Sabrina Grégoire: Montréal CoWork’s spark, a leader who brings people together
Sabrina Grégoire has built her entire life, both professional and personal, around one word: movement. Driven by an inner fire since her earliest childhood, she turned her passion for outdoor activity into a profession. Today, the accomplished athlete owns two franchises. That passion has matured into experience, and she uses her generosity and radiant smile to ignite a spark in others.
“There was a before Sabrina and an after Sabrina,” says Raphaël Dimanche, Sales Manager at Montréal CoWork, without missing a beat. Sabrina immediately draws attention as she steps out of the coworking space’s elevator, as she does every Wednesday, with her contagious smile, athletic bearing, jet-black hair pulled into a ponytail and uniquely warm energy.
The Wednesday run: an unchanging ritual
For four years, she has organized and led “the Wednesday run” with a group of diehards who would not miss their weekly meeting for anything. “For me, it’s sacred! Looking back at 2024, that was when I did the most running between noon and 1 p.m.,” sums up Charles Demontigny, a Montréal CoWork member and Sabrina’s friend.
The route is simple: head to the Mount Royal esplanade for the more experienced runners—a 10 km run—but there is no obligation. Everyone goes at their own pace, and smaller side trails offer alternatives depending on the effort each person wants and is able to put in. “It’s given me an anchor and a sense of stability, and seeing Sabrina always brings happiness to my day,” Charles continues. Over time, it becomes clear that running can build friendships as unexpected as they are lasting, particularly within the walls of Montréal CoWork.
A natural leader
Sabrina is unquestionably a leader because she knows how to motivate others like no one else. “She managed to convince people to sign up for a marathon, including me, even though I played sports but didn’t run at all,” Raphaël Dimanche recalls. This ability to persuade and bring people together comes from an almost physical need for human contact, nurturing close-knit community ties. Sabrina says so herself. “I’d happily go back to the hunter-gatherer era, when everyone had an essential role in the community,” she says.
A champion in the making
Even before her career as a coach and manager for Cardio plein air, Sabrina always had a thirst for intensity and pushing her limits. Originally from Mont-Laurier in the Laurentians, she felt a deep-seated need to expend energy from childhood. From ages 7 to 17, she practised taekwondo diligently, earned her black belt and reached the Canadian championships. “I loved the competition, the intensity, living in the moment and not letting anything break my concentration,” she recalls. Only one regret remains: not continuing on to the Olympic team.
In her early twenties, she went to the Université de Montréal to study anthropology, specializing in archaeology while also playing basketball at CEPSUM. With her bachelor’s degree in hand, she worked on excavation sites in France and Germany, then backpacked through Europe for a year. But she stopped when she reached the master’s stage, realizing that academia had become too static for her go-getter personality, and radically changed direction.
She then began a new bachelor’s degree in kinesiology, which seemed an obvious choice: movement really was her whole life. Towards the end of her studies, she took up running to keep expending energy. “Trail running is less repetitive, less performance-focused, and you do it in nature,” she explains.
Drawing on her coaching experience, she took a different kind of trail: entrepreneurship, buying her first franchise. In 2018, she purchased Cardio Plein Air Plateau Mont-Royal, followed by a second franchise in 2021, Cardio Plein Air Ville-Marie–Outremont. Becoming a manager was a major learning experience, a different kind of challenge that did not frighten her.
A true force of nature, her resilience is phenomenal: she does 25 hours of exercise a week, combining all the training sessions she leads with her management responsibilities. “She manages to juggle her two franchises and still have fun every week, while also running on Mount Royal with the Wednesday gang,” Charles Demontigny says.
Where does this inexhaustible energy come from? Her explanation is an understatement: “Basically, I’ve always been athletic,” she says modestly. Now approaching forty, the passion is still there, but she prioritizes finding balance and inspiring others: the outdoors, group training and human contact. “That part I loved about anthropology—spending time with people, understanding what they do in my group—is very interesting as a coach,” she shares.
A teacher at heart
Making sure everyone feels they belong and bridging differences is one of Sabrina’s greatest strengths. “She’s impressive as an athlete, but she’s even more impressive as an educator,” Raphaël Dimanche emphasizes. Charles Demontigny agrees: “It’s not in her nature to want to be better than everyone else; it’s in her nature to want everyone to achieve their goals.”
Sabrina is a powerhouse of energy who embodies a philosophy in which sport is above all a vehicle for well-being and social connection. While Sabrina always makes sure safety standards are met on group outings, she remains an incredible source of motivation for others. “The Mount Royal outings really capture who Sabrina is: whether it’s minus 20 degrees or plus 40, she’ll always be there to run,” Raphaël concludes.
Article: Hélène Lequitte Photo credit: Jordan Jacquier