Moms In Motion

Traci Rosselet is a mother of two young children.

She works full time.

And she has gone back to school to earn her doctorate.

In short, she’s busy.

But you won’t hear her complain that she can’t find time to exercise. She makes the time.

“It clears my head and gives me a good break from everything else in my life,” she says.

Rosselet, a 37-year-old Colbert resident, is a member of Moms In Motion, an athletic training group in its second year in Spokane. She runs with the group two evenings a week. And, when she’s by herself, she pounds the pavement at 5 a.m. – before the kids wake up – to get her miles in.

Moms In Motion is an international organization of fitness teams for women. The group started in 1999 in California with 14 triathlon team members. Today, thousands of women across the United States (as well as Canada, France and even South Africa) participate in a variety of training programs.

Kirsten DeHart was on maternity leave after having her second daughter when she first read about Moms In Motion in a magazine for triathletes. DeHart, herself a long-time triathlete as well as an NCAA All-American swimmer and cross-country skier, loved the idea of a training group for moms. So, she decided to start a Spokane chapter.

About 50 women signed up last year to train for Bloomsday, the Valley Girl Triathlon or the Spokane Half-Marathon, DeHart says. Some of the women got hooked and signed up for multiple events.

Moms In Motion training sessions aren’t a traffic jam of jogging strollers. Participants show up sans kids, carving out an hour or so to focus on themselves.

“This is mom time,” says DeHart, a physical therapist. “A lot of women have guilt in doing that … (But) it’s also important for Mom to get an hour.”

Jennifer Marquis, a mom of two from Spokane, joined the group last year. Her husband hangs out with the little ones while she trains with the group. She also puts her kids in child-care at the Y while she exercises, or she takes the 2-year-old jogging with her while her 5-year-old goes to kindergarten.

“I just had to schedule it, really,” says Marquis, 36. “I just had to take a look at the schedule and see what fit.”

Marquis hadn’t done much running since her kids were born, she says. But she started up again. She competed in Bloomsday and the triathlon in Medical Lake, as well as a half-marathon.

In the process, she dropped 20 pounds.

“I just have so much fun,” she says. “I just feel also that I have more energy to keep up with my kids.”

Moms In Motion participants pay a $65 annual registration fee, along with a separate charge for each event.

It costs $85, for example, to participate in the Bloomsday training team. The fee pays for a structured training program, along with guest lectures, access to the Moms In Motion Web site, and discounts at local businesses.

The money also goes toward an after-race party for participants and their families.

The group raises money to donate to the Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery in Spokane.

In addition to Bloomsday, group members can choose to train for a track competition night, a summer triathlon and a fall half-marathon.

Women of all athletic skill levels should feel comfortable joining, says member Lisa Foster.

“Last year, I was one of the slowest and still got lots of encouraging words from the other ladies,” says Foster, a 43-year-old mom from Spokane. “We’re just pushing each other.”

With four kids ranging in age from 10 to 16, Foster has become creative about making time for exercise in her day.

On some days, she rides her bike to work. When she takes a son to soccer practice, she runs around the field.

When she takes another son to wrestling practice, she jogs around the high school track.

“They really like it,” she says of her kids. “A couple of my kids have started to run.”

Foster’s ultimate goal is to run a marathon before she turns 45.

“I want to see how fit I can be in my 40s,” says Foster, a dietitian. “I want to stay active and healthy. … I just notice that it helps me deal with stress better.”

DeHart says she has been amazed by the progress made by the women in her training groups. Some started out barely being able to run for a minute or two, and by the fall they were running a half-marathon.

“My whole goal with this is to get people out there that normally wouldn’t see themselves doing this,” she says.