Topic: News: Melanie Roach training for 2008 Olympics

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Mother shows strength on and off weightlifting platform

"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well." — Olympic creed, by Pierre de Coubertin.

BONNEY LAKE, Wash. (AP) — The front of Melanie Roach's refrigerator looks like millions of others across America:

A drawing in crayon that her oldest son Ethan did, with "To: Mom" in bold letters, and another masterpiece in what looks like fingerpaint. Pictures of family and friends, pizza coupons, magnets with the Beijing Olympic mascots on them.

And, next to Ethan's drawing, three photos of Melanie from the 2007 U.S. weightlifting championships, where she won a national title just seven months after career-threatening back surgery.
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"It's not a big deal, it's really not," she insists. "I still put my pants on one leg at a time. I'm still a mom. I'm still a business owner. I'm still a wife."

And one of the best female weightlifters in the world — an eight-time U.S. champion who can finally claim a place at the Olympics at next week's trials in Atlanta.

One hundred years after Pierre de Coubertin adopted that Olympic creed, this 5-foot-1, 33-year-old mother with cover-girl looks and three children, one of whom is autistic, is the perfect embodiment of it.

For Roach's story illustrates the struggle of sport and life — challenges and perseverance, disappointments and triumph, tears and celebration.

Had Roach made the Olympic team in 2000, had she not herniated a disk in her back eight weeks before the trials, who knows where her journey might have led? She might not have the family she does now, or the gymnastics gym she and her husband own.

But "what ifs" are a waste of time. Everything really does happen for a reason, Roach said, the bumps and the blessings.

"At the end of the day, it's so much more than competing in the Olympics," Roach said. "It's about the journey and relationships and being able to persevere through trials. Looking inside yourself and finding what motivates you."

For Roach, that's family first, Olympic dream second.

Or maybe they're so entwined it's impossible to separate the two.

It was just four weeks after Camille, her third child, was born in 2005 that Roach decided to make a comeback. But it wasn't as simple as going back to the gym. She and husband Dan had, by any measure, a full life. Dan is a state representative, making the 90-minute trip back and forth to Olympia, Wash., each day when the legislature is in session. Melanie ran their business, Roach Gymnastics, a gym with 500 students and 17 employees. They are deeply involved in their church, too, with Melanie teaching Sunday school and Dan serving as Sunday school president.

But something was missing, and they both knew it.

"Not making it in 2000 just killed her," Dan said. "It was important to her to have that closure."

Added Melanie, "It's like having a lick of a lollipop but not being able to bring it home."

So they have found a way to make it work. The entire family.

Last weekend, Dan played with the kids at home while Melanie trained. There was a local weightlifting meet that doubled as a fundraiser at the gym afterward, so she stuck around and was soon joined by the rest of the family. Melanie was getting a post-workout massage when Dan and the kids arrived, and Camille and Drew quickly climbed on top of her.

When it came time for Melanie to give a short speech about autism, 3-year-old Camille and 7-year-old Ethan ran to stand at her side. Five-year-old Drew, who is autistic, came out with Dan to complete the family portrait.

"With the support group she has, they're able to do it. But it's still a lot," said Bonnie Kosoff, Melanie's mother, who lives with the family Monday to Thursday to help out.

Melanie and Dan's planners are both so jam-packed you can barely see the white of the page. A recent morning at their house was a nonstop buzz of activity.

After Melanie got Drew ready for school, she handed him off to Dan. While Dan took Drew to the bus, Melanie went over Ethan's spelling homework with him. Dan went back on bus patrol with Ethan, taking Camille with him so Melanie could get ready for appointments with her chiropractor and nutritionist, and pack for a photo shoot later that afternoon.

The strangest thing? All of this has made Melanie a better athlete.

"You learn not to sweat the small stuff, and I think that's transferred to weightlifting," she said. "(In 2000) I was a little immature in terms of experience, in terms of distractions. I was so caught up in the end result."

