CANADIAN PHYSIQUE ALLIANCE November/December ISSUE | Página 14

Juan: What an incredible story. I love
that you were so focused for 5 years
building your physique until you actually
felt ready. Please tell me how you got
further into this industry and getting to
the level promoting and emceeing
I had a very difficult pregnancy, retired
my company, and retired from fitness to
focus on my family. Training stopped as I
was told it was the cause of the two
miscarriages I suffered. Three years after
our son’s arrival came a beautiful and
shows. healthy daughter and I couldn’t have
Cindy: Fitness led me down so many Juan : What drove you to come back and
different roads; I continued to train daily
at the gym and kept working the yearly
local bodybuilding show until the day
when Ron passed the torch. In 1998 I co-
promoted the Sudbury and Northern
Championships. I also got to emcee the
show. One of the judges at the event
thought I was pretty good so he hired
me for all of the shows he promoted. It
wasn’t long before I was hosting most of
been happier.
compete and did you have any setbacks
when you came back to competing?
Cindy : I came out of retirement in 2008,
when I was 40 years old and pretty
much picked up where I left off. I
participated in 5 events and decided to
take a backseat in 2010 when my
husband was diagnosed with cancer. I
once again stepped into a far more
the shows throughout the season. important role, that of caregiver. It was
Juan: Wow I am sure life got very busy at suffered greatly through his surgery and
that point. How was it balancing owning
a business and your personal life? At any
point, did you stop competing or being
one year of so much unknown. Tyler
treatment of aggressive chemotherapy
and radiation. It was probably the
toughest times I’d ever navigated all
in this industry? while trying to give my children a
Cindy: At the age of 13 I started working not sure how I did it. The human spirit
with my parents and at 23 I took over
the family business which was a
commercial cleaning company. I worked
steady nights and during the day and
weekends my world revolved around
fitness. It was all quite manageable until
I met my husband at 32 years of age and
we had our first child.
semblance of normal. Looking back, I’m
can be so strong with the right
motivation. Seeing him live was all the
motivation I needed. In sickness and in
health, it was non-negotiable, we were a
team! Here we are 9 years later, and I’m
so grateful to say he beat it! He is
currently cancer free, healthy and strong
as a horse. Once that was resolved, he
told me to get back at it and I did just
that.