Local women tackle crack-of-dawn, high-intensity workouts through women-only boot camp program
By Kate Jonuska

At 5:25 a.m. on a December morning, it’s a cold, abandoned world outside — nothing open, no one out, no hint of the coming dawn. There’s only one illuminated doorway at Eagleview Middle School on Vindicator Drive, and I have to fortify myself to leave the warmth of the car to dash toward the light.

By 5:30 a.m., I’m in a cavernous gymnasium with a group of other sleep-eyed women. Around the room is a torturous variety of equipment: weighted balls, tension bands, jump ropes, cones and other unknown devices.
No wonder they call it boot camp, I think.

But halfway through the 45-minute workout, I knew this was in no way the Hollywood-inspired boot camp I’d been expecting. Certainly, it was intense, sweat-inducing and physically challenging. But the only yelling was of encouragement and, between conversations about work and home, the participants applauded each other after the completion of every strenuous circuit.

Huh, I thought. No wonder this really works.

CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published in the Jan. 2, 2009 Woodmen Edition.