65-Year-Old Has Hip Replacement Then Climbs Everest

When I heard that a guy from Greenwich Village named Don Healy had climbed Mount Everest for his 65th birthday, I assumed he was one of those lifelong, elite athlete types. I pictured him as an older Lance Armstrong. But that couldn't have been further from the truth. "I was pretty much a couch potato until I hit 61," he said. "I was never into sports and I never felt comfortable in a gym."

Healy had been slim all his life so he never thought much about fitness. Then he turned 60. "At that point I had gone up a couple of waist sizes and I started to feel sluggish," he recalled. His doctor also told him he had to get his blood pressure and cholesterol under control. So when a charismatic, 22 year-old colleague who was visiting with Healy at his New Hampshire summer house asked him to work out with him, he went along with it. "It was great timing. This kid comes along who's an extraordinary athlete and trains every day as part of his life. He had free weights, resistance bands, even his own pull-up stand. And even though I was his boss, he wouldn't take no for an answer if I tried to beg off." By the end of the summer, Healy had skimmed 15 pounds and had energy to spare. He was hooked.

That's when he decided he'd reach for his childhood dream: Climbing Mount Everest. But soon after, he fell off his bike and broke his hip. That only made him more determined. He had hip replacement surgery in October, 2007 and was back in training that January at the Sports Center at Chelsea Piers when he climbed the Gros Piton (2,600 feet) in St. Lucia. "Setbacks are a part of life but we shouldn't allow ourselves to be limited by them. They shouldn't become excuses for older people to take it easy. You're as old as you feel and you can do more than you think," said Healy. This past May 24, after a two month expedition that ended in a final eight hour trek in a blinding snowstorm, he reached the Mount Everest summit.

Healy's website, Everest Hip Hop, has this written across the home page: Age and physical setbacks need not be barriers to achieving one's goals. It's about the ability to replace limits. Hopefully he'll inspire you to embrace the notion that age really is just a number.

Healy's motivator was pursuing a childhood dream. Read about how an over-40 woman gets her juices flowing by running to help orphans with AIDS.