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Finding your inner athlete
First Strides - fitness regime for women

By Tony Farrell

How do you change your life for the better? Just ask the dozens of women who meet once a week, rain or shine, in an Allentown, Pennsylvania, park. Thanks to Jane Serues, they're changing their lives one step at a time.

Serues is the founder and director of First Strides, an independent, community-based program dedicated to helping women of all ages and abilities achieve physical fitness through walking and running. And as the self-described "head mentor" to the group, Serues also serves as the leader who helps inspire confidence, encourage fitness and--above all--get middle-aged rears in gear.

After all, the first step in any fitness regimen is always the hardest. And the 54-year-old Serues created First Strides five years ago after noticing how many women--especially those of her own generation--seemed intimidated by any kind of serious fitness challenge.

Serues decided to organize a small beginner's class aimed at women who had either walked or jogged in a local 5-kilometer race. "I had a few phone calls about it," she says, "and I thought it would be neat. I figured I'd get 30 or 40 women to join."

But to Serues' surprise, 150 women showed up for the first meeting. Since then, the Allentown class has grown to include more than 300 women of all shapes, sizes and abilities. And a sister class in nearby Bethlehem has nearly 200 participants.

What's behind the program's enormous success? For starters, Serues--a former college athletics coach who qualified for the women's Olympic trials in 1984--bills her 12-week course as a "beginner" rather than a "runner" class to draw out the shy and tentative.

She's also careful to emphasize the amount of time class members spend walking or running instead of distance covered--another way to cater to runners of varying endurance levels and help participants monitor their own progress. Members start out walking or running "easy," then slowly build up to exercising "hard."

But Serues speculates that women are finding something else when they join the First Strides program: a sense of personal empowerment.

"They all think they're going to be the slowest or the fattest or the oldest, and they're worried they won't be able to do it," she says of her fresh recruits. "But by having a program that's fun and gradually increases in intensity, they amaze themselves. They find their `inner athlete.'"

And for many participants, the changes don't stop with physical fitness. Serues recalls one member, initially quiet and reticent, who seemed to blossom as she progressed through the program, eventually joining the ranks of the 50 female mentors who help direct the Allentown group. After experiencing an emotional catharsis through First Strides, Serues says, the woman found the strength to end her unhappy marriage.

Watching First Strides improve its members' lives already has Serues thinking seriously about expanding the program beyond Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley--and various national women's running enthusiasts have started paying attention. Last May, for example, Serues received the Fred Lebow Women's Running Award from the Road Runners Club of America in recognition of her hard work.

But Serues' real satisfaction still conies once a week when she clambers onto the park picnic table and looks out over the sea of expectant, hopeful faces. From where she stands, Serues can see the healthy physiques, improved eating habits and lasting friendships that wait at the end of the trail for each woman wearing a pair of running shoes.

And something else too.

"With First Strides, women have something they can control, and their self-esteem goes up," Serues says, adding with a laugh: "They don't have to take it anymore!"