Medical Adventures #16

For Mr. K, who never misses a beat.

June, July, August 2025: Getting Even Better-er 

For me, things continued to improve (mostly). I kept biking until I was up to 54 hilly miles on a steamy day in July. My running pace increased. My swimming was smooth. Ultimately I climbed two more mountains in the Adirondacks. Remember how it took me 13 hours to go 13 miles the last time I was there? I wanted to see if I could do better. I practiced by going back to the Appalachian Mountains and hiking a leg of the trail that went up around 500 feet in under a mile. I went up and down the path six times, covering more than 11 miles and more than 3000 feet of elevation. Before I started I was not sure how I would do on this. It was way more than I had done in a couple of years. It was a test. By the end I was tired, but fine. I could have kept going. But – all right, already. 

So now I felt like I was in the ballpark of bagging another Adirondack 46er. The one I had my eye on was Seymour, which was in the neighborhood of the two we did in 2023. The hike to Seymour is 14 miles long with 2870 feet of elevation. I did not have my heart set on doing it. Mr. K and I agreed we would take more of a Lemme give it a try and see how I feel approach. I wanted to be optimistic, and also realistic. If I was moving too slowly to be able to finish in a reasonable time I would stop and just accept that my 46er days are over. Didn’t wanna be stuck out on a mountain in the dark again! However . . . if I felt okay, there was also Seward, which was the third one on our plan in 2023, the one I didn’t get to try. We could take a day or two of recovery time after Seymour and head up Seward. 

We had great conditions. The trail to Seymour was mostly dry. The first few miles were flat, then the climbing began. Up a rocky path until we hit some boulders which we could scale only by pulling ourselves up on the adjacent trees. It was like wrestling with a giant slab of granite. A full body experience. Then up and up and up on the switchback path until finally I spied the wooden sign with the peeling name of the mountain nailed to a tree. Exhilaration.

A few days later we climbed Seward. 

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