
DATE: Tuesday, June 24, 1997                TAG: 9706240051

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY PAT DOOLEY, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  185 lines

THE EARLY BIRD FEELS THE BURN PREDAWN EXERCISE FUELS THE DAY FOR AN ENERGETIC FEW

IT'S ABOUT 4:45 in the morning. Streetlights are the only sentinels in the darkness of Norfolk's Larchmont neighborhood. The narrow, tree-lined avenues are barren of traffic, and the nighttime silence is broken only by the gentle chirping of birds.

Then, three sinewy figures emerge from a parking garage beneath a set of brick condominiums. Two more walk out of the blackness of the street to meet them, forming a semicircle on an otherwise empty corner.

It could be a crime in the making. Most folks, after all, are still tucked snugly in their beds.

But the five companions - all women ages 34 to 49 - aren't out to make trouble. They're out to make time.

In moments, they're off and running into the night.

Before the sun even dreams of peering over the horizon, Jeanne Kruger, Jeanne Bowers, Connie Thomson, Debbie Kopecky and Bee Andrews will have run 7 miles - in an impressive 56 minutes.

They have the streets to themselves, running side by side at nearly the same pace.

But they aren't alone in their pre-dawn pursuit of exercise.

Though they're not quite ready to call it a trend, fitness professionals say more people nationwide are turning to early mornings to reap the benefits of exercise and wring more out of their already busy lives.

Across South Hampton Roads, a few enthusiasts are claiming those hours before 6 a.m. for their little corner of the day.

In Virginia Beach's Bay Colony, for example, Dudley and Elizabeth Ware run or bicycle six days a week. They're on the streets by 5.

In Chesapeake, 68-year-old Ruth Spicer is one of the first members in the door at New Fitness, where she walks on a treadmill and trains with weights, beginning about 5:30 a.m. weekdays.

But it's more than exercise that keeps these early birds from pressing the snooze button and rolling back off to dreamland.

Exercising before dawn leaves more time for friends, family and other interests at the end of the day, they say.

Mornings, before the world awakens, are peaceful. Traffic hazards are few. Exercising creates a halo of energy all day and helps relieve stress. Workouts are easier to fit in before the day becomes cluttered by the demands of home and family.

In summer, there is an added bonus: seeing the sun rise.

``It's a wonderful way to start the day,'' says Bowers, a wife, mom and manager of personnel and information systems at Norfolk's Eastern Virginia Medical School.

Bowers, 47, started running 16 years ago to lose 5 pounds after her second pregnancy.

``I liked being outside, I liked being away from the kids, and I liked having time to myself,'' she says, looking back on those early 1-mile or 2-mile runs. She has since finished eight marathons and runs with her friends six mornings a week.

The other women in her group also are known on the marathon circuit. Andrews, 34, has run since she was 12. She has logged 24 marathons and is training for one coming up in San Francisco. Kruger, who will soon turn 50, wants to celebrate by running the New York City Marathon in November. Dean of students at Blair Middle School in Norfolk, she has completed 20 marathons even though she only started running a decade ago.

The group has run together in the mornings for about five years. The women follow various routes in Larchmont and West Ghent, near their homes. Not everyone goes all the time, and they average about three runners a day.

Starting time is non-negotiable - 4:50 a.m. sharp. The women, all professionals in varied careers, have schedules to keep. They run through rain, wind and even winter, and they joke that they are like postal carriers - nothing stops them.

But the runs are not all business. The five have become close friends over the years. Exercise, which brought them together, is now almost secondary.

``We never talk about running,'' Kruger says. ``We talk about life.''

``You just can't put in these kinds of miles and play games with one another,'' she says.

They depend on each other for support, advice, encouragement. They have shared the deaths of children and parents, difficulties with teenagers, career choices.

A comfort factor binds them, says Andrews, publisher for the Infinet on-line Internet service in Norfolk. She often works 11-hour days and runs again at noon. For the group, she says, the morning outings are more pleasure than work.

Each tumbles out of bed shortly after 4, pulls on shorts and a T-shirt and heads out the door.

``It's just a matter of getting out of bed and putting on running shoes,'' says Thomson, 36, operations manager for NDC Medical Center in Norfolk.

``I think it's so much easier to be disciplined because you have people waiting for you,'' says Thomson, who started running a block or two in 1983 and has since logged two marathons. She gets up at 4:15 and heads to the office by 6:45.

