I had once been a multisport athlete regularly drawn to the addictive rush of endorphins—triathlon, trail running, swimming from Alcatraz, adventure racing, kayaking, backpacking, biking. Then my athletic world collapsed. I didn’t break a sweat for nearly a decade. One Christmas morning, I decided to go jogging. Gasping, lurching, and rubbery legged, I went a hundred yards before stopping. There was no more gas in my tank. I was forty-nine years old. Yet someday I wanted to run up Mount Tam...

Bill Katovsky was a two-time Hawaii Ironman finisher, a guy who bicycled solo across the U.S., an endurance athlete who competed in a three-day race mountain bike race across Costa Rica. But through a series of misfortunes, including depression, losing his dog, death in his family, and debilitating health problems, Katovsky went from being a multisport junkie to complete couch potato. He stopped working out. For almost ten years! By the time he hit fifty, he decided it was time for a change. How he fought his way back to fitness is not only a riveting, brutally honest, and ultimately inspiring story, it is also a hands-on guide to help anyone reclaim health and well-being.

Katovsky supplements his personal story with those of others successfully making a return to fitness---an astronaut who spent five months in space; a former Wall Street trader who lost seventy-five pounds and became Hawaii’s Fittest CEO; a retired two-time world-champion Hawaii Ironman triathlete with a bum hip that needed replacing, a Yosemite park employee who broke her spine in a hiking accident and is now back on the trails; and a sixtysomething business educator who’s had six heart bypasses but still backpacks and goes to the gym.

With the advice of personal trainers, fitness experts, and multisport coaches, Katovsky offers a wealth of useful information, including:

· Diet and nutrition—what you need to know for a healthy body

· How aging, body fat, and motivation affect physical and mental health; and why exercise is good for depression

· Successfully building a proper aerobic and strength base –workouts you can do at home!

· Tips for injury prevention – from avoiding overtraining to why stretching isn’t recommended

·  Learning the right way to run including form and footwear

· Getting back on the bike- comfort advice for back, butt, knees, and hands

    "Bill Katovsky writes with passion and conviction. No one is more qualified than he on this subject matter. A must read for anyone

     looking to return to fitness."-- Dean Karnazes, New York Times bestseller author of Ultramarathon Man