Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2014 - 50

G The Mountain That Saved My Marriage
by Beth Macy

Beth Macy, a journalist Based in roanoke, Va., is the author of
"factory Man: how one furniture-Maker fought offshoring,
stayed local, and saVed an aMerican town," (little, Brown &
co.). it will BecoMe an hBo Miniseries, produced By toM hanks.

As chill-seeking pilgrimAges go,
my little mountain in the middle of my
small city is not the most obvious. At
just 1,740 feet, Mill Mountain is a baby
bump amid the Blue Ridge Mountains.
It's tucked along the outline of a geological thumbprint that surrounds
Roanoke, Virginia, where its true claim
to fame is the gloriously tacky jewel
adorning its peak: the world's largest
neon star.
But Mill Mountain has become a
balm to me, a kind of walking worry
doll for my 24-year marriage. Ten years
ago, on the eve of my 40th birthday, I
was staring down the threat of type II
diabetes. I was working too hard at a
mostly sedentary job.
At home, I was often too busy
checking work e-mail to ever fully disengage. I fretted at not being with the
people I love most: my husband, Tom,
and our two teenage sons.
I returned to my first love for help:
sweat. There was almost no fitness
trend I didn't take on, from hot yoga
and tai chi to cycling and gluten-free.
The most extreme ended not in buoyed
health but in damaged appendages.
"Pulverized," the hand surgeon said of
the bones in my left hand after a
mountain-bike tumble.
"Add more weight to your hangcleans!" admonished the CrossFit
instructor 20 years my junior. I did,
promptly ripping my right rotator cuff.
Running was too hard on my right
heel - "plantar fasciitis," the orthopedist labeled the throbbing heel pain.
"You're no spring chicken," my
octogenarian mother scolded. At 45, I
was still 10 pounds overweight, and my
blood-glucose levels were borderline
high. Plus, for all of my fads, I now had
the unencumbered use of only one
appendage - my left foot.
50 | BlueRidgeCountry.com

DaviD Hungate

guest
column

Beth Macy and Tom Landon on Mill Mountain with rescue dogs Charley and Mavis.

Still, I could walk, and with hills dotting my every vista, it seemed silly not
to. My husband, still skinny but with a
burgeoning beer belly, was keen to join
me on the trails of Mill Mountain, 10
minutes from our house.
The kids tolerated it, barely, when
we dragged them along on weekends.
Usually we walked weekdays in the
predawn, just the two of us, before
they awoke. And we stuck to it.
In the past decade, we've walked
up and down Mill Mountain some
1,500 times. We take care of the
details of the day - pickups and field
trip permission forms at the bottom of
a backpack. But over the course of our
daily 90-minute hikes we gradually get
past those things, sussing out our
problems and brainstorming our lives.
We've worried about aging parents,
hatched vacation plans and taken
turns cheering each other up when the
old adage, "You're only as happy as
your most miserable child," rears its
ugly head.

We've argued, too, though not for
long. It's nearly impossible to pout and
climb at the same time, especially when
you're in the woods.
Our best walks have taken place in
the early morning, where the bluish
glow of the valley and a downtown
cityscape still wiping the sleep from its
eyes provide a kind of ambulatory reset
button.
We've walked it in snow, in drizzling
rain, in shirt-drenching heat. Mostly it's
been just the two of us, Tom and I,
always with our rescued shelter dogs in
tow. The benefits are both obvious and
ephemeral. My blood sugar and weight
are down, and every day we notice a
new kind of mushroom growing, the
birth of a new brood of wild turkeys,
and the other slow and cyclical changes
happening around us all the time.
Having just turned 50, I daresay the
simple act of walking up and down the
same mountain trails hasn't just
improved my health. The ritual has also
saved my marriage. 
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Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2014

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