The Reality of Longevity

I'm sitting here writing this with a walking boot on my foot...

It's been there most of the day going on two weeks. As strange as it may sound, for me, recovering from heart surgery was easier than this, because the goal was to walk.

With this, while there are no restrictions, walking – as in walking... the kind of walking I like to do every day – is impossible.

Yet, here I am, and I see this New York Times article headlined, "My Running Club, My Everything."

And there's this photo by Ben Rayner of the Times showing all these smiling people running...

Ben Rayner / New York Times

I saw it and sighed...

As anybody who knows me can attest, unless I'm deeply engrossed in writing, I like to keep moving.

In my teens and though college – even a few years later – I biked everywhere. Growing up in Miami will do that. It was routine for me, during college, to bike though Coconut Grove over the Rickenbacker Causeway down to the lighthouse at the tip of Key Biscayne.

As I started moving north as a journalist, to hillier areas, it became clear to me that biking in hills wasn't as fun as it looked growing up in Miami.

That's when I ditched the bike for my feet and legs...

I was never a runner, with a runner's body or build, and I was never fast. My leaky heart valve always acted like a governor, keeping me from true running, but that didn't matter.

I enjoyed the faster pace of running over walking.

Unless it was one of those days when it felt I was running in quicksand with lead weights on my legs, I always felt better after a jog, and felt worse the days I didn't.

In Minnesota, I'd run around Lake of the Isles...

In Chicago, at lunch, if I wasn't running on the god-awful monotonous track at the gym a block away from the Tribune Tower where I worked, I'd run near the lake.

In San Francisco, between my early morning TV stints and my day job as a daily newspaper columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle, I'd run in Pacific Heights.

In New Jersey, well, I tried...

San Diego was (and is) the ultimate, with its low humidity, ocean breezes, and a mix of hills and flat streets.

Running (and ultimately, walking) has always been my way to start the day...

Or as the perfect break between my early morning writing and everything else...

It helps get rid of morning brain fog, is good for blood pressure, and for somebody whose weight is exercise-dependent, it helps burn calories.

The tap on the shoulder that my running days might be limited came when I was 50.

I was doing an annual stress echocardiogram on a treadmill, and as they ramped up the speed to get my heart rate going, my cardiologist said...

By your age most of my patients have stopped running. Usually, they start having knee issues.

I felt smug as he had to turn the speed even higher, and even more thrilled I could go the distance.

But being smug will get you nowhere...

Within two years, after an especially fast end to a good run, my knee started hurting. It got worse and worse...

Those were in the days when it was routine to do a laparoscopic meniscus "clean out."

So ended my days of routine running...

That led to years on a low-impact elliptical trainer until I could no longer take the boredom of being on a machine and a need to be outside.

That led to walking...

And when I was in the zone, fast walking.

And after my heart valve replacement, thinking all along that I was asymptomatic, remarkably faster and easily longer walking.

I live in a very hilly area, so half the route is mostly uphill...

I took to occasionally starting to jog up those hills, in spurts, when the mood (or music) would strike.

My brain said I was 40, but as I've learned, you can't fool your feet...

Not only is my body not a runner's body, but without getting into detail, my feet have their own... peculiarities.

For years, my left foot has been the focus of study, and a goldmine for my podiatrist...

Splinting, MRIs, this shoe, and that shoe. Orthotics. No orthotics.

Through it all, this one area has always been the hot spot, but it would come and go and I'd get on with my life.

Finally, that chronically challenged area between the second and third metatarsal wouldn't stop acting up.

As my podiatrist keeps explaining, on its good days a foot has a bunch that can go wrong...

On its bad days, as my friend Paul puts it...

Feet suck. Bad design... optimized for a world we no longer inhabit.

He may be right, but intentionally or not, they're also the ultimate reality check on aging. Unless, of course, the knees get there first.

The truth about longevity is that we may be living longer, but some body parts on some people simply weren't designed to go the distance, at least not without intervention.

For me, the lesson is clear: You don't have to feel your age, but no matter how hard you may try, you can’t ignore it.

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