All that changed in May 2005 when they got a devastating diagnosis — Drew, then 2, was autistic.

Autism is a neurobiological disorder that impairs a person's ability to communicate and relate to others. Though therapy can help those with autism, there is no cure. That was the realization that cut the Roaches the deepest. This sweet-faced little boy with the big brown eyes might never reach milestones that other children — even some other special-needs children — do. Drew might never graduate high school. He might never go on a mission. He might never marry.

At one point, Melanie was so despondent she went to their bishop for guidance.

"I was basically complaining. 'This isn't what I signed up for,'" Melanie said. "He basically looked at me and said, 'Yes, you did sign up for this. This is exactly what you signed up for.' ... That was a huge turning point for me. I started letting go of trying to make Drew better and started enjoying him for who he is.

"I still hope for a miracle," she added. "But I don't dwell on it."

Drew can now ask for certain foods or movies he likes, and will say "hello" or "goodbye" or "I love you" when prompted. He's in a full-time kindergarten where he gets individualized attention, and will play with his brother and sister for brief periods.

But he still needs to be monitored 24 hours a day. Every door and cabinet in the Roach house must be locked with a key so Drew can't get in — or, more important, out — if someone isn't watching. When they go somewhere, it's with the knowledge they might have to leave immediately if Drew has a tantrum.

It is a daily challenge, for sure, but never a burden.

Melanie and Dan met in 1998, in the most random of fashions. The son of a longtime state senator, Dan was running for state representative and called a family friend to talk about the campaign. Melanie happened to be housesitting, and answered the phone.

"She told me she was a weightlifter, but she had this real sweet voice," Dan said. "I was kind of intrigued, and we kept talking."

After about 10 minutes, they hung up. But the next day, as Dan was standing alongside a road holding up a campaign sign, he noticed a woman in a passing car slow down and stare at him.

"The construction workers in the truck behind her were like, 'That girl's checking you out,'" Dan said, smiling.

He wondered if it might be that same woman he'd talked to on the phone the day before. Sure enough, it was. She pulled off the road and introduced herself. They were married the following year, and have been supporting each other's dreams ever since.

"We start with taking care of our relationship," Dan said. "Putting limits on yourself, you don't have to. The sky is the limit. But before you go out and chase that dream, make sure you have a strong foundation."

When Melanie and Dan go to meet Ethan at the bus stop, they walk hand-in-hand. They don't leave the house or end a phone call without saying "I love you." They have a date night each week. For Mother's Day, Dan plans to let Melanie sleep in and prepare a special breakfast when she wakes up. And, of course, Ethan, Camille and Drew will be his helpers.

They engage Drew as they do Ethan and Camille, asking if he wants to go for a swing when the family is in the backyard after school or telling him to get up off the floor. When Dan starts to chase Drew after spending the morning with the kids so Melanie could train, she stops him and says, "That's OK, honey, it's my turn."

That selflessness has rubbed off on the rest of their family. When an older child refers to Drew as "that kid," Ethan quickly pointed out that "His name is Drew."

"When you put a little boy with autism in this hand, an Olympic dream gone bad in the other, that Olympic dream thing doesn't seem so big," Melanie Roach said. "I would be happy to trade the Olympic dream to have my son back."

But she knows that will not happen.

Growing up, Roach dreamed of going to the Olympics. Only in her dream, she was wearing a leotard and doing handsprings and back tucks on the balance beam, not lifting weights that would make most grown men buckle.

It wasn't until she'd finished high school and was looking for a way to get in better shape while she juggled college and a budding coaching career that she even tried weightlifting.

She was instantly hooked.

"It gets in your blood, and it never leaves," she said. "It's a natural sport for me. It's like it was made for me to do it."

Say weightlifting, and most people think of muscle-bound gym rats who boast of bench pressing a couple hundred pounds. But Olympic-style weightlifting is far different — the quickest way to irritate a lifter is to ask how much she can bench press — and is as much about flexibility, speed and coordination as it is strength and power.

