About Active After Fifty

There's a loop behind the reservoir at the Middlesex Fells that I'd hiked so many times it had become automatic. Rocky descent, three miles, October leaves. In the fall of 2022, I stopped twice on the way down because my hips hurt badly enough that I was stepping sideways to manage the angle. That descent had never stopped me before. I went home and spent six months being angry about it, then another six months figuring out what to actually change.

Active After Fifty exists because that adaptation process produced a lot of noise: supplements that did nothing, exercises that looked absurd until they worked, gear decisions that should have been obvious sooner. This site is a running record of what actually changed versus what I wanted to change, tested through twenty years of trail knowledge and two years of joints that now have requirements.

The writing is aimed at people who already know what they're doing outdoors and are dealing with the specific frustration of a body that suddenly has conditions it didn't have before. No beginner basics. No cheerful reassurances. Just the actual adjustments and what happened when I made them.