150226 middle aged

Inventory:

Hair at the back of your skull more see through than actual hair? Check!

Intermittent back pain? Increasing morning stiffness? (No, not that sort of morning stiffness, you naughty you)? Check and check!

Fallling madly in love with much younger woman? Sending her miserable haiku love poems? Being rejected by much younger woman (she has - unfourtunately - impeccable litterary taste)? Check, check and check!

Yes, you are middle aged and yes, you are turning fifty (I have a couple of months left in the forties)

The final insult arrived in the last few days. Being able to go to the Alps  skiing is something I wanted to do for a long time, but circumstances and luck has prevented me from going. This year, however, after a 25 year hiatus (St. Anton 1989, those were the days)  I arrived in Cervinia, Italy.

And it is everything you could wish for. Snow, blue sky and wonderful scenery. Matterhorn to the left. Monte Rosa to the right.

So - up in the morning. There is some swosh-swoshing to be done. The lifts to the top and off we go.

And there is some swoshing. Quite a lot of it. It is not, however, the sound of skis on slope, it is the sound of me trying to breathe. After a smaller slope including mediocre sking (by me - everybody else seem to be demigods and godesses on skis) I have to stop. And breathe. And breathe some more: "No, I'm - pant, pant - fine - pant".

I try another slope... maybe a little better... here is a nice steep one...

I... have... to... stop....right... now...

I see my life pass in front of my eyes. So this is it. I recall friends and family, childhood aquaintances and Raskolnikov, my cat, dead now since...  and... when did father have his first heart attack...?

And then there seems to be a little more air in the air. I'm not dead - yet.

Those who know me, know that I detest the fitness craze that permeates society of today. In my Facebook feed everyother person seems to have personal trainers, weight control programs and don't get me started on diets...

My solution to all this is that I hardly work out. At all... It has been with a certain sense of pride and joy I have watched other people train and what not, while I have indulged myself in perhaps a book, an art exhibition or perhaps the noble art of doing nothing at all (It's difficult - takes years of practice).

Is this now a thing of the past. Do I have to start excercising? It seems so... so... terribly boring.

Because that is my main argument. I can take the cold, the sweating, the fact that you look terrible (have you ever seen a happy face out in the track?) and the rest, but my God... It is just too boring.

Now, you may think this would suit me well. After all, I like doing nothing at all (see above)

But that kind of doing nothing is something completely different. What looks, from the outside, to be "nothing" is in fact "something". I plan my next blog. I provide my cat with my stomach as pillow (not the dead one - there is a replacement). I try to prove quantum mechanics fundamentaly wrong (see previous blog)(I'm in good company, Einstein hated quantum mechanics). Important stuff. 

But this is hard to do on the track (my cat would definately hate it). Do I have to give all this up?

I mention my conundrum to a couple of friends (also middle aged men, an often culturally looked down upon subsection of society) and to my surprise, they have the solution:

"You have altitude sickness!"

Turns out my well informed friends know that...

1) The altitude in Cervinia is 2050 meters above sea level (which is... eh... something else in feet)

2) I had been skiing up to a level of 3880 meters

3) One should use approximately one day to acclimatise for every extra 500 meters...

Thus...

EUREKA!

There is still no need for excersise. There is no need for the track. There is...

I look down on my belly (not a very nice sight in a typically middle aged way).

Or maybe there still is.