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 90-Second Escape: Winter’s End on the Blue Ridge Escarpment.

Winter is holding on in North Carolina’s high country, but it’s on the ropes. Tag along for a last look at the season before spring moves in tomorrow (at 1:14 a.m., to be exact).

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Tweety would probably love a peanut butter 'n' bird seed ball.

Sure, it’s supposed to rain almost everywhere in North Carolina this weekend. But that doesn’t mean you need to stay home and sulk.

Coast

After warm and sun during the week, it figures that we’re looking at rain for the weekend, approaching a 50 percent chance along the coast. So, how about retreating to the dryness of a classroom to learn something about the outdoors world. Like how to supplement our feathered friends’ diet come the Spartan days of winter? Sunday at 2 p.m. you can learn how to make treats your bird buddies will love, at Dismal Swamp State Park tucked up in the far northeast corner of the state.

Logistics: Program starts at 2 p.m. and it’s free. Learn more about the park (including how to get there) here.

Weekend forecast: Clouding up throughout the day, highs in the low 50s.

Rod Broadbelt breaks for lunch during last year's February 20-miler at Umstead State Park.

Piedmont

Eleven months of the year, Rod Broadbelt leads a marathon hike at Umstead State Park (on the 12th month, November, he doesn’t rest; he goes on the road to Raven Rock). The hikes are shorter during the dog days of summer, but get longer as the weather cools. February is the distance grandaddy: a 20-miler that heads out the Company Mill Trail, picks up the Sycamore Trail, takes a quick detour onto Potts Branch Trail before hitting Sal’s Branch Trail, then looping back on the same trails to the start. Plenty of opportunities to shorten the hike, but this is such a good bunch to hike with that the 20 miles will fly by before you realize how bushed you are.

Logistics: Starts at 8 a.m. sharp from the Umstead parking lot off Harrison Avenue and I-40. More info by emailing Rod at rbroadbelt@nc.rr.com, or calling him before 7 p.m. at 919.363.6611.

Weekend forecast: 40 percent chance of rain (only thunderstorms stop the hike) and a high of 56.

Mountains

The Snowbird Mountain area of western North Carolina’s Nantahala National Forest is one of those areas you may have seen on a map, but likely haven’t explored. For good reason: it’s a rugged area, the trails are not well-maintained and it’s an easy place to get lost. Which is why you should jump on Sunday’s opportunity to hike it with the Carolina Mountain Club. Sunday’s hike is a strenuous 11-miler, an out-and-back on the Snowbird Creek Trail featuring Middle and Upper falls. To get a sense of the area, check out the CMC’s hike description here or grab the McDaniel Bald topo map.

Logistics: The group will be carpooling from the Wendy’s in Robbinsville at 10 a.m.  To sign on, make contact with the aforementioned hike leader, Brent Martin, at 828.371.0347 or brent_martin@tws.org.

Weekend forecast: 60 percent chance of rain, highs in the mid-50s.

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Those are GGNC’s thoughts for an active weekend. Find out other ways you can get out this weekend by browsing our super calendar, a collection of events calendars from throughout the state, below.

Coast

CapeFearCoast.com
Comprehensive calendar for the Cape Fear/Wilmington/southern N.C. coast searchable by date and event name.

Coastal Guide
Comprehensive calendar including nature programs from a variety of costal conservation and research agencies that offer nature programs. Covers the entire coast.

Crystal Cost Tourism Authority
Comprehensive calendar focusing on the Crystal Coast. Good source for programs offered by N.C. Coastal Federation, Cape Lookout National Park, N.C. National Estuarine Research Reserve and other costal conservation and research agencies that offer nature programs.

NCCoast.com
Comprehensive calendar including programs for the Outer Banks and Crystal Coast.

North Carolina Coast Host
Comprehensive calendar for the entire coast that lets you search for events by day, by region, by county, by city or by event (based on key word).

This Week Magazine
Primary focus is the Crystal Coast (North Carolina’s coastal midsection).

Mountains

Asheville Citizen-Times
From the main page, click on “Outdoors,” then WNC Outdoors calendar.

