s in biology from Boston University, Crossley is still suppressing senioritis in pursuit of another academic milestone. She is up for a master’s degree in urban affairs this spring.

Seven weeks after her final game as a Terrier, she is still following the daily springtime regimen of the program’s non-seniors. She has her first attempt at the Trans Am Bike Race in June to think about.

A second-year transfer out of New Hampshire, Crossley has already amassed five years of the college athletic experience. Most NCAA women’s hockey players will have decelerated to a studies-only regimen at this stage of their fourth year on campus. But with the rigorous cycling tour on the horizon, she has made a need out of a want by joining BU’s slated returnees for 2017-18 in the weight room.

“After finishing a college hockey career, it’s hard when all of the girls start off their postseason training and you can’t join them anymore,” she said. “But luckily, I’ve had something like the Trans Am Bike Race to motivate me and keep me competitive.

“And it’s nice to have it so close to after finishing my college career because, one, I’m still in really good physical shape from my season and from all of the training I’ve done over the course of last year for hockey. And two, I still get to get into the gym and see the girls all the time and watch them work hard and get better for next season, too.”

After a season that saw three senior forwards combine for 51 goals and Crossley lead the blue-line brigade with 21 points, BU will task as many as 16 holdovers with filling those spacious skates. Crossley has her own foundation in place for her next daunting-by-design endeavor. And she has not relinquished the team-based strings in the process, either.

In tandem with her father, Brad, Crossley will cover the 10-state Trans Am trail to raise money for the IWK Health Centre in Halifax. The two will be one of only seven registered pairs in an event that also features 146 individual racers representing 22 countries.

Six weeks ahead of the race’s June 3 beginning, the Crossleys have already fulfilled one-fifth of their $30,000 fundraising goal. “And that keeps increasing every day,” Alexis noted.

Meanwhile, the timing bar is set near the ceiling. Last year’s individual first-place finisher, Lael Wilcox, completed the tour in 18 days and 10 minutes. The tandem participants in the 2016 race took anywhere from 25 to 87 days.

“We’re aiming to get about 160 miles in per day, give or take a few depending on weather and other circumstances,” Crossley said. “The ultimate goal would be to finish in 26 days, but I guess maybe a more realistic one might be 28.”

At the time of her interview, her preparation rate was in a footrace with the pledge rate of Team Crossley’s supporters. As she continues to recover from a postseason shoulder surgery, she has yet to transfer her training from stationary bikes to the outdoors.

“Once a week, I’m trying to get in a long bike anywhere that’s above two-and-a-half, three hours, just to try and get my body ready to sit on the bike for 12-plus hours a day,” she elaborated. “Right now, it’s all about having my butt used to the seat and my head used to looking up ahead of me.”

On the figurative front, what is ahead is unclear to Crossley. With her fiancé accepting a job on the University of Arizona men’s basketball coaching staff, she will relocate to Tucson on the other side of her month-long bike tour.

For now, once there, she plans on shaping her near future on the fly.

“Hopefully, a future job opportunity will come my way and it’ll be something that I am passionate about,” she said. “I’ve always aspired to be a dentist, so I’m not counting that out of my future, either.”

Exemplary energy

For all of the mystery ahead, there are many well-defined motivators in Crossley’s background. The reigning BU co-captain is keen on continuing her exemplary leadership in a campaign to curtail childhood obesity.

Both of Crossley’s parents witness the best and worst effects of early life habits as elementary-level teachers in the Halifax Regional School Board. Her father has made physical education his day job for 25 years. Her mother, Leslie, oversees the fifth-grade class at Bel Ayr Elementary in Dartmouth, N.S.

“They have one of the most important jobs in our small communities, where they are creating the future,” she said. “And I think that their role in the education system also inspires me to want to make others around me better and teach people about important things, such as childhood obesity, obesity in general and the importance of living healthy, active lifestyles.”

Brad Crossley has set a straightforward precedent in his household. He will go into the Trans Am Bike Race with a smattering of previous intensive cycling excursions, including triathlons and transcontinental tours, already on his transcript. When the season is ripe for hockey, and thus for taking his gym-teacher’s instinct to the ice, pulling him away from the rink rivals shoveling two feet of wet snow in difficulty.

Alexis Crossley and her three brothers have each translated their inherited puck passion to college- or junior-caliber skill sets. Neither she nor any relatives have let obesity hang around their personal ponds since the puck dropped on their respective games of life.

Still, as Statistics Canada concluded in 2014, Nova Scotia was second only to Newfoundland and Labrador among the nation’s most obese provinces. The rate there was a startling 27.8 percent the time of the study. Neighboring New Brunswick was third at 26.4 percent.

