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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/26/07
In February, when we last checked in with our three fitness-minded Gwinnettians who made public their New Year's resolutions, one had reached her goal and two were well on their way. Since then, the other two also have achieved what they set out to do.
"I just said, 'Oh, OK,'" said Sandra Kriviski after she met her goal of swimming a mile. "I knew I could get there."
To their credit, all three — Joseph Hwangbo of Norcross, Jean van der Sommen of Suwanee and Kriviski of Lilburn — have kept going since accomplishing their goals. Not that Hwangbo has a choice. He's in the thick of 13 weeks of Marine boot camp training.
SANDRA KRIVISKI
They are four glorious words, and Sandra Kriviski's ears are ringing with them.
"Are you losing weight?"
The ironic answer is that this assisted-living caregiver actually isn't. She is more toned, though, and slimmer. It is the fruit of reaching her goal, set at the end of 2006, to swim one mile without stopping. She said she reached it in the middle of February and has maintained her thrice-weekly schedule at Mountain Park Aquatic Center in Stone Mountain.
"The best reward that I've had this winter is now I'm a size smaller," said Kriviski, 52, of Lilburn. "I wasn't trying to lose weight and I ended up getting a size smaller."
Previously, Kriviski had been swimming regularly but stopped to try other forms of exercise. She returned because she found swimming wasn't as stressful on her joints.
Kriviski plans to keep it up, and not just because she now has to buy new shorts for the summer because her old ones are too big. And she'll stick with the mile workout.
"I'm not running a marathon or anything," she said. "It's just kind of what I like to do."
JEAN VAN DER SOMMEN
Jean van der Sommen has been exercising regularly now for about five months, since November. It's not routine, though.
"It's not just trying to lift a heavier weight," van der Sommen said. "There's always something new they're having me do."
That variety has helped van der Sommen stay interested in working out at her club, Sugarloaf Fitness Club in Suwanee. She works with stair climbers, medicine balls, balance boards and stability balls, among other things. The focus is improving her core strength.
"The whole thing is totally different from anything I've ever experienced," said van der Sommen, a 54-year-old health insurance saleswoman from Suwanee. "It's been really good."
Her goal was to drop a dress size, which she did 2 1/2 months into her program. She's seeing her body get smaller, firmer and conditioned. About a month ago, she said, she "walked a bazillion miles" at her family's lake house spreading grass seed.
"It was a good tired," she said. "I didn't get sore."
She had another goal, to fit into a particular pair of jeans. She's still not quite there.
"But that's OK," she said. "That's the next size down. So I just keep going."
JOSEPH HWANGBO
Joseph Hwangbo is on his way to becoming a Marine.
Hwangbo, 20, from Norcross, left Gwinnett Feb. 12 for the U.S. Marines boot camp on Parris Island, S.C. He is in a 13-week training program that will mold him into a fighting machine.
Having prepared for boot camp since last fall, he passed the camp's initial strength test easily. Needing to do 44 crunches in two minutes, two pull-ups and a 1 1/2-mile run in 13:30, his numbers were 74, eight and 11:14. Staff Sgt. Mitchell Hamilton, Hwangbo's recruiter, said Hwangbo has written him letters saying he loves it and is glad he chose to join.
"Boot camp, from my point of view, is that it is hard, but you just have to have a positive attitude and always be motivated," Hwangbo wrote in a letter to AJC Gwinnett News in March. "And also stick together as a family."
He'll have to keep working. Part of Hwangbo's training includes the Crucible, a 54-hour test in which recruits are deprived of food and sleep, hike about 40 miles and have to complete a series of team-oriented challenges. The last segment of the Crucible is a 9-mile hike carrying a rifle and a 40-pound pack.
"Your feet are sore, your body's aching, you feel like you're going to collapse," Hamilton said.
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