Blue Ridge Outdoors
Searchable calendar lets you extend your reach to events throughout the mid-Atlantic and Southeast (or you can just limit it to North Carolina). Also lets you search a boatload of categories, ranging from Hiking, Mountain Biking and Climbing to Trail Running, Triathlon and Road Walking.

The Mountain Times
From the main page, click on “Calendars,” then Main Events.

Todd’s Calendar

Piedmont

Charlotte

Charlotte Observer events calendar
Comprehensive calendar searchable by category, including Nature, Recreation, Recreation & Wellness, Running

Charlotte Parent
Comprehensive calendar concentrating on things the family can do together.

Triad

GoTriad.com
Comprehensive calendar includes a Sports & Recreation category.

Piedmont Parent
Comprehensive calendar concentrating on things the family can do together.

Triangle

Triangle.com
Comprehensive calendar searchable by category, including: Birding, Boating, Cycling, Nature, Rec & Wellness, Recreation, Running, Swimming, Tennis, Yoga.

Carolina Parent
Comprehensive calendar concentrating on things the family can do together.

Statewide

Office of Environmental Education
One calendar for the numerous Environmental Education Centers statewide.

North Carolina State Parks
Lets you search for programs at the state’s parks, recreation areas and natural areas by location, by month, by topic. To reach the calendar from the home page, click on “Education,” then “Fun & Free Programs at Parks.”

National Forests in North Carolina
From the home page, click on Carolina Connections for news updates on the state’s four national forests as well as hints on recreational opportunities and a detailed rundown of recreation areas and the amenities at each.

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If you’re looking for a time of year that’s hardest on your body, you’d be hard-pressed to beat the one that kicked off with pants-unbuckling Thanksgiving and ends with a cold pack on your head New Year’s Day. Think about the damage alone done by the one-two punch of Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

Thanksgiving: overeating. Estimates place the typical holiday meal at 3,000-plus calories, or closing in on twice the recommended daily calorie intake for the average person. And that’s just for the main meal; in the case of Thanksgiving you can nearly double that amount if you throw in the follow-up leftover meals that will be consumed by day’s end.

Black Friday: stress. First, there’s the business of consuming nearly 6,000 calories on Thanksgiving, then heading out at midnight to elbow your way to the $2 waffle irons table. Add to that your wacko fellow shoppers — a female shopper at a California Walmart used pepper spray to keep her competitors at bay — and you’ve pretty much taken 10 years off your life with those two days alone. And the bulk of the holiday season remains.

You want a truly happy holidays, or at least a holiday season that won’t do you in? Then you need to do something that helps you deal with both overeating and stress. Lucky for you that some thing is one thing:

Going for a walk.

Walking is the nation’s most popular form of exercise. According to the National Sporting Goods Association, 95.8 million Americans walked for exercise in 2010 (exercising with equipment was a distant second, with 55.3 million participants). There’s good reason for this: most people can walk, it doesn’t require special equipment, you can do it spontaneously, out your front door, so it can be done quickly.

There’s more reasons to walk. According to the Mayo Clinic, walking can:

• Lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (the "bad" cholesterol)
• Raise high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the "good" cholesterol)
• Lower your blood pressure
• Reduce your risk of or manage type 2 diabetes
• Manage your weight
• Improve your mood
• Keep you strong and fit

Walking isn’t a magic bullet. It won’t completely diffuse the stress of the holidays; but it will take the edges off and make the season more manageable. And it won’t exactly act as a cross to that batch of Christmas fudge your vampire coworkers bring in, but it will help in keeping the damage to a minimum. And, truly, a half hour at lunch, after work or at some point during the day can make a huge difference.

That said, are you ready to commit to a daily walk? And if not daily, then what is a realistic goal? Take our survey and we’ll report back in a week or so with the results. And take a minute to tell us your favorite place to walk. It could serve as inspiration to others.

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The understory (dogwood) is turning at Hemlock Bluffs, the canopy not yet.

Sunday, Marcy and I headed over to Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve in Cary after roadside flashes of sourwood red and dogwood peach suggested the fall color show was just getting underway. Roadside trees — stressed by the heat of automotive exhaust — are often the first to show their chromatic hand. When they start to go, we grab the camera and head for woods.