Through her father’s work in the local school system, in particular, the comparatively inert behaviors of several students have never escaped Crossley.

“I noticed how much the current generation spends so much of their time indoors or playing on an iPad or asking parents to use their cell phones to play games,” she said.

“I wasn’t a little kid too long ago, but I can’t remember a day where I didn’t want to go outside and run around and play games. So I hope that through this we can help promote a little bit more of that and try to create some healthy, active lifestyle thoughts in my community at home and maybe in other communities surrounding that.”

Cole Harbour already bears multiple examples of exertion yielding exhilarating rewards, and both Brad and Alexis have been in on the production. Brad coached the Dartmouth Subways Midget AAA team when, in 2001-02, Sidney Crosby came through the ranks en route to NHL superstardom.

Nathan MacKinnon, who went first overall in the 2013 draft eight years after Crosby achieved the same distinction, is one year younger than Alexis. In turn, the two crossed daily paths at school and even played together in organized hockey before breaking off into their respective single-gender divisions.

“I was fortunate to grow up in Cole Harbour, where probably every other kid on my block played hockey in the Cole Harbour minor hockey association,” Crossley mused.

Of Crosby and MacKinnon, she added, “Just sharing the hometown with them and having such big role models come out of my town as far as athletics and sports goes, I think they are just extra pieces to the puzzle in this battle that new generations are facing in regards to healthy and active lifestyles, and hopefully my dad and I can contribute to that as well.”

In Cole Harbour, the phrases “Brad Crossley” and “contribute” have all but meshed the way the names “Sidney Crosby” or “Nathan MacKinnon” go with “highlight-reel play.” Beyond his gym classes, the elder Crossley has also served as an assistant men’s hockey coach at nearby Dalhousie University and devoted untold hours to youth programs.

In addition, Alexis noted, her father suggested the IWK Health Centre as the charity of choice when she first expressed interest in the Trans Am race a year ago.

“My dad had a contact with a player’s mother who works at the IWK, and he kind of brought the idea up,” she said.

“He has always gone above and beyond for everyone in my community at home or in the hockey world. He’s always spending hours and hours in the rink with local kids, teaching them some extra hockey skills or putting in an extra hour on the ice after a practice or renting some ice out for some of the local kids to go out and get better.

“So just watching him in that regard has motivated me to go above and beyond with my community, no matter where I am, and do anything I can to help people out.”

Crossley all but grew up together with the current incarnation of the IWK, which caters specially to women and children from the three Maritime Provinces. She was two years old when, in 1996, the old Isaac Walton Killam Hospital for Children joined forces with Grace Maternity Hospital.

The newly singular institution, whose website includes a 43-minute video on childhood obesity, has since built its reputation as a go-to center for family care. Through her proximity to Halifax and her strenuous upbringing, Crossley got to know that firsthand, particularly in the orthopedic ward.

“The IWK is somewhere I’ve unfortunately visited a few times as a kid due to injuries from being physically active,” she said. “But I hope that I can encourage others to be active and stay physically active and hopefully not have to visit the children’s hospital due to health concerns.”

Breaking away

The stationary bike Crossley has stapled herself to in her initial phases of Trans Am prep sure beats an IWK bed. But her competitive pangs will not taper off in full until she loses the confines of the gym and fully simulates her late-spring-to-early-summer plans.

The fourth annual Trans Am Bike Race will start on the first Saturday of June in Astoria, Ore., culminating in Yorktown, Va. In between, the trail covers Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky. Cyclists will soak in the likes of Yellowstone National Park, the Continental Divide and Mammoth Cave as part of their scenic odyssey.

“I’m excited to see different terrain and to climb some mountains, even though that’s going to be probably one of the most difficult parts of the race,” Crossley said. “I’m really excited to just take in the scenery and enjoy some fresh air and some peace of mind away from academics and the rigors of college athletics.

“It’s going to be a tough battle, but it’ll be a rewarding one and one that will allow me to have some of my own time and some thinking time and also some important bonding time with my dad, too.”

Yet even the hallowed landmarks of nature cannot fully tug Crossley away from the sense of a task at hand. The change of scenery may underscore a change of pace from her recent years of daily half-mental, half-physical biathlon in Boston. But she is using her last free moments in her adopted American community to prepare to join her father in representing their already famed Canadian locality.

Just a little more attention to Cole Harbour and a little more attention for their cause. That is the expressed greater goal.

“Even though it might not be to the extent that people may be aware of Crosby and MacKinnon, maybe we’ll be remembered for our efforts as well,” she said.