Fort Providence (Jan 21/05) - One foot in front of the other, members of the Fort Providence Running Club have been easing their way back into shape.

Betty Ann Minoza-Nyuli leads the group, usually consisting of six to eight people each Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. They've been doing laps for about 20 minutes but they were logging close to 40 minutes while in peak form, Minoza-Nyuli said.

The club moved indoors, to the Deh Gah school gym, for the winter. To keep things interesting while doing laps around the gymnasium, music is played and those who aren't gasping for air are welcome to converse while exercising.

New members, who are shown how to stretch and good running form, work their way up incrementally from as little as one minute.

Because of the increasing number of people who are obese or diabetic, Minoza-Nyuli said she encourages everyone to join the running club. But starting out isn't easy, she acknowledged.

"When I first started learning to run, my goodness my body was aching, but I said, 'I'm not going to quit now.' I pushed myself to do it," she said.

Bob Head, also of Fort Providence, is not a member of the club but he's a runner with eight years experience. He prefers to brave the elements, even in the winter. He hits the road every weekday morning before 6 a.m., layering his clothes and returning home four kilometres later drenched in sweat and feeling great. He hasn't yet suffered from frostbite, he noted.

The great outdoors poses a few more hazards than the gymnasium. Maintaining his traction and occasionally negotiating his way through dense fog can be a challenge. On one harrowing run, Head encountered a herd of massive bison near Big Rock on a dark winter morning.

"They just got up and ran. I just froze in my footsteps," he recalled. "I couldn't make out which way they were running or what was going on."

Yet exercising outdoors has its rewards, too.

"Sometimes the moon's so big you can see for miles," he said. "It's always something different."

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