Kopecky, 34, gets up at 4:40 weekdays - 10 minutes before the run. A fitness specialist at USAA insurance corporation in Norfolk and the mother of 2-year-old twins, she ran track in high school and college and has finished seven marathons. Sometimes, she doesn't get to sleep until after 11 at night. Her running buddies aim for 9 or 10.

In the morning before running, Andrews drinks a diet soda, Kruger a cup of coffee. The others don't reach for caffeine, and none of them eats.

Bowers often slips in a load of laundry, washes dishes, prepares lunches or cooks the evening's meal before getting to the office around 7:30.

Like other early exercisers, the women say they are morning people, for whom running comes naturally.

Dudley and Elizabeth Ware share that affinity for mornings.

Married about five years, the Wares met in the mid-1980s while both were students at the University of Virginia.

Dudley Ware, 33, had played football and lacrosse in high school in Norfolk. Elizabeth, also 33, ran track at her high school in Alexandria.

In college, they ran and bicycled together and competed in occasional races. But mornings were for studying, not exercise.

``I've always been a morning person, but I couldn't imagine pounding the pavement in the morning,'' says Dudley Ware, vice president at Norfolk Dredging Co.

After college, he moved to a Virginia Beach apartment without air-conditioning. To escape the summer heat, he began bicycling before dawn.

``I found I could be half asleep and be on a bike,'' he says.

Now, the Wares enjoy early runs and bike rides together.

``The routine is, he gets up first,'' says Elizabeth, a physical therapist at Healthsouth Rehabilitation Center in Virginia Beach. ``He drinks coffee, he organizes his day and shaves - all before he goes out. I wake up and put on my clothes and go.''

Their training is intense now, the Wares say, because they're preparing for an Ironman triathlon in July. It will require each to swim 2.4 miles, cycle 11.2 miles and run 26 miles. So they also swim at noon, run again later in the day and increase their distances on weekends.

If they weren't training, Elizabeth says, ``we'd still get up at the same time in the morning and exercise. It would probably be only 3 or 5 miles instead.''

They enjoy the serenity of the mornings and the way exercise invigorates them throughout the day.

Sometimes, they hook up with an early-morning group of Oceanfront cyclists. There are other familiar faces, too - a dozen or so runners, cyclists and walkers the Wares pass on their route, which often includes the Boardwalk, Great Neck, Shore Drive and Fort Story.

On the Boardwalk, the Wares sometimes see late-night revelers who are ending their day with the sunrise.

The key to sticking with an early-morning routine, Dudley Ware says, is getting everything ready the night before, ``so you don't have a chance to change your mind.''

Are they ever tempted to skip?

``Oh, sure,'' says Elizabeth. ``If it's really pouring down rain . . . but you always feel better when you go.''

Ruth Spicer calls morning exercise ``a natural high.''

She awakens at 5, without an alarm clock, and heads for the gym.

``As soon as I open my eyes, I get on my exercise clothes, brush my teeth and go out the door,'' she says. ``I don't bother to make my bed, have coffee or anything.''

She's always liked the mornings. A retired clerk for an insurance adjuster, Spicer used to get up early with her husband, fix his breakfast and lunch, and see him off to work.

After his death about a year ago, she began sleeping late, taking naps and going to bed early.

``I was depressed,'' says Spicer, a fit 150-pounder who sports short gray curls. ``I had to do something.''

She had taken an aerobics class at her church before but never considered herself an exercise enthusiast. Nonetheless, Spicer signed up for a gym membership on her first visit and has hardly missed a day since.

Her workouts include walking on a treadmill for 1 1/2 miles and using free weights and machines to tone her arms and legs.

She's lost fat, gained muscle and says she feels better all day.

``Now I can face life again,'' she says.

Spicer's also made friends among the small group of exercisers who frequent New Fitness in Great Bridge before dawn, including personal trainer Julia Moldovan and fellow member Foye Spraker, 71, who joined the gym about a year ago.

``I had never been into exercise in my life,'' says Spraker, a retired elementary school principal in Chesapeake. ``I didn't have time for exercise.''

Now, she makes time.

Both women say they probably wouldn't exercise if they couldn't go early. Too many things would get in the way, Spraker says.

``And, just look outside,'' she tells a visitor as the sun is coming up. ``Isn't it beautiful?'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

From left, Connie Thomson, Jeanne Kruger, Debbie Kopecky, Jeanne

Bowers and Bee Andrews run near ODU at 5 a.m.

Photo

HUY NGUYEN / The Virginian-Pilot

Ruth Spicer, 68, uses a treadmill at New Fitness in Chesapeake,

where she starts exercising about 5:30 a.m. She says she gets ``a

natural high'' from her workouts, which also include weight

training.