As for those physical stereotypes, one look at Roach shatters those. Caramel-colored highlights peek out from her dark hair, cut in a fashionable bob. A fresh coat of red nail polish shines through the white chalk dust on her hands as she trains, and the stones in her silver hoop earrings sparkle when they catch the light. A pink plastic Strawberry Shortcake lunch bag is tucked between her backpack and gear bag.

And just like in her gymnastics days, her makeup is perfectly done when she steps on the competition platform.

"I'm a girlie girl, I can't help it. That's who I am," she said.

As a former gymnast, Roach was a natural at weightlifting. Three months after she started lifting, she qualified for her first national event, where she took third in her weight class.

"I've seen a lot of people with that kind of potential. But potential is like a bag of gold that's buried in the woods. You've got to find it," said John Thrush, Roach's one and only coach since she began lifting in April 1994.

"Potential has to be backed up by a whole lot of work."

By 1998, Roach was the top weightlifter in the United States. She set a world record in the 53-kilogram class (117 pounds) with a 113-kilogram lift (250 pounds) in the clean and jerk, and was the first American woman to lift double her body weight.

She was all but guaranteed a spot at the Sydney Olympics. But eight weeks before the trials, she heard a "Pop! Pop!" as she did a squat and felt a twinge in her lower back. She had herniated a disk.

She went to the Olympic trials anyway, and tried to lift in the snatch portion. But the pain was too great, and she withdrew. She spent the rest of the competition in the stands, crying as she watched other women win her spot at the Sydney Games.

"It's a classic case of missing the golden ring. It's right there within your grasp and you can't reach that far," Thrush said. "Overnight, it was just gone and nothing could be done at that point. There was no time left to fix anything."

Even when she wasn't lifting, her back problems lingered. And eight months into her comeback, the pain returned with fearsome intensity. Tests showed fragments of that herniated disk had broken off, and that excruciating pain was the shards digging into her nerves.

Her old massage therapist, Greg Summers, was now a chiropractor, and it was only by working with him that she was able to keep training. Still, she'd go five or six weeks, then have to take two off to let the pain subside.

She managed to train enough to win another national title — her sixth — in 2006 and make the world team. Finally, at the world championships, she asked a USA Weightlifting doctor if there was anything that could be done for her back.

There was, in fact, a new procedure called microdiscectomy that could help. Instead of cutting through muscle to remove the bone fragments, doctors could now pinch them to the side and work around them, reducing the recovery time. Though there was no guarantee the surgery would help, the Roaches decided it was worth the risk.

She flew to Los Angeles on a Sunday at the end of October 2006, and had the surgery Monday. On Tuesday, she was on a plane back home. The pain that had practically immobilized her was gone. She was back in the gym five days later, and doing Olympic lifts eight weeks after that.

Seven months later, she lifted a total of 184 kilograms (406 pounds) at the U.S. championships, her best result in nine years. In July 2007, she won a bronze medal at the Pan American Games.

Though she didn't have her greatest meet at the U.S. championships on Feb. 29, her total of 183 kilograms was enough to win her weight class and qualify for one of the four Olympic berths. She still must compete at the Olympic trials next weekend but, barring another disaster, she will be on her way to Beijing in August.

After eight years, and a lifetime's worth of tests and triumphs, her journey finally will be complete.

"My story isn't really about me," she said. "It's about a group of people that came together to try and make this Olympic dream happen. Everyone struggles. Everyone has challenges. No one is perfect. It's about how you handle it."

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Olympic hopeful in weightlifting proves to be super strong mom
By John Romano

The lady believed in strength. In some ways, was a slave to it.

From the time she was 19 and was talked into abandoning a fading gymnastics career for weightlifting, Melanie Roach found glory and purpose in her might.

In between back injuries, surgery and retirements, she won seven national championships and, 10 years ago, became the first U.S. woman to lift more than twice her body weight above her head.

