Bryant first began going to the gym in order to relieve stress from a difficult marriage. He really had no idea what he was doing at first, he just knew he needed something…
The hike itself is actually quite boring. It took me a little less than two hours to reach the summit. It’s not the most beautiful mountain; it’s more like a big pile of scree that tops out at over 13,000 feet. It is definitely the easiest 13er in the Sierras. When I reached the summit, I realized the whole valley was starting to fill with a brown haze. Another fire. I found out later this was from the tragic Paradise Fire where so many lost their lives.
Well, it was another Saturday when I knew Bec was going to be doing homework, so I decided I would go out and hike a peak. I found that the San Jacinto Hiking Club was doing a six-peak, 22-mile hike in the San Gorgonio area. When I saw that, I thought, “Okay, this will be my speed; I’ll get out there and push it up.”
In a monumental study of over 122,000 patients, the results showed that a lack of cardiovascular fitness was a key predictor of early death. The study found that the most sedentary were 500 times more likely to die early than the fittest in the study…
Betty Jean McHugh is 90 and she continues to break long-distance running records around the world. She owns several 10-kilometer, half-marathon, and marathon records for seniors, including her latest: the fastest marathon time by a runner over 90. McHugh crushed the record by two hours at the Honolulu Marathon in December, with a time of 6:47:31.
The summit was one of the most beautiful summits I have ever seen. On one side, Mount Whitney was across the valley, along with Irvine, Mallory, Russell, and a host of other high granite peaks. On the other side was the Owens Valley, and in the distance, Death Valley and Telescope Peak. We were standing between the highest and lowest points in the lower 48.
This great-grandma from Baton Rouge, LA, whose favorite place is her garden, has many passions in life. And for 102-year-old Julia “Hurricane” Hawkins, running is right up there with trees, flowers, and birds.
I’m 50 years old this year. After a year of CrossFit, I feel like I have dialed back my biological age by five years. No exaggeration. I feel that much younger. Here is what I have experienced so far…
What would you do if someone told you to give up on an activity because you would never be able to do anything with it? When Robert Marchand was told by his cycling coach to give up cycling because “he would never achieve anything on a bike,” he ignored the advice and continued to ride.
Dixon Hemphill and Orville Rogers caught the sporting world’s attention last year when they competed in USA Track and Field’s 60-meter dash as the only two men in the 90-99 age bracket…
…Wes and I left Rudy to rest while we made the summit. I figured it would take an hour to get to the summit and back from where we were. We managed to push from the saddle to the peak without taking a break. The last 300 feet to the peak was a class 3 scramble and a lot of fun. 30mph wind gusts greeted us when we got to the peak, but the views were amazing.
When I got back from my trip, someone asked me if the trip was life-changing or not. Without hesitation, I replied, “Absolutely. It was totally life-changing.” At 47, I had just started getting in shape. I was hiking a lot in the local Southern California mountains and pushing outside of my comfort zone as much as possible. As I looked forward to turning 50, I felt like doing a solo on the iconic 220-mile long John Muir Trail would be a perfect adventure. It was. And this is the story of my adventure.
Some love stories endure even beyond the lives of their inhabitants. George and Mary’s story is one of those. Married for 68 years when Mary died in 2010, runner George Etzweiler continues to compete in races with her in his mind and heart…
I have had University Peak on my list for a while and I decided to hike it as part of a fitness hike leading up to my John Muir Trail trip at the end of August. A couple of weeks ago, my son Wes and I were on Gould Peak and I got a good look at the mountain. It looked pretty ominous and difficult, and so, in the days leading up to the hike, I had a pit in my stomach about this one.
At 84 years old, Lew Hollander is a prime specimen if there ever was one. He has run 20 Ironman races in a row, which in itself is a miraculous feat…
The coolest part of Mount Gould is that the summit block is a tiny, two by three-foot pedestal that takes some climbing to get up to it. On one side, there’s a vertical drop of about 400 feet. On the other side is a 200 foot drop. When you stand on it, there’s a bit of pucker factor.
Yes, we are all going to die. But you can dramatically change how you live as you age. If you want to see what aging well looks like, you will need to look to the margins. At the margins of the bell curve, we are seeing aging athletes who are strong and active into their 80s and 90s. Moreover, these people are free of the common lifestyle diseases that plague the general population. Yes, they are aging, but they are experiencing a smaller subset of aging symptoms.
Mount Agassiz has been on my to-do list for a few years. Last month, I finally talked my son Wes into going with me on this one. We drove up on a Friday and met at Lone Pine where we grabbed a burger before heading to the trailhead. After a sleepless night at altitude, we dragged ourselves to the summit. And it was worth all of the suffering!
I had an extra free day, so instead of doing a local trail like Mount Baldy again, I thought I’d just drive up to Cottonwood Lakes and summit Cirque Peak – and come back the same day. I was up at 4:00 am and in 3-1/2 hours I was at the Cottonwood Pass Trailhead. The weather was perfect.
The last two miles to the summit were pretty tough. It was steep and really hot, not to mention the altitude. That said, the views were beautiful. The skies were so deep blue they looked photoshoped. Across the valley, the jagged granite peaks of the Sierra crest dominated the horizon.