Health and Fitness
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Best Practices for Healthy Nutrition
Steve Markusen Featured Photo: First ride of the season and four months until the 2026 state championships. March 25, 2026. Credit: Charlie Markusen Foreword The starting judge lines us up for the first event of the 2017 Minnesota State Senior Cycling Championships: the 10K time trial. It is a miserable spring day: the air temp…
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Burning Fat for Fuel
Photo: The early bird gets the worm: first tracks on the XX Face of Mt. XXXX, Teton Pass, WY 2025 The buried ski track winds through Lodgepole pine and Douglas fir, branches laden with snow. It is 7:30 am, January, 2025. The sun peaks over the Gros Ventre Mountains bathing Teton Pass Ridge in dawn…
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It’s War: 7 Strategies for Winning the Weight Battle
Photo: Losing the war: three months ago and six pounds lighter. U.S. Senior National Cycling Championships, August 2025. I know the bad news even before stepping on the scale. Over the last several weeks, my pants fit tighter, I feel heavier and my stomach is prone to bouts of indigestion; familiar signs of weight gain.…
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Walking Meditation: Hiking the North Shore Highlands
Photo: Superior Hiking Trail, Minnesota October 2025 The trail underfoot is carpeted with fallen leaves: amber, gold, copper and cinnamon. I stroll between stands of red pine, jack pine, balsam fir, white spruce, aspen, maple, oak and the occasional magnificent white pine. Above me, branches arch like the ceiling of a cathedral illustrated with gold…
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Stretching Muscles: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Photo: The author all stretched out between a rock and a hard place 3000 feet above the floor of Yosemite valley. Lost Arrow Spire, Yosemite, CA. May 2001. Credit Paul Gardner. The pain between my left shoulder blade and spine comes and goes. The last several weeks it is back with vengeance. I press on…
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This is Not Normal: The 2025 National Senior Games
Featured Photo: cyclist waiting to start the 10K time trial in the women’s 90+ age group. Waiting my turn, I size up my competitors: the 70 to 74 year olds. This is July 30 and the first day of the 2025 National Senior Games Cycling Championships in Des Moines, Iowa. We are competing in the…
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Tapering for Nationals: a Metaphor for Life
Photo: An easy recovery hike during my ten day taper for the 2025 National Senior Games cycling championships. Hyland Park, Minnesota, July 2025 It is Sunday morning 7:30 am. The sun is partially obscured by mist, the morning air cool—thick with the smell of lush growth and humidity—Minnesota late July. No one is on the…
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Staying Fit as We Age: Lessons from One of the World’s Best
Photo: Staying fit to keep up with my daughter who is 40 years younger. Big Sandy Opening trailhead after a 7 day 50 mile back pack in the Wind River Range, Wyoming. 2023. The title of the article in the Washington Post caught my eye: At 77, she’s as fit as a 25-year-old. What her…
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Finding Joy in Suffering
Featured Image: the author on the ledge above the Kor Roof, South Face of Washington Column, Yosemite, CA 2001. Credit Paul Gardner. he ledge was two feet wide and sloping; not the most comfortable belay stance. One thousand feet below, the Merced River winds its way through the floor of Yosemite National Park. Across the…
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The Weak Link: Variability in Aging
Photo: The author at age fifty after climbing the Colorado Route on King Fisher Tower, Fisher Towers, Utah 2004. Credit Paul Gardner The woman I am talking to has asked me the same question five times in the last twenty minutes. I expect this. It’s been going on for the last five years. She is…