No summer break for teen marathoner Winter Vinecki
For many teenage students, the summer months are full of sleeping in, swimming in the pool and binge-watching Netflix with friends, but that’s not the case for Winter Vinecki.
The 15-year-old multi-sport athlete is training through the summer to reach her goals of competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics as an aerial skier.
Four to seven hours per day, Vinecki practices her back flips and back lay-outs off a ski jump and into a pool in Park City, Utah, where she resides for the foreseeable future.
Although Salem is her hometown, the teen is living with a host family to be able to practice the competitive sport year-round and acclimate her body to the higher elevation.
Vinecki is not only known for her back flips off ski jumps, but also holds the record for being the youngest person, male or female, to complete a marathon on every continent. That’s seven marathons, 183.4 official marathon miles, and more than 35 hours running on all parts of the Earth.
In the past month, Vinecki competed in the Salt Lake City Spartan Race, as well as The Roparun in Hamburg, Germany. The Roparun involves an eight-person team, with each member running about 40 miles to complete a 350-mile relay in order to raise money for people who suffer from cancer in Europe.
That’s Vinecki’s whole mission, as the world records were set in honor of her father, Michael, who died from an aggressive form of prostate cancer in 2009. After he died, Vinecki made it her mission to spread awareness about the disease and raise money for prostate cancer research.
In addition to the list of athletic competitions the teen has lined up in the coming months, Vinecki is finding time to enjoy a semi-relaxed summer with her family and friends, spending as much time outside as possible. Vinecki’s three brothers are staying with her in Park City for five weeks over the summer, and she says she’s loving seeing them so much.
“We’ve been doing some mountain biking,” Vinecki said. “We also recently took a trip to Jackson, Wyoming, over the Fourth of July where we went whitewater rafting and hiking. It’s been a pretty good summer.”
For now, Vinecki is happy to practice her jumps and succeed at the sport of aerial skiing, regardless of the lack of snow.