<I>The Eagle/Cheryl Jessup</I><BR>Beard and Horner both agreed a person has to make time to excercise. "You have to focus on yourself ..." Beard said.

JOHN DAY – “Boomer” is defined rather blandly in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary as “a person born during a baby boom.”

Some local women are finding a much more exciting and energetic way to define the phenomenon. And if you just followed these “boomers” around – assuming you could even keep up with them – you might say the term means a person who is active, healthy and on the go-go-go.

Dixie Beard, 49, of Mt. Vernon and Doll Horner, 60, of John Day are both boomers who are getting – and staying – fit and healthy in a variety of ways. And they’re having a fun time together along the way.

Walking is one of their most frequent activities, which they try to vary by pounding the pavement and paths in different places. They use exercise videos at home when they just can’t get out for some reason and have also been members of Taking Off Pounds Sensibly (TOPS) for about two years.

Many days they join a few other water lovers and get things going early in the morning with a water fitness workout at John Day’s Best Western pool. They’re in and out and off to work, or wherever they need to go, with a good workout under their belts as they start the day.

The duo said they like the water class because it’s something they can do year-round and it’s not dependent on the weather.

Both are also members of the “Seaside Seekers” team on the Blue Mountain Eagle’s “Eagle Challenge 2009,” the annual fitness competition.

Horner, who said that walking is definitely not her favorite exercise activity, also works out at Curves in John Day.

She said that when they’re out walking, Beard is great at encouraging her to keep going a little farther or up just one more hill. Even when all she really wants to do is stop.

“She says to me, ‘You’re either going to die, puke or pass out, but you’re going to keep going,'” Horner said.

They said that support and accountability to each other are very helpful factors.

Beard, who in the past few years has lost about 75 pounds, and Horner, who has lost about 80, both agreed that having each other’s companionship is a big part of their success, too, rather than going it alone.

Beard said she wished she had started exercising and living healthier 10 years ago.

“I used to think I was invincible. And then I finally just realized I needed to start taking care of myself,” she said.

“I need to do it now before I get older and find I can’t even get out of a chair,” Beard added. “I’m just too young to have things start breaking and falling apart.”

As far as people who say they would like to walk and exercise more, but claim they just can’t find the time, Horner said, “I just have to make time. I come first. My exercising is my top priority.”

Beard agreed.

“You have to focus on yourself, feeling healthy and being healthy,” she said.

They also said that we all often put things off until tomorrow and then the older we get, we start realizing that tomorrow is getting closer.

“And then,” Beard said, “tomorrow suddenly becomes today.”