The mother begged for strength. Some nights, despaired if she would ever find it.

By the time she was 30 and was told the second of her three children was autistic, Melanie Roach would find herself on her knees, praying by her son's bedside as he slept.

After months of anxiety and depression, she went to her bishop for solace. This, she said, is not what I signed up for when I became a mother. No, the bishop replied, this is exactly what you signed up for.

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The Olympic weightlifting trials start Friday in Atlanta, and Melanie Roach is running about eight years behind schedule.

Back in 2000, she was close to a phenomenon in the weightlifting world. A Terminator in a cheerleader's body. An elbow injury in gymnastics had led her to weightlifting in 1994 and, four years later, she was setting new standards in the sport.

The Sydney Olympics would be like her debutante's ball for the clean-and-jerk crowd. Roach was young, attractive and, presumably, could whip your tail around a set of barbells.

She was a few months from the 2000 trials when she got lazy with her technique in a workout and felt a popping sound in her back. Roach had a herniated disk, and a world of pain.

She tried qualifying at the trials but had to withdraw. So as others lived her dream on the podium in front of her, Roach sat in the bleachers and cried.

"To be that close," she says today, "was devastating."

Around that time, Roach retired from competitive weightlifting. She had recently married a state legislator in Washington and decided it was time to raise a family.

Ethan came first, and his brother Drew was born 15 months later. Camille would complete the picture two years down the road.

Melanie tried reviving her weightlifting career from time to time, but the back pain would always return and send her to icy bathtubs and cold realizations. Instead, she devoted herself to husband Dan's political career and the gymnastics school she opened in Bonney Lake, Wash., south of Seattle.

If her Olympic dream had been shattered, at least the rest of her life was in order. That was what she assumed before her mother-in-law pulled her aside the day after a Christmas party in 2004.

Pam Roach, a longtime state senator herself, watched 2-year-old Drew the night before. He didn't interact with other children. He seemed distant and withdrawn. Pam went home and spent the night doing research on the internet. And now she was telling Dan and Melanie that she was worried Drew might be autistic. A battery of tests later confirmed it.

"There was a long time after that where I was really sad, just very depressed," Melanie said. "You realize all of the expectations you have for your child may not happen. He might not graduate from high school, he might not ever date a girl, or go to school dances. He might not go to college. We're very active Mormons, and he'll probably never go on a mission. He may not get married or have children of his own.

"It's almost like you're mourning the loss of a child when they're diagnosed with autism."

For months, Melanie was consumed with the diagnosis. The more she learned of autism, the more she realized her family was never going to find that perfect picket-fence existence.

It wasn't until she visited with her bishop that Melanie learned to embrace her new role in life.

"That conversation sort of changed her perspective," Dan said. "Instead of being sad because of all the things Drew will never be, she started accepting who he is and what he does offer the family."

They learned doors and cabinets needed to be locked to keep Drew out of trouble. They learned a change in diet, and daily therapy, could make a huge difference in Drew's life.

They explained to Camille that Drew's brain was a little broken and he needed special attention, so their 3-year-old now greets her 5-year-old brother's bus every day and walks him home hand in hand.

They learned that, unlike a lot of autistic children, Drew enjoys hugs. He lives for piggyback rides and would be content to let Dan tickle him for hours on end. And they learned the tantrums are inevitable.

"He doesn't like playing with other kids. He's not even aware really of other kids," Melanie said. "But he will let you in his space now. He's really very loving. He'll give lots of hugs now, which is very special because he can't communicate verbally.

"He doesn't talk very much. He tells us in one-word utterances if he wants something food-related or a movie or to go outside. He's considered mildly autistic, but he still needs help dressing himself and I have to brush his teeth. We do a lot of hand-over-hand action, bringing his hands through the motions so eventually he'll learn how to do things for himself.

"He's a sweet little kid. Really just a sweetheart. But I know there will always be a part of him that we will never be able to get to."