It’s not simply the color that makes fall hiking special. The sun, starting to favor the southern hemisphere with its direct sunlight, is sending us sideways rays that light the forest at increasingly intriguing angles. Angles that cast long shadows and highlight features we overlook in the overhead light of summer. And, of course, there’s also the cooler, drier weather: show of hands for who would rather hike in 70 degree temperatures with 10 percent humidity than then 90-90 days of summer.

After a cloudy, rainy start to this week, the weekend looks ideal for a hike: daytime highs right around 70, overnight lows in the mid- to upper-40s. Cool temperatures, sunny skies and emerging fall color.

Take a hike this weekend. Here are a few places to go.

Triangle

• 

  Light slices through the woods at illuminating angles come fall.

  Eno River State Park, Durham and Orange counties. The Buckquarter Creek/Holdens Mill 4.2-mile loop should have good streamside color, good ridgeline color.

• Falls Lake / Mountains-to-Sea Trail, Durham, Wake counties. Your best bet for fall solitude, especially hiking west from NC 50. Good color as well as the trail spends considerable time in hardwood forest and along the lake.
• Umstead State Park, Raleigh. Crowded: Company Mill Trail. A little less so: Sycamore Trail. Closed: Sal’s Branch Trail.

Fayetteville / Sanford

• Raven Rock State Park. From the new visitors center, 90 percent of visitors head east toward namesake Raven Rock. Head west for peace and color along the 5.6-mile Campbell Creek Trail.

Triad

• Hanging Rock State Park, Danbury. The pilgrimage to Hanging Rock is as crowded as that to Mecca. For equal views minus the masses, take the 4.2-mile Moores Wall Trail.
• Piedmont Environmental Center, High Point. With 376 acres, a forest of mature
  

  Shadows on the forest floor also tell the story of fall.

  hardwoods, 11 miles of trail and a big lake, this may be your best bet for catching color in the Piedmont, period.

• Pilot Mountain State Park, Pilot Mountain. The least crowded trail is down low; trouble is, you want the stellar views from up high. Good venue for the agoraphobic.

Charlotte

• Crowders Mountain State Park, Kings Mountain. “Expect parking delays on nice fall weekends,” warns the Web site. Your best bet: Try the Boulders Access, the parks recently opened back door.
• Mecklenburg County Nature Preserves, Mecklenburg County. Charlotte is blessed with a baker’s dozen nature preserves that offer an array of colorful experiences come fall.

The sun spotlights a fallen sweetgum leaf.

I write about Take A Child Outside Week every year, and have since Liz Baird, director of school programs at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences came up with the idea five years ago. Rather than repeat what I’ve already written, you can read last year’s post here. (That gives me more time to take my own kids outside.)

Before signing off, though, I’ll mention that if you yourself aren’t entire comfortable exploring the great outdoors with your kids, there are plenty of outdoor events planned statewide that your family can be a part of. In fact there’s something — multiple things — going on every day. For example:

Today: Never gone fishing with your kid? Remedy that situation this afternoon from 2:30-4 p.m. with the Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education in Corolla. All the gear is provided, you just have to catch (and safely release) the fish. Details here.

Wednesday: Family Disc Golf at Harris Lake County Park. Been searching for something the family can do together? Disc golf masks the exercise of a long walk (a really long walk if you throw like me) with the fun of disc-flinging, the goal to eventually get your disc into all 18 netted goals. That’s from 6-7 p.m. Here for specifics.

Thursday: Got a hard-sell kid on your hands? Few can resist a canoe trip, such as the one this evening from 5-6:30 p.m. at Lake James State Park. All the gear is provided, paddlers must be at least 7. It’s free, but pre-registration is required, by calling the park office at 828.584.7728. Additional information here.

Friday: Some kids whine about going out in the heat of the day (curse the dang fool air conditioning!) But I’ve never heard one kid whine about going out in the cool of night, especially when that night is occurring in the forest, where who knows what is going on. Eliminate the whining by taking the kids on a night hike at Lake Crabtree County Park in Morrisville from 8-10 p.m. (they get to stay up late to boot — woo-hoo!). More information here.

