It’s another diverse weekend in North Carolina: Take a preseason plunge into the chilly Atlantic, run up a quartzite monadnock, or spy on your feathered friends (in the name of science). Coast Here’s a good opportunity to see just how sturdy your cardio is: The 8th Annual Special Olympics Polar Plunge Saturday at Carolina Beach. Picture yourself at the Le Mans-style start, you in your fetching bathing suit making  a…

In my life as a guidebook writer, I frequently find myself returning from a scouting expedition and conducting a topopsy. That is, I get out the appropriate topographic map for where I’d been and try to figure where and how I got lost. It’s a helpful exercise. It sheds light on how I might help others avoid making the same mistake. And, to a lesser degree it turns out, helps…

“I’m thinking about doing Georgia this year,” Alan said midway through our weekly 18-mile mountain bike ride at Umstead early yesterday morning. He said it wistfully, and punctuated it with a sigh. The mention of Georgia a month into the new year was a trial balloon of sorts for Alan. Not so much to gauge my reaction; rather, for him to think out loud about what Georgia really meant. “Georgia”…

Got a plan for this year? If you don’t, you need one. If you vowed to be better this year, you need to start planning. You need goals to move you along. You need a carrot to get you out of bed and ride on a morning when it’s 25 degrees out. You need incentive to lace up your Asics and do your weekly track workout when your body is…

Hiking into the past: It’s all the rage in North Carolina this weekend … . Coast Feeling competitive? Have three friends, at least one of whom is the opposite sex? And are all of you 16 or older? If you answered yes to all of the above, consider about heading down to Emerald Isle Saturday for the Emerald Isle Parks & Rec 4 x 4 Volleyball Tournament. Entry fee is…

“You know,” Chris said, “there aren’t too many people who could do this.” After catching his breath, he added, “And I don’t mean people our age. I mean people, period.” We were on day three of a four-day, 50-mile backpack trip on a particularly rugged region of the  rugged Nantahala National Forest in western North Carolina. Specifically, we were about a third of the way up a climb that would…

I stood behind the boulder, behind the two climbers puzzling over the boulder. Their puzzlement was interspersed with suddenly leaps into action, attempts to make a seemingly impossible leap from one not-so-generous hold about 10 feet an overhang to another modest hold perhaps 10 feet away. Interspersed with those unsuccessful attempts was the occasional bad word muttered under their breath. After each unsuccessful leap — known as a “dyno” in…

I wrote the following for the Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer in Raleigh, where it originally appeared August 16. See the related post on student athlete injuries that appeared here yesterday. As school approaches and a busy round of athletic seasons — from football to soccer to cross country — begins, parents face a variety of concerns as their student athletes hit the playing field. More often than…

Today, I have a story appearing in both the Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer offering tips for parents of student athletes as the busy falls sports season gets underway. The story focuses primarily on the emotional issues that often arise. Below is a look at the physical side of high school athletics, with information and tips on injuries and injury prevention. If you have a high school athlete,…

“I … I just didn’t have anything more to give,” I confided to my cycling psychologist on our ride this morning. “I was empty.” Allen and I ride one morning a week at Umstead. It’s typically a mildly competitive ride where we save just enough air to chat about bikes (lot’s of debate about whether to go the 29er route), rides (mountain centuries that Allen does and I talk about),…