I was born and raised in Great Falls, where I grew up very sports minded and attended Montana Tech on a basketball scholarship. Tech added volleyball as a varsity sport in my third year, so I played two sports one year, then just volleyball my senior year. I met my husband Barry at Tech, and after living in Casper WY and Colstrip MT a few years, we ended up in Butte where our children, Kevin and Kelli were both raised. We moved to Helena in 2015, and I retired from the State of Montana last year.
I’m writing this on my 65th birthday, so I believe I may be the oldest FireTower member. I was skeptical of the idea of a CrossFit gym at first – I had attended Fuel Fitness until they closed their Helena location and was very comfortable with the workouts there. Kevin and Kelli (and their spouses, Alexis and Chad) have done CrossFit for a while, and then Barry started a few years ago. When Fuel closed, I decided to try the “Bootcamp” class. It has quickly become part of my new normal.
I’m not sure I have a “one” favorite thing that keeps me going to class – I like that the workouts are planned and involve different movements every day. The coaches (Jamie and Laura) are super supportive and will always work with me if I need to modify movements. My classmates are awesome. I’m thankful for the results – able to be super active, able to keep up with my kids and their spouses, and, most importantly of all, the grandkids – Zoe, Lea, and Graham (and soon Graham’s little brother).
The Bootcamp class tends to keep my days fairly consistent – wake up time is between 630 and 700 am, breakfast (eggs and fruit, or sometimes oatmeal), gym at 900 am and then the remainder of the day can vary greatly. We tend to eat healthy most of the time, allowing for some variation due to circumstances (aka schedule, kids, grandkids). We spend a lot of time at Canyon Ferry in the warmer months, and we tend to be very active with projects and activities there as well.