Saturday: Another chance to stay up late and the folks from the Morehead Planetarium host a viewing of the night sky at Jordan Lake State Recreation area between Apex and Pittsboro. Planets, nebulae, star clusters, the moon — all your favorite celestial standouts. From 8-10 p.m. at the Ebenezer Church Recreation Area. Additional helpful information here.

Sunday: Now that you’ve had a week to instill in your kids (and yourself) a fondness for the outdoors, teach them to be responsible in the wild with The Big Foot Challenge. That’s what the folks at Hanging Rock State Park call their Leave No Trace program, which teaches kids how to enjoy the outdoors without leaving so much as a trace of a sign that they were there. Starts at 10 a.m., at the campground amphitheater. Details, details.

Now I really am leaving to go play outside with the kids (cul de sac beachball baseball — you should try it).

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For more Take A Child Outside events, check the TACO Web site and the Office of Environmental Education calendar.

Monday — never an easy time for the outdoors enthusiast, especially come summer. After a weekend of adventure, returning to the humdrum work-a-day world can make one melancholy.
To help ease this trying transition from out-in-the-Sun-day to Mon-I-wish-I-were-back-in-the-sun-day, we’re running a new feature every Monday, at least during the summer, called 90-Second Escape. Essentially, it’s a 90-second mini-movie of a place you’d probably rather be: a trail, a park, a greenway, a lake … anywhere as long as it’s out in the sun. Because there’s a good chance you might want to make such an escape yourself, we’ll include a resource list with each escape showing where and how to make it happen.

Today’s 90-Second Escape: Paddling Umstead State Park's Big Lake.

As escapes go, this is about the cheapest 60 minutes you’ll find: At Umstead State Park’ Big Lake, $5 buys you an hour’s escape on the park’s somewhat whimsically named Big Lake. Whimsical because, at 55 acres, Big Lake is hardly that (nearby Lake Crabtree, for instance, is 520 acres, while Falls Lake  is 12,410 acres and Jordan Lake is 13,900 acres). But it does offer surprisingly big escape, especially considering it’s in one of North Carolina’s most popular state parks and borders busy Raleigh Durham International Airport.

The boat house is only open weekends and only from the first weekend of April through the second weekend of October. Rental hours are 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

And if you can’t make it to Umstead, chances are you can get a similar deal on an escape at at state park near you: Eight parks in the North Carolina system rent boats: Cliffs of the Neuse, Dismal Swamp, Hammocks Beach, Hanging Rock, Jones Lake, Lake James, Lake Norman and Morrow Mountain, while Hammocks Beach rents through an outside organization.

In the meantime, enjoy this week’s 90-Second Escape.

Despite their popularity and growing prominence, there is no one single source for greenways in North Carolina. As I’ve mentioned, GetGoingNC.com is working on that; hopefully, in a month or so we’ll have some progress to announce on that front. Until then, I’ll share my list of Web sites detailing greenways throughout the state. Included is a quick thumbnail; click on the destination for more info.

It may not be a complete list, but it’s pretty close. If you  know of a greenway that’s not included, leave a comment and I’ll add it to the list.

Coast

Greenville 3.3-mile greenway

Jacksonville 5.5-mile Jacksonville-Camp LeJeune Rails-to-Trails greenway

Manteo 8.8-mile greenway

Piedmont

Triangle

Apex Six greenways

Chapel Hill Six main greenways/trails

Carrboro Includes 1-mile Libba Cotten rails-with-trails project

Cary 47 miles of greenway

Durham Eight greenways, including about half of the 22-mile American Tobacco Trail (pictured at top, although this section is in Chatham County)

Morrisville One greenway.

Raleigh's greenway system recently began adding helpful signs.

Raleigh 68 miles of greenway with more under construction

Smithfield 3-mile Buffalo Creek Greenway runs along the Neuse River

Wake Forest About 8 miles of greenway in 9 sections

Triad

Greensboro 32 miles of paved greenway

Guilford County Overseeing the nearly complete 15-mile Bicentennial Greenway bridging High Point and Greensboro.

