Calgary's Maria Samson has got brains and brawn aplenty.

In 2014, she helped carry Canada to silver at the Women's Rugby World Cup final in France, all while working full-time at Imperial Oil.

Now, she's one of five contestants left vying for the title of Canada's Smartest Person on CBC Television.

CBC host Doug Dirks caught up with Samson on The Homestretch ahead of Sunday's finale to ask her how the two challenges compare.

Why did you want to be on the show in the first place? You're smart, obviously. [But] there's quite a potential for embarrassment as well.

You sign a waiver that says you can be humiliated, and you then can't sue them. It was a real thought process as I'm reading the agreement that I had to sign. When CBC contacted me about being on the show, I thought, "Well, this could be cool." There was still the whole application process. It wasn't like I was a shoe-in. I don't know. I thought it would be neat.

You've taped the finale. Of course, we can't give it away. Are you good at keeping secrets?

I love keeping secrets. I love knowing things that other people don't know. It sounds so sadistic, but I'm a lockbox when it comes to stuff that I'm not allowed to tell.

What was the experience like?

It was insane. I would compare it to probably playing in the World Cup in terms of the amount of emotion and feeling I was having. You're shooting for a whole day. It was about a 12- to 13-hour filming day. A rugby game, I'm ready to go for 80 minutes. That was multiple rugby games over and over again, where I was super high on adrenaline. That was really hard for me to control. I probably burned a lot of calories that day from nervous energy.

How do you prepare for something like that?

I didn't prepare. After winning my episode, I had a few days between then and the finale. I watched more episodes with my family. I just thought having watched a few of the episodes that I did, I didn't think that there was really that much preparing that I could do. Probably would've made me more nervous than anything else. I just thought, "You know what? Just bank on the skills you have."

In rugby, like all team sports, you have people there to support you. On this show, it's just you. Was that a different experience as well?

100 per cent different. I actually ended up encouraging a lot of the other members. There were some probably funny scenes that don't end up on camera where I'm literally like, "C'mon, you got this! Let's go! Pick it up!"

You're supposed to be cheering against them.

I know! That's what Jessi [Cruickshank] said on the show. She's like, "Did you just feel bad for them because they missed a question?" I'm like, "Yes, because I want everybody to do well!"

With files from The Homestretch