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<\/a>I traveled to the East in May with high hopes of using the Green Mountains as my aerobic proving grounds, but developed a case of Achilles tendonitis that has hamstrung my midlife comeback story. It\u2019s nobody\u2019s fault but mine. Rather than adhering to Julie\u2019s running program, I followed my own flawed Phidippides muse and hopscotched from hour-long gambols\u00a0to 2.5-hour trail runs: too fast, too far, too soon. Now running is out of the question. Even cycling hurts (although compression socks seem to help a tad).\u00a0This makes me sad. When I launched into the Live Longer program in February, I expected to suffer from the redemptive pain of reactivating dormant muscles, but this chronic, tendonal variety is a horse of a different color, and it sucks. And from what I\u2019m told, it\u2019s long-lived.<\/p>\nThe reminders of my laming occur daily. Each morning I swing my legs out of bed and stand on feet so immobilized by stiff ankles that it takes two minutes of shambling to get them to flex. I was in Golden and Boulder, CO this week for a conference at The American Alpine Club and was invited to run with a Sherpa and Swede, and had to decline. A\u00a0procession of whippet-thin cyclists and runners passed me each morning as I\u00a0hobbled between the Colorado School of Mines and the American Mountaineering Center, and I was left with a contrail of memories about fast days gone past. I desperately hope to reclaim a bit of that kind of fitness. But not this year. Not this year.<\/p>\n
(Photo caption \u2013 Brad Rassler thrutching through krummholz after climbing Mt. Washington\u2019s Henderson Ridge)<\/p>\n
Yes, I\u2019m whinging; I own it.\u00a0Many beset with troubles heroically focus on the positive and prevail.\u00a0I\u2019m fortunate to have what I do.\u00a0Ironically,\u00a0I\u2019m spending my waking hours writing about mountaineers overcoming privation and maiming to gain unclimbed summits. I should take note\u2026<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s not like it\u2019s been all sad sack stuff. I\u2019ve had some ok if not achy days on both road and mountain bikes and I\u2019m activating my hips and climbing rock (although the emphasis I\u2019ve put on leg-sports the past 10 years has me looking more like the hakuna matata meerkat Timon Berkowitz than Mighty Mouse).<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll start wending my way home from Vermont in a couple of weeks and launch into the fall semester at UNR. I\u2019m still planning on completing the promised day-long denouement to celebrate revivification, but I\u2019m not prepared to cause further injury in the doing of it.<\/p>\n
A circumnavigation of Lake Tahoe by Segway?<\/p>\n