Shortly after Drew's diagnosis, Melanie returned to weightlifting in earnest. Devoting so much time to her business, Dan's political career and the children, she said the time in the gym became her haven. If their schedule sounds hectic, Dan says you would be amazed at what can be accomplished if you rid yourself of nonessential activities such as television.

One year into her comeback, Melanie was again sidelined with the back injury. This time, she wasn't going to give up. A new, minimally evasive back surgery had been developed and she agreed to try it.

Five months later, she won her seventh national championship.

Roach, 33, is among the favorites to earn a spot on the Olympic team in this week's trials, but no longer takes such things for granted.

"That's one thing Drew has taught us is perspective. That's what he's brought to our family," Dan said. "The kids are really learning what it means to rally around Drew and be a family … it's something that can tear a family apart or it can bring it closer together. That's what we've chosen to do."

The entire family will be in Atlanta this week for Melanie's shot at the Olympic Trials. And if that means everyone has to keep an eye on Drew to make sure he doesn't rush the stage, then so be it.

For now, Melanie Roach and her family have learned to enjoy today and not worry so much about tomorrow. That's part of why she no longer frets about the missed Olympic opportunity in 2000.

After all, she says, if she had made that Olympic team she probably wouldn't have the same family she has today. The lesson was difficult in coming, but heartwarming in its result.

As she explains this, you realize, not for the first time, that a mother must be strong.

Sometimes, stronger than she knows.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Weightlifter all that — and a mom, too
By Tom Archdeacon

It happens all the time.

People first meet Melanie Roach — see the one-time model's good looks and her gymnast's stature, all 5-foot-1, 117 pounds of it — and they don't believe her.

"They say there's no way you're a weightlifter," Roach said with a laugh as we spoke in Chicago recently. "But I am, and more women in the country need to know you can look like a girl and still be strong. I'm excited to be someone who is changing stereotypes."

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The challenge of becoming an Olympic weightlifter is nothing compared
to the challenge of Melanie Roach's daily routine. 'You learn not to sweat the
small stuff, and I think that's transferred to weightlifting,' Roach said of raising
her autistic son, Drew, 5. New York Times photo by Kevin P. Casey

And if there was ever an athlete who doesn't fit stereotypes, it is Roach, a 33-year-old Washington businesswoman and mother of three young kids, one of whom — 5-year-old son Drew — is autistic and needs constant care.

In 1998, she became the first American woman to hoist more than twice her body weight — she cleaned and jerked 248.6 pounds — over her head.

That was a decade ago and yet Saturday, May 18 — at the U.S. weightlifting trials in Atlanta — she'll likely qualify for a trip to Beijing and her first Olympic Games.

She was the favorite to make the 2000 Games, but a severe back injury scuttled the attempt. After that, she and her husband began their family, and it's only recently that she's surged back onto the weightlifting scene.

People can't believe that either and again she laughs:

"Weightlifting is the easiest part of my day now. When I go to the gym, I see it as a privilege. It's a moment to myself. I'm not chasing those three little kids, getting them ready for school, doing laundry, running a business, making meals, helping with homework, getting everybody in bed and helping Drew with all his needs.

"Having the opportunity to be a mom has balanced me out and made me a more complete athlete."

With this being Mother's Day, Roach is a perfect athlete to celebrate.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Bonney Lake's weightlifting mom finally makes Olympics
By Travis Pittman

SEATTLE – It's been a long hard road for Melanie Roach, but the Bonney Lake resident proved Saturday that persistence, patience and pride pay off.

33-year-old mother of three was the top-rated lifter at the U.S. Olympic weightlifting trials, and on Saturday
claimed one of four female spots allotted to the U.S. She'll be joined in Beijing by Carissa Gump,Natalie Woolfolk and Cheryl Haworth.

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From left, Cheryl Haworth, Natalie Woolfolk, Carissa Gump, and Melanie Roach,
are announced as the U.S. Olympic weightlifting team after the Olympic Trials.

