I’m Paul Penny, and I’m a (re)born hiker. I live in east-central North Carolina, just outside of Raleigh, with by beautiful wife, our two great kids, and our three dachshunds. Oh yeah, we have a cat, too (I try to forget that part). When I’m not hiking, I work as an organizational and leadership consultant, and I write about various things (including that stuff, and hiking).
In my teens, I was a competitive cyclist, and was very fit. In my twenties, I got distracted by work and other interests, and started a 25 year slide to being much heavier and much less fit. In my late 40’s, after over a decade of failed diets and exercise spurts, I got serious about losing weight, and had bariatric surgery.
Now, I’m about 80 pounds off my peak weight, and am able to do things I could only dream of a few years ago. One of those things is hike. I’m still slow (and heavy!) compared to many people. I’m not interested in chasing Fastest Known Times, or any such thing as that. I’m enjoying the journey, and the scenery. I suspect that, in this regard, I’m very much like the vast majority of mid-life hikers.
On this blog, I’ll write about my hikes, interesting places, gear, and other things that might be of interest to other hikers like me.
I’m currently working on a Mountains-to-Sea Trail (MST) section-hiking campaign, and I hope to make an AT thru-hike in a few years. We’ll see what comes after that.
You can find me on Twitter and Instagram @midlifehikes
You can email me at paul@midlifehikes.com. I’d love to hear from you!
If you find the content on this blog to be of value, and if you plan to buy any of the gear or services I talk about here, you can help me out by buying through the links on this site. I’m not going to get rich off that, but it’ll help me pay my hosting bill. Thanks!