Marsha McCaulley of Perry, champion bodybuilder and longtime fitness coach at the McCreary Community Building, reassembled the six Iron Women of Perry Wednesday in a reprise of their July 2014 photo shoot.
The original pictures went to make up the 2015 Iron Women of Perry fundraising calendar for the MCB, but this time the Iron Women — Cindy Sohn, Stephanie Hall-Hansen, Jill Dorman, Cheri Tice Scheib, JoAnn Harmelink and Sherri Miller — will find themselves between the covers of McCaulley’s forthcoming book on nutrition, exercise and overall fitness.
“These women are still working out and still strong,” McCaulley said admiringly of her friends at Wednesday’s photo session. “They’ve done an excellent job of maintenance since four years ago.”
McCaulley said she has been turning over the idea of a book for a long time.
“It has been on my bucket list for a very long time, just like the calendar,” she said, “so I finally decided I’d better do it now or never.”
The plan is for a fitness book, she said, not the technical kind with diagrams and step-by-step exercises but a potpourri — with “clean, healthy-eating recipes,” “fitness journey stories” by local clients and McCaulley’s own reflections on fitness and aging.
“This book is just about regular people,” she said. “I’m not a celebrity trying to tell anyone how to be fit. We’re just ordinary people from Iowa who are interested in being healthy. I kind of have a heart for senior women particularly, so there’s inspiring stories of ‘This gal’s in the same boat I am, and she got out of the boat and achieved it, so I can, too.’ I don’t want fitness to sound too simplistic, but I just want people to know they can do it, too.”
McCaulley’s friends and former clients, the Iron Women of Perry, said Wednesday’s photo shoot was a welcome reunion. The 2015 calendar photos showed the athletes variously posed in black dresses, shorts and bathing suits and set in a variety of locations, from the beachfront to various Perry landmark buildings.
“Most all of us were closer to 60 on this date four years ago,” said Iron Woman of Perry Cheri Tice Scheib. “I believe that now we range in age from nearing 60 to nearing 70 years old. We aren’t backing down anytime soon either!”
Awww, Thank you, Jim! Nice article. We appreciate your work and did you notice? . . . I do a lot of talking and not paying attention. My ADD was showing! 🙂 Hugs!
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