Winston-Salem 16 miles of greenway

High Point 9 miles of greenway

North Carolina Birding Trail signs dot the Yadkin River Greenway.

Wilkesboro 7.4-mile (and growing) Yadkin River Greenway

Charlotte area

Mecklenburg County 13 miles of developed greenway

Carolina Thread Trail New effort to link greenways in 15 counties in the Charlotte area

Gastonia One 2.7-mile greenway, one 1.7-mile rails-to-trails project

Kings Mountain 2.3-mile greenway

Concord Four-mile downtown loop

Kannapolis 2-mile greenway

Mountains

Asheville 4.3-mile greenway with plans for 15-mile system with 12 interconnected corridors

Black Mountain More than a mile of greenway, with plans for three more greenways

Brevard 5-mile paved greenway links Brevard with Davidson River area

Franklin 4-mile, mostly paved, Little Tennessee River Greenway

Morganton 3.8-mile Catawba River Greenway, with connecting .6-mile Freedom Trail.

Statewide

North Carolina Rail-Trails Includes a rundown of 28 rails-to-trails projects throughout the state as well as projects in development.

Carolina Thread Trail
Charlotte area

“The Carolina Thread Trail will be a mega project of rail-trails and streamside greenways in the greater Charlotte region,” Dave Connelly with N.C. Rail-Trails says.

Indeed, this is the largest and most ambitious of the long-distance greenways envisioned for the state, encompassing hundreds of miles of trails in 15 counties in the Charlotte area and spilling into South Carolina. The Thread Trail was conceived in 2005 as a way for the various municipalities in the 15-county area to keep tabs on what their neighbors were up to and focus their individual efforts on trails that could contribute to an interconnected trail network.

Go here to find a map of trails existing and planned that will make up the Carolina Thread system.

Atlantic-Seaboard Coast Line
Fayetteville to Wilmington

This project could become a part of the East Coast Greenway, linking Fayetteville with Wilmington. Spearheaded by the West Pender Rail-Trail Alliance with support from BlueCross BlueShield Foundation of North Carolina and the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, an assessment is underway evaluating the feasibility of using an 80-mile stretch of unused rail corridor between Fayetteville and Wilmington.

This rails-to-trails project is especially attractive, creating a destination greenway with significant tourism potential in economically depressed eastern North Carolina.

Learn more about this project at the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy Web site.

Old Beltline Trail
Durham

This isn’t a long trail — just a couple of miles — but it’s an interesting one. This abandoned rail line in Durham once connected several tobacco plants in town. When the plants ceased needing connecting, the line closed. It played a vital role in joining the numerous tobacco plants across town, and it would also play a vital role as a pedestrian transportation corridor. And, says, Connelly, Norfolk Southern has indicated they may be willing to abandon the line.

“It goes three-quarters of the way around town,” says Connelly, “even though it’s just a couple miles in length.” Roughly, it would run from near the Amtrak station along the west edge of downtown to the east end of Elizabeth street. Using sidewalk connectors, it would link with the American Tobacco Trail a couple blocks to the south.

Atlantic & Yadkin / Bicentennial greenway
Greensboro/High Point

The Triad is on the cusp of a two-trail system that would include about 16 miles of connected trail. On the north end, the 7.5-mile Atlantic & Yadkin Greenway currently starts below Cone Boulevard and runs north-northwest past Country Park, the Guilford Courthouse National Military Park into the watershed lakes, including Bur-Mil Park. The watershed lakes area is especially popular with mountain bikers who for years have feasted on Wild Turkey, Owl’s Roost and Reedy Fork trails. Currently, the greenway ends just above Strawberry Road, but Madeleine Carey, assistant trails and greenways director with Greensboro Parks & Recreation, says it eventually will extend four miles north into Stokesdale. On the south end, she says the trail will extend into downtown Greensboro, where it will be one of four trails connecting with the Downtown Greenway, a work-in-progress that will encircle downtown Greensboro.

