Long Distance: Texting the Limits of Body and Spirit in a Year of Living Strenuously - Couverture souple

A celebrated essayist, journalist and author, Bill McKibbern is renowned as an original thinker. Here, writing with his trademark honesty and insight, he documents his year as an imposter of sorts in the demanding world of competitive skiing. The result is a fascinating portrait of a man in mid-life pushing his body and soul to breaking point.
McKibben decided, in his late thirties, that the time had come to really test his body. Cross-country skiing his challenge of choice, he lived the fantasy of many amateur athletes and trained, with the help of a coach/guru nearly full time, putting in hours and miles typical of an Olympic athlete. McKibben's year would culminate in a series of long-distance, grueling cross-country races as he experienced his body's rhythms and possibilities like never before.
But the year also brought tragedy to McKibben and his family as his father developed an illness that would eventually cause his death. Forcing a further exploration of both body and spirit, this illness transforms McKibben's action-packed memoir into a moving account of two men coming to terms with the limits of the flesh.

BILL MCKIBBEN is a former staff writer for THE NEW YORKER whose work has also appeared in ROLLING STONE, THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, HARPER'S and many other publications.