Q+A | Decorated N.W.T. speed skater Wren Acorn hangs up her skates

One of the North's fastest skaters has decided to hang up her skates after a lengthy career. 

Wren Acorn grew up in Yellowknife and moved to Calgary at the age of 16 to pursue speed skating.

Acorn spent years competing on the national circuit, competing full-time and was a member of Team Canada. 

Now, she's about to turn 21 and is headed back to Concordia University in Montreal to pursue her studies.

She spoke with CBC Trailbreaker host Hilary Bird about what it's like to say goodbye to something you love, and what lies ahead for the young athlete. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

You have put a lot into this sport. What led to the decision to retire? 

I think it was a decision that I took very, very gradually. It was an incredibly rough season, where when I was healthy and things were going well, the stress was just incredible. The pressure I was putting on myself, it wasn't fulfilling me in the same way that it used to. And then I had a lot of injuries, so it just gave me time to reflect and to realize that it just wasn't filling me up in the same way anymore.

Skating is such time commitment that if you don't love it 100 per cent and if it's not worth sacrificing everything else in your life, then it's not a lifestyle that you can sustain at all. 

Was there a moment that convinced you to do it, to retire? 

It had been in the back of my mind given how tough the beginning of the season was. I'd seen quite a lot of burnout, injuries, a concussion. I threw my back out on a dead lift too, which was incredibly painful. But I remember thinking I cannot quit when things are bad.

So, I really waited until I started to recover from the injuries. I remember, shortly after Christmas, we were skating with our national team among short track legends, Olympic medallists, all that good stuff. It was a training that I enjoyed. I felt good, and I remember thinking yes, this is fun. But it didn't light the spark in me that it used to. So that was difficult to contend with, that I had maybe changed as a person and my goals had maybe shifted. That was the moment I knew that yes, things were going well, but I still didn't feel that fire. It was time to let it go. 

You mentioned some of the sacrifices that you've had to make to pursue this full time. Can you tell us about those? 

I moved away from home when I was 16, but I had started giving up a lot more time even before then. Our family's summers were spent at training camps and our money went towards travel for sports, and that was it. We had to sacrifice a lot of vacations and stuff like that. The time commitment — I couldn't see a lot of friends most of the time, I couldn't get a job because I was so busy. I definitely had to slow down school. I'm about to go back to university and I'm about to turn 21. It's a full-on lifestyle.