At roughly the midpoint of the existing Atlantic & Yadkin Greenway, at Old Battleground Avenue and Lake Brandt Road, is the northern end of the Bicentennial Greenway. Eventually, the Bicentennial Greenway, conceived in the early 1980s, will run south for 15 miles to High Point’s City Lake. At present, the trail runs 4.9 miles from its northern trailhead (including some sidewalk connectors) to Horsepen Creek Road. There’s a 2-mile gap before the trail picks up on the High Point and runs 8 miles, through and past the Piedmont Environmental Center.

Roger Bardsley is a planner with Guilford County Parks & Open Space, which is overseeing the Bicentennial Greenway. About a mile of that will be greenway along Horsepen Creek, and that stretch is close to beginning construction. The remaining mile will, by necessity be accomplished via a bike route and extra wide sidewalk along Burnt Poplar Road. Bardsley estimates the stretch of greenway along Horsepen Creek should open next summer, essentially completing the trail and creating a 22.5-mile Atlantic & Yadkin/Bicentennial network.

For the time being, it’s those kinds of connections that North Carolinians will have to rely on for its longer trail networks. North Carolina, says N.C. Rail-Trails’ Connelly, needs to undergo some fiscal attitude adjustment in order for us to start seeing the likes of, say, the 57-mile New River Trail and 34-mile Virginia Creeper Trail in Virginia.

“Someday North Carolina will have more destination trails like Virginia,” says Connelly. “We just have to pass this tipping point where we collectively realize that, if it's OK to be spending $4 billion a year in North Carolina to treat obesity, then it should be OK to invest more than $6 million a year to provide bike-ped infrastructure.”

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Recent similar posts:

• Destination greenways: A sneak preview, 4.8.2011
• East Coast Greenway Alliance moves in to help N.C. move on, 4.4.2011
• Triangle close to 50 miles of connected greenway, 3.16.2011
• First 8 miles of Neuse greenway to open this summer, 2.12.2011

Photo: The nearly completed 22-mile American Tobacco Trail running from western Wake County north into Chatham County and into downtown Durham, is North Carolina's current standard for long greenway trails.

