While most of you are staring down Day 3 of your 2012 New Year’s resolutions, I find myself with less than five months to go on my annual birthday resolutions. Make that “first” annual birthday resolutions: When I turned 55 last May 11 I got to Googling and discovered that 55 is a somewhat pivital year for a male. Among other things, our muscles and organs begin to atrophy; we…

“You know,” Chris said, “there aren’t too many people who could do this.” After catching his breath, he added, “And I don’t mean people our age. I mean people, period.” We were on day three of a four-day, 50-mile backpack trip on a particularly rugged region of the  rugged Nantahala National Forest in western North Carolina. Specifically, we were about a third of the way up a climb that would…

Happy holidays! Here’s hoping you survive them! If you’re looking for a time of year that’s hardest on your body, you’d be hard-pressed to beat the one that kicked off with pants-unbuckling Thanksgiving and ends with a cold pack on your head New Year’s Day. Think about the damage alone done by the one-two punch of Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Thanksgiving: overeating. Estimates place the typical holiday meal at 3,000-plus…

I wrote the following story for the Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer in Raleigh; it appeared in both newspapers on Oct. 18, 2011. It appears here in expanded form, with links. Check out yesterday’s post for more on teens and sleep. * * * It’s 11 o’clock on a school night! you yell at your teen. You need to go to bed! But I’m not tired! your wide-awake…

I was emailing with a fellow runner in Charlotte earlier today and happened to mention that I went for a run at 9:30 this morning and it was already unbearably hot/sticky/miserable. “I don’t know how you did it at 9:30!,” she wrote back. “I ran this morning at 5:30 and it was already 80 degrees!” Who’s crazier — the person who slept in and ran at 9:30 or the one…

I wrote the following story for the Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer in Raleigh; it appeared in both papers June 28, 2011. It reruns here, with links. Yoga helps Darlene Jonas cope with Parkinson’s disease, enables scientist Lynn Conley to sit at his desk for long stretches, lets Bill Glasheen keep playing golf and has helped Nancy Wren cope with the death of her husband. Robin Kneeburg credits…

“There is a style of yoga that will meet any physical needs you have. It doesn’t matter what age you are; It takes you where you are, and improves you from there.” That’s not according to the Yoga Chamber of Commerce. That’s according to 61-year-old Nancy Wren of Matthews, who first relied on yoga to help her through pregnancy — and labor — in the 1970s, and more recently used…

I turned 55 today and celebrated with a 30-minute ab workout. I had to: According to the National Institutes of Health, while 55 is when males generally start dropping weight (sorry gals, it doesn’t happen for you until around 65), I’m now more inclined to hang on to the weight I’m keeping — in the form of fat — around my midsection. Some other interesting bits I learned from the…

Are you conning yourself when you swear you really would run more if you bought those spiffy new orange Asics Sky Speeds or that you would log 10,000 miles this year if only you had the carbon Specialized S-Works Venge road bike? Maybe not. If 1,850 older Taiwanese are any indication, you could be improving your odds of a long life. According to a study published in the Journal of…

If you live in the Triangle, you have discovered the fountain of youth. A study of the 50 largest metro areas in the U.S. finds the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area is among the 10 “youngest” places in the country. The study, released today, looked at 52 factors and ranked the Triangle No. 8 nationally, just below No. 7 San Diego and just above No. 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul, in terms of how…