Those 90 minutes three times a week are the spine of my life, a ritual as hard and satisfying as any I've ever known.

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He did it despite fracturing his spine halfway through the season, injuring his hamstring the week before the championship game.

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Menino, who used a cane to walk to the podium, has had persistent health problems including a six-week hospital stay last year to treat a respiratory infection and a compression fracture in his spine.

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Just last week, I had watched the slow, quiet spill of daybreak over the soft, fir-topped spine of the Pioneers.

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