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1st Friday: Workouts not confined to gym

Residents tout Albuquerque's access to outdoors

By Iliana Limón
Friday, August 3, 2007

To transplant Kathie Deja, Albuquerque is a picturesque and perfect paradise for those who want to stay fit.

Deja, 37, moved from Omaha, Neb., to the Duke City nearly five years ago and still swoons over the New Mexico landscape.

"I don't think enough people stop to appreciate just how beautiful the city is and how many opportunities they have to exercise outdoors," she said. "I mean, this city has got it all."

Deja is one of many people who eschew the gyms and take to the outdoors to stay in shape.

You can find them walking, running and cycling along the bosque and ditch banks that run throughout the city.

They zoom by on bicycles on the paths that snake throughout the city and on Tramway Boulevard.

And they traverse the Sandia Mountains, exploring weathered trails and ones that seemed to have been forgotten, despite the city's growing population.

"If you want to be fit in Albuquerque, you really have no excuse not to make it happen," Deja said. "There are barriers in a lot of other places, but you couldn't have more options around here. It's amazing."

She shares years of knowledge about the outdoor sports while working at REI, a store that supplies rookies and experts with everything they could need for every sport under the New Mexico sun.

"I love helping all kinds of people, but my favorite moments are when families come in for the first time and want to learn about ways they can take advantage of the outdoors together," she said. "I love introducing them to all the wonderful things around them."

Deja cites walking, hiking and cycling as some of her favorite activities. She also snowshoes and dabbles in other winter sports.

"I think the bosque has to be my favorite part of the city, because it's just so beautiful," she said. "You get to be so close to the water. It's really a treasure."

Scott Fitzgibbon, a 29-year-old Los Alamos native, said people in the city seem to be getting more into outdoor sports.

"I think people are starting to figure out that it can be a lot more fun staying in shape if you get outside," he said. "I think the bike trails and other stuff in the city are starting to get more crowded every year, but that's really cool."

Jim Chioffe, 36, moved from outdoors mecca Alaska to Albuquerque three years ago. He lives in the Northeast Heights and says he enjoys exploring trails in the Sandia Mountains.

"This city has so much to offer; people come here to get into shape," he said. "The combination of the weather and the altitude make it a great Olympic training center. You see people here training for elite sports all the time. I've run into Kenyans running on Tramway training for marathons and Central European coaches barking orders to their teams running on trails through the Sandias. They wouldn't be here if this wasn't a great place to train."

Chioffe said as much as the city has to offer, one of its biggest selling points is that it's merely a starting point.

"If you look at a six-hour radius from here, which is a perfectly reasonable drive, you get to touch on so many different climates and can try a lot of different outdoor sports," he said. "You pretty much can do it all, and you can't really say that about a lot of other cities."

While others come here by choice, Randy Voas didn't have a say in his move to Albuquerque.

Voas, 40, is stationed at Kirtland Air Force Base and has simple needs the Duke City aptly fulfills.

"I don't know if this is the fittest city or the best city for outdoor sports, but I like to run," he said. "And being out here, I definitely get a lot of chances to run. So it's good for me."