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As Rathwick struggled with the weights last Monday - her chest day - at Pure Fitness, her eyes teared with the strain. She pushed and pulled steel until she let out muffled cries of pain. It's a cavernous, utilitarian place. Rubber mats on the floor, mirrors on the wall. Mostly it's young men that do bodybuilding there; women tend to stick to the cardio equipment. Instead of wearing Rathwick down, the hourlong session energized her, pumping her up both physically and emotionally. The Puyallup native enjoys her body. She took pleasure admiring in the mirror what four years of amateur bodybuilding have made of her 5-foot-3-inch frame. It's not the muscled mass of a steroid abuser - Rathwick is all natural, she explains - but a near ideal body-machine bent completely to her will. She flexes to force blood into her muscles like an emerging butterfly pumps fluid into its wings to unfurl them. The flexing helps her "get bigger faster." Rathwick's husband, Ray, an easygoing 58-year-old who is as crazy about her as when she proposed to him over 20 years ago, said he hasn't seen her so intense about anything since she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995. Since then, she's learned that the aches and pains, loss of energy and physical decline of aging just don't have to happen if you develop the right eating and exercise habits. One of her major goals is to help others realize - and live - that truth, though she is not quite sure how. Her own fitness studio, maybe? A documentary about herself? Improve the physical and you improve the emotional, Rathwick said, and the self-esteem. She's one of those people who inspire by example. Others seek her out for fitness tips, and she loves to give advice. Rathwick was never a couch potato, but in the mid-1990s she was like many Americans: a little too heavy, not quite active enough. Then came the diagnosis, a right breast lumpectomy and chemotherapy. One of the greatest days of her life was when "I took the wig off at the office, threw it across the room and said, 'This is who I am.' " She was so positive about beating cancer, her husband explained, "that you would never know anything was wrong." The 1990s brought more unhappy surprises, including three car wrecks and subsequent neck surgery to decompress painful nerves. A runaway Dumpster crushed her right leg in 1998. One doctor thought, wrongly, that it would never be the same. In all, surgeons have cut into her body more than 15 times. By 2000, "I was sick and tired of being sick and tired," she is fond of saying. "It was time to pay attention to my health." Doctors say that is not an unusual reaction for a person who has faced his or her own mortality. Rathwick cleared off the calendar and went into the gym for six months. She liked it. The bodybuilding was her trainer's idea. "Now that the fat's off, you need to put on some size and do a show," she was told. It sounded like fun, though at 47 Rathwick felt a little too old. She studied and lifted hard all the same, and her body responded well. It didn't really have a choice. When asked to describe Rathwick, her husband and friends answer with one word without even thinking about it: "driven." Since then, Ray said his wife's physique has gone through a "drastic, dramatic transformation." Talking to her, you sense beneath the perfectly fitting outfits - a silver skirt suit at a recent interview - the athlete's body moving, flexing and ready to spring. You sense, too, the roiling energy, the controlled burn that drives her quick mind, sudden gestures, confident walk and direct speech. There's little small talk, and she has no patience for wasted, unscheduled time. They're traits that helped her run a restaurant-lounge-gift shop combo in Cortez, Colo., with her first husband and alone after he died in 1982. The place had a staff of 65 and operating hours of 6 a.m. until 2 a.m. They also explain the wedding proposal in 1984. She and Ray met one Friday through their sons, who were friends. That led to a long, late-night talk, dinner with the boys on Saturday and church services together on Sunday. "There's something my son asked me this morning you should know," she told Ray the following Monday morning. The boy wanted to know if Ray was going to be his new dad. "What did you say?" Ray asked. "Yes, probably." "That sounds like a proposal of marriage," he said. "I guess it is," Rathwick responded. But the man is supposed to propose, and Ray is a traditional guy, so he got down on one knee and popped the question anyway. They were married about five weeks later - because the church wasn't available before then. The silver skirt suit, along with the tasteful makeup, red nails and poise are signs of Rathwick's other life as a saleswoman and account manager at LandAmerica Transnation, a title insurance and escrow service company in Tacoma. Ray works there, too. "I love dressing up, I love being a girl," she explains, "but I can get down in the gym with the best of them." Like she probably did in Cortez, she walks like she owns the place in Pure Fitness, introducing the staff and acting as comfortable there as at home. The big guys call her "animal" and "Attila the Hun" out of respect. Rathwick looks forward to burning the extra body fat off for the April show, bulking up and displaying her well-muscled, taut, almost naked body to a rowdy, appreciative crowd. She likes to push herself, to try things that scare her to death and do them out in front of people. "I love the edge," she explained. So far, she's cinched one first-place title for women over 50. That came at Tacoma's Northern Gold Classic. Rathwick is still hungry. "It's great being over 50 because you don't have the mind-set that you have to behave a certain way," she said. - - - M. Alexander Otto: 253-597-8616 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - - - SIDEBARName: Denise Jean Rathwick Born: Jan. 23, 1953, "same year as the Corvette" Birthplace: Puyallup Residence: University Place Brothers and sisters: Second-oldest of two brothers, two sisters High school: Clover Park, Class of 1971 Husband: Ray Rathwick Married: Nov. 20, 1984 Children: Son Chad Callaway, 28, restaurant manager, Perth Australia; stepson Alan Rathwick, 30, car dealership finance and insurance director, El Paso, Texas Career: Restaurant owner, real estate agent, personal trainer, title insurance saleswoman Current workplace: LandAmerica Transnation Title Insurance Company, Tacoma Heros: Amelia Earhart, "she had no fear"; Kelly Nelson, 77, Bainbridge bodybuilder who beat Rathwick at Rathwick's first competition in 2003 Favorite books: Bible, "The Little Engine That Could," fitness books Musical tastes: Jazz and '80s pop Hardest life task: Raising two boys Interesting tidbits: Family owns Northwest Home Design, a Lakewood architectural firm; spends about $500 per month on bodybuilding dietary supplements Source: News Tribune, The |
