Wasilla policewoman wins gold in bodybuilding

FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA — More than 25 years since her last competition, Lt. Ruth Josten has returned to bodybuilding in medal-winning fashion.

Josten joined about 12,000 police and firefighters from 70 countries in Fairfax, Virginia, June 26 through July 5 for the World Police and Fire Games, a longstanding tradition among emergency services personnel. The competition includes 62 sports and activities, from soccer to table tennis to rifle shooting and more.

For Josten, bodybuilding was the obvious choice. With her scholarship-winning gymnastic ability and strength — she competed with the University of Texas-El Paso in the mid-to-late-1970s — her body was already prepped and ready to engage in the kind of sculpting required of the new sport. At least that’s what a woman in Josten’s dance company told her in the early 1980s.

Josten said she was nervous about walking out in her tiny posing suit at first, but she soon developed a confidence that allowed her to truly treat bodybuilding as a sport. And in 1988, she won the Alaska State Championships for bodybuilding.

“I like to compete,” Josten said. “I am a competitor.”

She’s also a teacher. Post-college, Josten taught high school psychology and physical education in a Texas town near the Mexican border for a while, where most of her students’ parents were migrant workers.

“It was a really a tough place to teach … but oh my gosh, it was a great job,” Josten said. “Just taking those kids out and teaching them how to be fit without money, teaching them how to run and take care of themselves and good nutrition, it was one of the best jobs I ever had.”

But it was in 1993, when she joined the Alaska State Troopers, that she found her perfect job. The Wasilla Police Department asked for her specifically to investigate crimes against children, which, while difficult, Josten did for many years.

“I quite quickly took to being an investigator,” she said. “I had a knack for interviews and rapport building and getting people who committed substantial crimes to admit to me what they did.”

Those skills, coupled with her family’s military history — one member a military policeman — seemed to help Josten settle into her new career.

With the change, however, competition “went by the wayside,” Josten said. Though she maintained an “active, healthy, athletic” lifestyle, she began having trouble with one of her knees. The pain increased until finally Josten could take no more, and three years ago, she had a total knee replacement.

It took a full year for her to recover, and life was not the same after that — until Josten got an email about the World Games.

“I immediately said, ‘I’m gonna do it,” she said.

She was about to turn 60, and determined to get back in the game. But it had been so long since her last bodybuilding competition, she knew she’d need more than a few tips on how to play that game 25 years later. That’s when she went to Midnight Sun Muscle Club.

“(Co-owner) Carrieann Hall walked me through this whole process,” Josten said. “She got me completely set up for the training and the diet and how to pose and what kind of posing suit to get, and I just could not have done it without her.”

After three months of training, Josten found herself again preparing to walk onstage in nothing but a sparkly bikini.

“It takes some courage to get up and do that,” she said. “You really have to be confident and have a mindset that this is what you wanna do and you’re achieving a goal.”

And she did.

“It was an incredible experience,” Josten said, and not just because she won.

“I saw some of the best sportsmanship I think I’ve ever seen,” she said.

With bodybuilding in the ’80s, she remembered, that was not usually the case. Back then there was only option — straight-up bodybuilding — for men and women. There were no figure, physique or bikini divisions, and competition was ruthless. In one competition, a woman unknown to Josten leaned over, pointing at the trophy on stage, and said, “See that? It’s got my name on it.”

“I just kinda chuckle. That kind of stuff does not affect me at all,” Josten said.

Still, it was refreshing to compete at the World Games, she said, where it was really “all about friendship.”

One woman even lent another her posing suit, after the one in need had accidentally ruined hers, just before presenting herself to the judges.

“We got her changed and fixed up in probably under 2 minutes and got her onstage,” Josten said. “Everybody in that room was all about … camaraderie.”

As for Josten’s knee and the future of competition, there’s little doubt she’ll be seen strutting her stuff again soon.

“I feel like I am back to that person that competed back in the ’80s,” she said.

Except now she has her 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, training with her. Jennifer Reilly of Midnight Sun, Josten said, will be Gianna’s coach, and the two plan to compete in the Alaska Fitness Expo in Anchorage Oct. 24.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.