Instructor Spotlight
Meet Ms. Renae, the current Weight Training coach for 2 Claps 1 Snap! Renae grew up as a competitive athlete and is currently the owner of McCloud Fitness on Bainbridge Island, a certified exercise and nutrition coach, personal trainer, group exercise instructor, and a national fitness educator and senior master instructor for TRX Training. She has been in the fitness industry over 35 years, specializing in individual, small group, and large group workouts, helping her clients train for outdoor activities, and offers online coaching. Renae is a high-energy trainer who brings humor, knowledge, and inspiration to her clients and workout programs. She currently enjoys mountain biking, trail running and hiking, obstacle course racing, and has been known to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
The TRX has been Renae’s ‘go to’ piece of equipment for strength training. She especially loved teaching TRX Yoga, which is great for building strength and improving mobility and stability. Renae has been married for 20 years and loves participating in challenging and crazy events with her hubby. To list a few: Spartan Obstacle Course Racing, Ragnar Trail Running, being up in the mountains hiking, running, and mountain biking.
Here’s a little more about Renae and how she got into fitness and participating in challenging activities:
“I grew up playing sports, I loved it so much I thought I was going to be a professional athlete when I grew up. Well, there were no professional women athletes at that time. My fitness career happened by accident, I didn’t know that was an option, who knew!
I started working at a club and taught group classes, got into personal training, massage therapy, and the list continued to grow. And now, I own my own small training studio on Bainbridge Island. I work with women, 50-70 years old, who want to be fit and healthy for life! And yes, these are my athletes—as Jackie Joyner-Kersee put it, “Age is no barrier. It’s a limitation you put on your mind.”
As for my introduction into challenging events, it’s kind of a funny story. I’ve always played sports, it’s what I do. And, I love being the new kid, learning a new sport. When I moved to Bainbridge, I started working with Triathletes; I always said a triathlon would be fun if you didn’t have to swim or run—haha! Somehow, I got talked into doing a Sprint Triathlon. I told my community, if you train 'with me’ I will get you to the start line, you’ll have fun, no pressure, just enjoy the race! This was a ‘free community’ event, 35 women showed interest. I was overwhelmed, we trained for the all-women’s Danskin Sprint Tri and had a blast. We did this for a few years, then I got side tracked into mountain biking in a big way. Fast forward to 2015, I got talked into doing Spartan Obstacle Course racing. And, here we go again.
I created a community, and if they trained 'with me’ I would get them to the start line and have a blast on race day. The last big and challenging event we did was running the Ragnar Rainier Trail race, so much fun, you camp and run relay style all night long! And yes, we were out there for 33 hours.
COVID definitely put a halt to all of this. I’m not sure what’s next on the list or how events will survive…..fingers crossed and staying open to new possibilities and events!”
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