Friday, I wrote about visiting the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte. Today, we’ll take a virtual, vicarious raft trip on the center’s concrete river via the first of GetGoingNC.com’s new video series of 90-Second Escapes.
Enjoy the trip.
The Gladiator inducts 776
The Triangle’s inaugural obstacle-infested 5K, the Gladiator, went off today at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary. Some 776 runners made the passage into Gladiatordom, battling through a gauntlet of tires, crawling under a camo tarp (barbed wire was deemed too dangerous; the Town of Cary also nixed running through a fire pit and that bane of grade school playgrounds everywhere, monkey bars), hoisting over a cargo net wall, walking a balance beam and squirming through a tarp-covered water pit, among other challenges.
Find your passion at the Whitewater Center
I’m a big believer in the notion that if you find your fitness passion, you’ll have no problem staying in shape. Trouble is, it can take a while to find that passion, especially in the outdoor adventure arena. It can take a while, but it doesn’t have to.
This weekend, earn your Gladiator stripes
There’s a bike ride in the east, a biathlon in the west, and a survivalist 5K in between this weekend in North Carolina.
Coast
The northeast corner of North Carolina may be the best-suited part of the state for cycling: two-lane country roads meandering past forest and cotton fields with little automotive traffic to compete with. Yet how often do you find yourself riding a bike there? Not very, I’m guessing. Usually in a case like this it’s because you simply haven’t had a good excuse to explore the area. An excuse such as this Saturday’s Country Roads Bike Tour. Starting and ending in Scotland Neck, the CRBT offers routes of 20k, 50k and 100k — basically a k for every style of riding, from not-much-at-all (20k) to long greenway rides on the weekend (50K) to the hardcore recreational rider who gets in 100 miles a week (100k).
Running from old age
This morning while in the car and listening to the BBC World Service I was reminded of why I like to run.
The story was about a study revolving around two questions: At what age do you you consider yourself to be old? At what age do you stop considering yourself to be young? The question was put to people in several countries and the results differed wildly depending upon local. The British, for instance, stopped seeing themselves as young at 35 and officially old at 59. The Greeks, on the other hand, thought themselves young until 51 and not teetering into geezerhood until 68. Speculation abounded among the experts interviewed about the discrepancy. (I’ll post a link to the story when it’s posted by the BBC.)