Military Wife Focused on Own Buildup During Gulf Conflict

Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but for Kelly Rakow, it’s also made her grow stronger--in her biceps, triceps, quadriceps, abdominals, deltoids, and just about every other muscle in her body.

When Rakow, 25, kissed her husband goodby last December, they both knew she’d have to be strong while he was away. But 1st Lt. Steve Rakow, 26, bound for the Persian Gulf with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit from Camp Pendleton, didn’t know his wife was planning to do that literally.

The night before he left, she made a silent promise to herself. While he was away, she would fill the empty hours with a new project: rebuilding her body.

Nearly seven months later, he’s still in the Gulf, and she’s still bodybuilding. Her husband got to see the work-in-progress two weeks ago when she traveled with a group of 25 military wives to the United Arab Emirates for some much-needed R&R; with their husbands. The rest of the world will get to see the results on Aug. 3, when Rakow competes in her very first bodybuilding contest, the Laguna Beach Muscle Classic.

“I needed something,” she says. “I couldn’t just go to work every day and go home alone. I wanted to come up with a real positive thing in what was possibly a real negative time.”

So she started going to the gym three nights a week, where personal trainer Lou Gaudio guided her through weightlifting workouts. “It was my escape, my refuge,” Rakow says. As the tension built in the weeks leading up to the Gulf War, Rakow took out her fears and frustrations on the weight machines at Gaudio’s Dana Point studio.

“In the gym, people didn’t know who I was or what my situation was at first,” Rakow says. “This was the only place I could go to get away. Everywhere else, people were always coming up to me and asking, ‘How are you doing? How’s your husband? Are you OK?’ I appreciated their concern, but I needed a place where I could just not think about it for awhile.”

Rakow was already an avid exerciser, teaching Jazzercise in San Clemente three nights a week. But she wasn’t comfortable with her body the way it was. “I just wanted to rearrange things, become more streamlined. I was a typical woman, carrying my weight in my lower extremities. My legs were too wide. So we moved things around a little bit.

“The art of bodybuilding is the art of illusion,” she says. “If you make your shoulders wider, your waist and hips will look more narrow. I never wanted to look like a man. I just wanted to be lean and well-defined.”

She didn’t plan to become a competitive bodybuilder, but when Gaudio encouraged her to enter a contest, “I decided to do it.” That was in March; Rakow has been training seriously ever since. Now as the contest approaches, she’s working out nearly every day, continuing her Jazzercise classes, doing additional aerobic workouts to bring her weight down, and dieting “on the starvation plan.”

Rakow laughs when she says that, but Gaudio explains that she really isn’t kidding.

“By the day of the contest, she’ll be very low in body fat and very dehydrated. But that’s just a short-term deal. Almost immediately after the show, she’ll start eating more,” he says.

At 5 feet 4 inches, Rakow weighed 128 pounds when she began her program and is now down to 122. Her goal weight is 114 pounds.

She had hoped that her husband would be back in time to see her compete, but Rakow says she now doesn’t expect him until sometime in the fall. After she finishes the extreme training necessary for the show, she plans to keep herself in shape for his return.

“When he gets back, she’ll be in the best shape she’s ever been,” Gaudio says. “A lot of people let it go after the show’s over, but she has her own motivation to keep going.”

The Gulf War wasn’t the first time Rakow has been left on her own. “We’ve been married three years, and I’d say we’ve spent about 60% of that time apart,” she says. “We both grew up in military families, so we know that’s just part of life. We try to make the best of our time together. We’re into quality, not quantity.”

When they can, the Rakows exercise together, running, lifting weights or just taking long walks on the beach. “Fitness is really important to both of us,” she says. “I know he’s doing a lot of weightlifting on board ship while he’s there.”

Once Rakow’s husband found out about her plan, he encouraged her, and when she showed him the results so far, “he was really impressed. He wanted to show me off.”

Rakow says she’s grown stronger in other ways since December, partly as a result of being alone and partly because of her bodybuilding. “I have a lot more self-confidence,” she says. “When my husband is home, we pretty much split things 50/50, and all of a sudden it was my responsibility to do it all. But I haven’t had any problems. My biggest fear is if something goes wrong with the car, because I don’t know much about that. I have learned to get the oil changed, though.

“But mostly, I just feel better about myself. For the first time, I’m happy with my body. No matter what happens with the contest, I feel like I’ve accomplished something, and that makes me feel like I can accomplish a lot more.”