Ryder Scott petroleum engineer Cheryl Sandercock is not your typical white-collar professional. For most of us, fighting traffic is about as close to living dangerously as it gets. However, for Sandercock, skiing down a radically contoured, ice-covered mountain slope at more than 100 miles per hour is what gets her adrenaline pumping.

She’s so good at it that Sandercock was the 1995-97 World Champion in speed skiing. The pursuit of peak terminal velocity (in speed skiing) is the most intense and thrilling of all skiing disciplines, writes Charles Plueddeman in Popular Mechanics magazine.

"The wind tears at your body and the skis flop wildly as you fight to maintain a tuck position on the radically contoured mountain. You feel a strong surge of acceleration as you hurtle down the steepest portion of the course. Passing through the timing lights, your body punches a hole in the atmosphere that rips the air with a jet-engine roar. … Any faster and you’d need a parachute," he wrote.

Sandercock’s top speed is 113 miles per hour (182 km/hr). To put that 166 feet-per-second velocity into perspective, Sandercock could ski the length of a football field in well under two seconds. The sport is obviously not for those who enjoy leisurely strolls through the park.

The Calgarian’s improbable week-long blitz through northern Europe was even more astounding considering that leading up to the tour, she worked full time as an engineer and could only devote about two hours a day to training.

Sandercock’s practice was also limited because she said it was hard to get ski time at the speed-ski track. Add to this the difficulty of obtaining sponsorships to fund the athletes, especially women, for this nontraditional sport and the obstacles to success seem formidable.

Sandercock credits her success to the right mental preparation, equipment selection, skiing techniques and coaching. Before the races, she would use visualization as a "mental training" technique. Sandercock also anticipated race-time conditions and selected, fine-tuned and waxed her skis. To gain an advantage, she even borrowed some skis from a "mentor" before winning the World Championship. "His skis were faster than mine," Sandercock said.

In her late twenties when she should be peaking, Sandercock chose to retire from competition last year. She made the decision after suffering the disappointment of not being able to compete for a spot in the 1998 Winter Olympics because the Olympic committee excluded speed skiing from the sanctioned medal events.

"The decision took the wind out of my sails," Sandercock said. She has not ruled out "unretiring" if the sport is elevated by such events as inclusion in the 2002 Winter Games. "I’m still in touch with European racers and local skiers. It’s not like I don’t train or ski anymore," Sandercock said.