Roach qualified for the US Olympic Weightlifting team Saturday, eight years after a back injury seemingly ended any chance at glory on the world's biggest athletic stage.

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Roach was a promising gymnast at Auburn High School, but an injury cut her career short. Part of her rehabilitation was weightlifting and she became hooked on the sport.

On the road to the 2000 Sydney Olympics, she herniated a disc in her back and had called it quits. She started a family with her husband, Washington state legislator Dan Roach. But she never lost the passion for competition and has since become the top ranked women's weightlifter at an age when most others would be thinking retirement.

Roach says one of the things she enjoys about weightlifting is that your competition never changes. If you have to lift 100 pounds, it will always be 100 pounds.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Mother of Three Aims for US Olympic Weightlifting Gold
By Teresa Sullivan

American weightlifter Melanie Roach, 33,  is finally fulfilling an Olympic dream that began more than eight years ago.  The petite mother of three is one of four female weightlifters who will represent the United States this August at the Beijing Summer Games.  VOA's Teresa Sullivan has more.

It was just a squat.  An ordinary, routine squat.  A simple strength-building exercise.  The cornerstone of a weightlifter's training regimen.  Stand erect with a barbell resting behind your neck on top of your shoulders.  Make sure your feet are slighting turned out, then bend through your knees until your hips are level with your knee joints, and return to a standing position.  Nothing to it.

Melanie Roach had done thousands of squats as a world-class weightlifter.  But on this day, on this squat, something went terribly wrong for the 25-year-old athlete as she trained for the 2000 Sydney Olympics.   Her form was off just a little.  It was no big deal, until she felt two "pops" in her back. 

The "pops" were the advent of a severe injury that would foil Roach's hopes for Sydney, and plague her for the next seven years. 

"I was really a shoe-in to make the 2000 Olympic Team.  But an injury about eight weeks before the Olympic trials ... I had herniated a disc in my back ... prevented me from making the Olympic team," she recalled.

Melanie did not know it then, but she had just taken the first step of a long, but ultimately gratifying journey to the 2008 Games in Beijing.

Prior to that fateful squat in 2000, Roach was happily riding the apex of a meteoric rise to the elite echelons of her 53-kilogram weight class.

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Former weightlifting champion Melanie Roach reacts after a lift in the clean and jerk during the US Olympic weightlifting trials in Atlanta, 17 May 2008

She won her first national championship in 1997, after only three years of competing.  From there, Roach became the first American woman to clean-and-jerk more than twice her own body weight in a competition, and was the top-ranked female weightlifter in the United States.  By 2000, she was a four-time national champion, and determined to reach the Sydney Games despite her injury.

"I actually went to the Olympic trials in 2000, and I tried to compete, but I ended up sitting in the stands and watching as everybody fought for the Olympic spots," she added.

Roach started off as a gymnast.  Slim and feminine, she stands a mere one meter, 55 centimeters tall, and maintains a competition weight of 53 kilograms.

Melanie says she began weightlifting after a gymnastics judge introduced her to coach John Thrush, who is still her trainer today.

"The moment I set foot in the gym and tried weightlifting, I knew it was for me. I absolutely fell in love with the sport from the very first day," she noted.  "It was such an easy transition from gymnastics to weightlifting.  I think I spent a lot of time on my hands so my upper body was really strong.  And in gymnastics you have speed, flexibility and strength, and those are all things that we need to be great weightlifters."

After missing the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Melanie took five years off to focus on family.  She gave birth to three children, opened a gymnastics school, and helped husband, Dan, with his political career as a Washington state legislator.

She also tried several times to return to competitive weightlifting, but severe pain from her worsening back injury always stopped her. 

Roach says she gained new perspective for weightlifting from challenges faced by her young son, Drew, who has the developmental disability, autism.

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Melanie Roach gets a kiss from her son Drew, 5, as they play at their home in Bonney Lake, Washington,  2 May 2008

And Melanie says husband, Dan, continues to be a big help, too.

