Wonder Woman

“Attitude is everything. Don’t make it a chore. You’ll think up every excuse in the book not do to it.”

When you hear the term “dead hang,” it doesn’t necessarily conjure up a positive image. But, in fact, it’s Bonnie Sumner’s claim to fame.

Bonnie, 81, of Woodland Park, currently holds the Guinness World Record for a “dead hang” for someone her age.

The feat requires a person to hang from a level bar without feet touching the ground for a period of time. The world record she had to beat was 2 minutes and 1 second. If it doesn’t sound like that long, just try it.

“It hurts!” she admitted.

Her journey from a schoolgirl in New York City to her “dead hang” fame is a long one.

“I did not come from an athletic family,” she said. “But we got a lot of exercise, walking everywhere, carrying groceries up and down stairs, hanging out laundry, that sort of thing.”

High school gym class was “useless,” she recalled. After she graduated from high school, she followed her sister to college in Madison, Wis. Bonnie met her husband, Mark, during a summer home in New York. After they married, he followed her back to Wisconsin, where they both finished college. There, she took “such a hodge-podge of classes,” they gave her a degree in international relations. Later, when her husband went to law school and got a job in Washington D.C., they moved back east again, and there, she got her master’s in education from Columbia University.

“It was a completely useless program. I learned a lot more in the classroom than I ever did in school,” she said. “Many of my students only spoke Spanish, so I had to find ways to engage them. I took them to museums” and other outings. “I loved it, and I think I was very good at it.”

That was the beginning of Bonnie’s life as an educator — learning how to present material to make it engaging and using experts to support her teaching, she said.

Four children later, she and Mark returned to Madison, where they wanted their children to grow up.

There, she and a friend would walk five miles a day, at first pushing strollers, to keep in shape. She did a little dance exercise on the side. Because the children kept her so busy, she did not go back to teaching, but she did get very involved in “unpaid, continuous” volunteer work.

When her oldest son was badly injured in an ATV accident, she learned about lobbying and testifying and how to get things done when you believe in something, like safety measures for ATVs. People she met there asked her to be on a state health and safety board and that’s when she got into the tobacco issue. She developed a program called “Who’s Kidding Who?” about tobacco use.

After Mark retired, they decided to move to Colorado for a little more temperate climate. While exploring, they stopped in Woodland Park for a bathroom break and were immediately smitten by the community.

“Once we moved here, we discovered the problem of fire,” Bonnie said. Because she was active in the HOA, she researched the issue and shared information with school groups and organized wildfire preparedness events. “My feeling is, if you know how to educate and you know how to find people who can help you, you can take on something you never did before,” Bonnie said.

She also joined the Woodland Fitness Center gym to keep in shape for her new love of hiking and being in the outdoors. She and Mark hiked every chance they got — and Colorado has a lot of good options.

“When I was 55, I read an article … and decided to start doing muscular work. I started weight training with a trainer,” Bonnie recalled.

“Nine years ago, I found a new trainer, Eve Lawrence,” she said. “We just bonded. She pushed me, and continues to push me and she’s so knowledgeable. So, about two and a half years ago, my husband died from cancer. It was just three months from diagnosis to death.”

Bonnie was looking for some new challenge to ease her grief and take her mind off her loss.

“There was an article in the New York Times that said to vary your routine, try something completely different. Their suggestion was to try the dead hang. So, I brought it to Eve, and she said: ‘Let’s try it!’

“Well, the first time, it was maybe 15 seconds. It hurt! But we got into this thing of upping it a little bit at a time. I learned it’s really good for your spine and back muscles. It’s not just a parlor trick.”

She describes it like this: “There is a bar that you grasp and your feet are not touching the ground. You’re hanging there, like a monkey. You hold on as long as you can. You just dangle.”

She had no intention of becoming famous for it.

“Behind my back, Eve and the gym owner applied for a world record. What am I going to say, ‘I can’t do this’?”

Although it is difficult, Bonnie said, “this is not a marathon, or climbing Mount Everest. The world record for a female my age was two minutes and one second. I did two minutes and two seconds. Then we got into this thing and kept going until, finally, I did three minutes and three seconds, which crushed the record.”

The application process for the Guinness World Record is complicated and took time and a lot of work, she said. The Times reporter who wrote the story that originally inspired her came to Colorado with a photographer to document it.

The rules were very specific. “The bar has to be measured and level. There has to be a clock that ticks off the seconds. You have to have at least two witnesses — I had about 15. Eve had to verify her certification as a trainer.”

Her feat has received a lot of attention, she said. Not what she necessarily wanted, but it gives her a chance to once again ply her skills at education. She especially wants to inspire older women to never stop exercising.

Bonnie Sumner, a Guinness World Record holder at 81 years old, offers her best advice: • If you belong to a gym or hiking group, it’s good to have the camaraderie and support. • Attitude is everything. Don’t make it a chore. You’ll think up every excuse in the book not do it. • Vary your routine, so you don’t get bored. • Try different things. Try something new and keep at it. That’s my goal. • And I’m not done yet.