Swim. Bike. Run.
We did them for fun as a kid. And, increasingly as we approach middle age, we’re doing them to get in shape. Only instead of spreading the activities out over the course of a day, we’re doing them in rapid succession: swimming  500 meters, hopping out of the pool for a 12-mile bike ride, then lacing up the running shoes for a three-mile run.
According to the Sporting Goods Manufacturing Association, 1.2 million Americans participated in at least one triathlon in 2009. And according to USA Triathlon, which sanctions the majority of triathlons in the U.S., more than three quarters of triathletes eschew the longer Olympic and Ironman distances in favor of sprint triathlons, races that typically begin with 6 to 10 laps in the pool, followed by a 12- to 15-mile bike ride and a 3.1-mile run.
And it’s not 20something hard-bodies driving this trend: USA Triathlon, which has seen its membership grow seven fold in the past decade, to 134,942 in 2010, has seen the greatest growth in the 35-44 age group.
To a growing number of health-conscious adults, doing a triathlon is a sensible way to get in shape. The three disciplines work a variety of muscle groups, all offer aerobic benefits, and the variety reduces risk of injury from overworking the same muscles.
“People work, they have stuff to do in their lives,” says Jason Biggs, one of the founders of Cary-based FS Series, which promotes and runs races throughout the state. “For people who don’t have time to ride 100 to 150 miles a week, or swim 2,000 yards three days a week, they’re great.” In a survey of 15,000 members, USA Triathlon found 87 percent said they participate to stay in shape.
Kim Feth of Apex found herself in a physical funk shortly after turning 42 in late 2009. She was grieving the death of her mother, she’d gained weight, she couldn’t motivate herself to move. Then came the gut punch:
“My son came up to me and said, ‘All you ever do is lay on the couch and have a headache. When are you going to play with me?’
“It all crystalized for me,” says Feth, who weighed 207 at the time. “I decided then and there that I cannot keep this up. I decided I’m going to do a sprint-distance triathlon.”
That logic might be a head-scratcher if your only familiarity with triathlons are the highly publicized Ironmans, in which participants swim 2.7 miles, ride their bikes for 112 miles, then run a marathon — 26.2 miles. Not for Feth.
“I knew I couldn’t do a marathon, I couldn’t run that far. But three miles seemed reasonable, I love being in the water and I love riding a bike. And with three sports, I figured I wouldn’t get bored.”
Doing a sprint triathlon also seemed the sensible thing for Gerald Babao of Charlotte when he was diagnosed with adenoid cystic carcinoma, a rare from of head and neck cancer, in 2008.
“That was my launching point,” says Babao, who was 33 at the time. “I felt I need to do as much activity as possible.”
Not that Babao, who works for USA Canoe and Kayak, was a slug. He hiked, backpacked, paddled. “I wasn’t overweight, but I wasn’t in shape.”
Baboa spent the summer in Durham getting treatment at the Duke Cancer Center. When he was strong enough, he bought a bike and started cycling (that led to him sponsoring Team Wannabe Riders in the Livestrong Challenge ride in Philadelphia). Then someone mentioned sprint triathlons, so he he signed up for the TRYMCA class through the Ballantyne Village YMCA. The class met three times a week for eight weeks, swimming, running and cycling. Baboa and his classmates supplemented that training with workouts on their own.
He did his first sprint tri last July, finishing about mid-pack.
“Realistically,” he says, “I know there’s only so much I can do about my cancer. “But this allows me to believe I’m doing everything possible to keep the cancer from returning.”
Feth’s training was a little less ... orthodox.
“I started walking around my dining room,” says Feth. (“I started training in December,” she explains. “I don’t like the cold.”)
In March, she started riding her bike (outside) and in June, when the neighborhood pool opened, she added swimming to the mix. She also signed on to RealAge.com, which offers tips and tracking tools for people looking to get into better shape. Between training for her tri and eating better, she dropped 34 pounds by the time her target race, the Dash for Divas, rolled around in September. She looked better, felt great — and realized at the starting line that her self-styled training left her totally unprepared for the race.
At one point on the bike, she sensed a car slowly rolling along behind her fat-tired beach cruiser. She kept trying to wave it around, then stopped to find she was being tailed by a sheriff’s deputy, lights blazing.
“He was behind me because I was the last racer,” Feth recalls with a laugh. “It was all I could do not to break into tears. I just wanted to toss my bike in the trunk and quit.”
But she didn’t. She finished, with the police escort still on her heels. And she signed up for her next race, the Ramblin’ Rose in Raleigh this May.
Her goal for that race: to have the scarlet letter removed from her leg. Actually, it’s an “A” and it’s in black grease pencil. It stands for “Athena” and its given to female participants who weigh over 150 pounds.
“I know,” she says, “it’s pride. But it’s a righteous pride because I’m trying to get healthy.”

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Try a tri?

• The Charlotte YMCA’s TRYMCA program is an eight-week training program intended to prepare first-time triathletes for their first sprint tri. Cost is $135 for Y members, $195 for nonmembers. The next session begins April 4. For more information go here or call (704) 716-6927.
• In the Triangle, the Raleigh Triathlon Training Team Meetup group holds training events and offers opportunities to learn from seasoned triathletes.
• You can also find training programs online. At BeginnerTriathlete.com, for instance, plug in specifics about the type of event you’re training for and you’ll get a recommended training program.
• For a rundown of triathlons, sprint and otherwise, in North Carolina, visit TriFind.com at  or the Endurance Magazine calendar.
• Just getting started? Check out TriathaNewbie.com — “Guiding Beginner Triathletes into the World of Mini-Triathlons.”

Photo: From last year's Ramblin' Rose in Raleigh. Photo courtesy Clarke Rodgers.

There was a bit of concern at the end of Saturday’s hike. “I’ve only got 19.8 miles on my pedometer,” said Bob. That sparked discussion among the first half dozen or so of us to finish our six-and-a-half-hour trek. “I hope that’s not what Rod’s pedometer says,” groaned one fellow who appeared to have just enough energy left to walk the 20 yards to his car. Asked a woman on the ground stretching,“Do you think he’d make us go back out?”