"I have an extremely supportive husband, and without his blessing, it would have never happened," she said.

Melanie's sights were already set on the Beijing Olympics when she successfully underwent a new type of microsurgery in 2006.  She was training five days later, pain-free for the first time since feeling those two "pops" in her back seven years earlier.

Fully recovered, Roach stormed back to the top of the U.S. women's rankings, and went on to win a bronze medal at the 2007 Pan American Games in Brazil.

But if you think Melanie does any heavy lifting around the house, think again.

"If it is not attached to a bar, I do not lift it," she explained.  "I am very, very careful. I am very protective of my low back, so I have to be very careful.  One thing that could keep me from Beijing would be an injury."

Roach says she plans to retire from competitive weightlifting after Beijing to concentrate on being a mom, wife, and business owner.

For better or worse, this American athlete's Olympic odyssey will finally end this August in Beijing.

An ancient Chinese proverb states, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," and so perhaps it could be said that Melanie Roach's journey to the Beijing Olympics began with a single squat.

[Brian Randell]

This is one of THE Stories I plan to really watch this Summer. Wouldn't it just be awesome if she was able to pull off a medal? 

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Weightlifting Powerhouse Melanie Roach Achieves Olympic Dream
Business Owner and Mother of Three Gets Ready for Beijing

SUMNER, WA, JUNE 25, 2008-Last month, with 228.8 pounds pressed over her 5-foot 2-inch, 117-pound frame, Melanie Roach solidified the dream of a lifetime. After earning her place on the women's U.S. Olympic weightlifting team in Atlanta, Roach is poised to take on the world at the games in Beijing.

As one of the strongest women on the planet it's no wonder that Roach has gotten so far. After suffering the agony of a serious spine injury that prevented her from participating in 2000 games in Sydney, her journey to the Olympics is particularly astounding.

Roach attributes much of her success to a sound nutrition and exercise program. Part of her regime includes daily consumption of ribose. Bioenergy D-ribose, made by one of Roach's corporate sponsors, stimulates the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), an essential energy compound found in every cell in the body. ATP is critical to health and maintaining normal energy-related body functions, and ribose is the essential component in the making of ATP.

"I find if I do all the little things right, the big stuff becomes easier and the weight feels just a tiny bit lighter," she says. "Ribose is one of those things. It helps keep my energy level up in a healthy, natural way, both in the gym and in my real job as a busy mom. It's an important part of my daily routine."

Sustaining her energy is a critical strategy for Melanie. "My events don't allow much recovery time and, before I started using ribose, my second lift was always weaker. Ribose allows my second lift to be as strong as the first," says Roach. "Plus, my muscles recover much more quickly, so that I have the sustained energy I need for peak performance."

Roach's daily routine often begins before the sun comes up with preparing lunches, serving breakfast, and getting her kids off to school. Helping her to juggle it all-including the energy she needs to help her son, Drew, who is autistic-is her husband, Dan, a Washington state representative.

"My time in the gym is hard. But it's also very peaceful and actually high quality 'me' time," says Roach. "To a large extent, it's a luxury and a dream all rolled into one."

She also attributes her success to a comprehensive support network, including her family, coach, her faith, and a cadre of people cheering her on to the 2008 Olympic games. Roach also knows how important it is to maintain her energy. "I do whatever I can to sustain my energy," she says. "Since August, when I first started using ribose, I haven't noticed a drop in energy. This is critical for an Olympic weightlifter, especially with the 35-45 minute lag in between competitive lifts."

[Dave Chiu]

Thanks Chris!!

These are awesome updates on our #1 heading to Beijing -- they make you proud to share the same endeavor!!

A great example of how STRENGTH (physical, moral, etc.) IS BEAUTY!!

Strength is also a great way to describe the Purpose of Life, as referenced in the part about the spiritual counsel she has followed.

GODSPEED Melanie!!