Monday — never an easy time for the outdoors enthusiast. After a weekend of adventure, returning to the humdrum work-a-day world can make one melancholy. To help ease the transition, every Monday we feature a 90 Second Escape — essentially, a 90-second video of a place you’d probably rather be: a trail, a park, a greenway, a lake … anywhere as long as it’s not under a fluorescent bulb. Today’s…
I was thinking I’d just had a bad day on the wall. Then I opened my climbing journal to record my workout and discovered that my last workout, a week earlier, had been “a bad day.” Likewise, the workout before that, during the week between Christmas and New Year’s, had been “somewhat aimless.” Aimless and anti-productive, I discovered upon further review: Had it really been nearly two months since I’d…
To paraphrase a former vice president attempting to paraphrase a popular saying from the ’70s, a June weekend is a terrible thing to waste. So don’t. Coast No matter how far you’ve ever walked, I’m guessing you’ve never walked back in time. You can Saturday, on the monthly two-hour historical walking tour through Wilmington’s Oakdale Cemetery. “Oakdale,” writes Janet Seapker on the cemetery’s Web site, “was part of the Rural…
I wrote the following story for The News & Observer and Charlotte Observer, where it appeared May 2. It appears here with links. Their parents didn’t swim. A traumatic event involving water in their childhood continues to haunt them. There wasn’t a pool where they grew up — or there was, but they couldn’t use it. They worry about their hair. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,…
Charlie Spencer Lackey was facing stomach surgery last fall that she was hoping to avoid. She suffers from gastroesophageal reflux disease, more commonly referred to as GERD; her doctor mentioned one option that could preempt surgery: start exercising, lose some weight. Eager as she was to avoid the surgery, another malady made exercise a challenge. “I have rheumatoid arthritis,” says the 59-year-old Raleigh resident. She found a solution less than…
Make February go faster by getting out this weekend Coast February: on paper the shortest month, in your mind, the longest. Forced to bridge the gap between dread, post-holiday, dreary cold January and the start of spring in March, February can seem interminable. The best way to escape the February doldrums? Jump into an icy cold Atlantic Ocean. OK, maybe not icy cold — as of Tuesday the water temperature…
On Memorial Day, I was on a two-hour ride into the Wake County countryside. At the light on Green Hope High School Road and NC 55, a retro-ish looking Trek tandem pulled up next to me, dad in the pilot’s seat, son behind him in the stoker’s seat. “My son’s autistic,” the dad began. “This is a great way for us to get out and explore together.” Their rides, he…
So, what did you do first thing this Sunday morning? Have a cup of coffee? A bagel? Read the Sunday paper in your bathrobe and slippers? Me? I dove into 15,000 gallons of ice water. Technically, “ice water” may be pushing it. According to the duck, it was 65 degrees. To put that number in perspective, jump into the ocean during your summer beach vacation, then subtract 20 degrees. It’s…
Marcy chuckled at her computer screen. The wife was scouting upcoming runs, triathlons, bike rides — anything that might provide a carrot for getting out and training. “The Grueling Triathlon of Doom,” she said, letting me in on the joke. Grueling Triathlon of Doom? Such truth in advertising, I thought. Triathletes are well-conditioned not to view what they do as “grueling,” nor to entertain notions of “doom.” My mind raced;…
Jill Malley knows more about competition than she thinks. “You’re doing great,” she said over my shoulder as I pedaled hamsterlike on the stationary bike. Then, leaning in, she added confidentially, “You’ve gone farther than anyone I’ve seen so far.” Nothing like a well-timed stroke to keep a guy from dialing back the stationary bike just when he thinks he’s had all he can take of going nowhere fast. So…