“He” was Rod Broadbelt. For 13 years, Rod has been leading a monthly hike at Umstead State Park (though he usually takes November off and goes to Raven Rock State Park). In the summer, bowing to the heat, Rod keeps the hikes short, sometimes as short as 10 miles. In cooler weather, he ups the ante. He’s gone as far as 24, and next month he’ll also only do 10 miles, albeit most of that “wilderness” hike is bushwhacking off trail. Today’s hike — from the Company Mill trailhead on the south side of 5,579-acre Umstead to the Visitors Center on the north side and back — was advertised at 20, and Rod’s not one to cut corners. If he says you’re going to go 20 miles and you want to go 20 miles, he’s not about to short you with 19.8.

When Rod retired in the 1990s, he and wife Dorothy moved from the Philadelphia area to Cary to be closer to their daughter and her family. He left behind his beloved Chester County Trail Club, a group of several hundred that took its hiking seriously. They took short hikes. But they also took very long ones. When Rod couldn’t find anything similar in the Triangle he approached the Umstead Coalition about leading hikes under their banner. Those hikes soon became legendary for their distance and blistering pace. Rod is not a stop-and-smell-the-flowers guy. Stop — slow down even — and you’ll be left in the dust (although he will dispatch a search party if a hiker goes missing). At the start of Saturday’s lunch break, one woman, worried that the group would depart post-haste, told Rod she had to run to the bathroom, but she’d hurry.

“Take your time,” Rod said, “We’ll be here for a while.” Conversation stopped as the faithful listened to see if Rod would elaborate on his notion of a while. “We’ll be here 15 minutes.”

On his first “ruins” hike — a tour of Umstead’s human past that was supposed to be as enlightening as it was aerobic — Rod didn’t break stride as he pointed out park history: “That’s an old homestead,” he said pointing left. To the right, “That’s an old cemetery.

Though he pushes a healthy pace (the first four miles of Saturday’s hike were ticked off in just under an hour), Rod’s hikes easily pass the talk-and-walk test. Twenty-seven people headed out on the trail Saturday and it’s a good bet that each person talked with at least half the people on the hike.

I chatted with Shirley, who just turned 65 and has only been hiking two years. Yet she already has explored the Slickrock Wilderness and Panthertown Valley in western North Carolina, climbed peaks in Washington and spent a couple weeks exploring in New Zealand. I chatted with Jane, a Canadian expat who does an 11-mile hike once a week with some women from her gym. I talked to Mike, who’s part of a volunteer crew refurbishing dilapidated cabins in the park.

And I marveled at Rod. Despite being an avid hiker, hiking boots are his only concession to modern hiking gear. His white cargo pants appear to be cotton, and as the weather warmed — it was 28 degrees at the 8 a.m. start before rising into the upper 40s — he peeled back two cotton hoodies and a flannel shirt, keeping them tied around his waste. (He’s old school, too, in that one of the hikers had to gently remind him to drink water.) At one point, when there was confusion about a couple hikers’ names, someone jokingly suggested name tags. “I don’t want any bureaucracy,” Rod quickly responded. About the only tolerance Rod has for that kind of thing is the monthly e-mail he sends reminding folks of upcoming hikes. Hiking club newsletter? Web site? Club name? Not in Rod’s hiking army.

And I marveled that Rod hasn’t lost a step since he started leading these hikes 13 years ago. “I want to lead this hike when I’m 80!” Rod said on Saturday. He’s 77.

As Rod and a handful of hikers made their way out of the woods around 3 p.m. and approached the trailhead, the suspense mounted. “Well?” someone from the first wave to finish asked, “What’s your pedometer say?”

Rod shrugged: “Equipment malfunction. The thing kept falling off my pants.”

Had we the strength, we would have issued a collective sigh of relief.

* * *

Hike with Rod?

Here’s a look at Rod Broadbelt’s upcoming hikes at Umstead:

• March 12, annual Wilderness Hike, approximately 10 miles.
• April 9, Carter-Finley Stadium hike, 13.5 miles.
• May 7, Umstead to Lake Crabtree and back, 13.5-14 miles.

For more information, email Rod at rbroadbelt@nc.rr.com or call him, before 7 p.m., at  919.363.6611.