The trail climbs a surprising bluff then, briefly, joins forces with an old roadbed. But I’m not aware of the “briefly” part, and it would be easy to miss where the trail darts back into the woods. Easy, but for two things. One, this new 4.2-mile stretch of trail along the Eno River is part of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, and even freshly minted segments of the MST are hard to…

I find a gimme water bottle full of fermented energy drink under the 16-year-old’s bed and I toss it into the recycling. Bike water bottles infest every nook and cranny of our house; one won’t be missed. But a CamelBak, a $19.95 CamelBak, is another matter. I’ll do whatever it takes to revive that sucker. Fortunately, it doesn’t take much, as this instructional video demonstrates.

As a recovering print journalist, one reason I prefer an online existence is it provides more opportunity to share information, primarily through links. Rather than give a short, perhaps unfulfilling definition of a concept I can provide that short definition, then link to a site where, if you chose, you can learn your fill (but then return the rest of my story). Today, I have a story appearing in both…

Among your active options for this weekend in North Carolina … Coast Wings Over Water may be over and the tourists may have left, but the star attractions — the birds — remain. Check out the nearly 400 species of birds who call the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge home — either year-round or seasonally — on a guided hike Sunday at 8 a.m. Specifically, the hike will explore the…

Tuesday, we started running the 31-mile Art Loeb Trail in the Pisgah National Forest with Mike Walsh, Charles West and Mike Day. Today, we finish the run. Charles West and Mike Walsh were a good half hour into telling me about their 11 hour and 10 minute, 31-mile run on the rugged Art Loeb Trail before they mentioned the rain. They were 10 miles into their trail tale, coming into…

A condensed version of this story by our print alter ego appeared Oct. 12 in both the Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer of Raleigh. It appears here with additional information and links. It’s about indulging yourself. It’s about pleasure. It’s about listening to your body and doing what it wants to do, not what some hard-body drill instructor wants it to do. And, strangely, it’s exercise. “In Nia,”…

October? Already? Coast It’s Big Sweep Day across the state, the day each year when paddlers hit their favorite waterways and rid them of the styrofoam, the basketballs, the milk jugs and assorted other detritus that accumulates along the banks. You can find a rundown of events statewide at the North Carolina Office of Environmental Education & Public Affairs. Events such as Big Sweep Columbus County, where a ranger-led canoe…

When I sign up for a run or ride benefiting a cause, I usually have some idea what the cause is. When I signed up for The Magnificent Mile on Sept. 19, I had no idea what primary lateral sclerosis or spastic paraplegia were. Fortunately, I signed up at The Athlete’s Foot in Cameron Village last week and Sarah Roberts-Witt was on hand. Unfortunately for Sarah, but fortunately for the…

Sitting in the Hampton Roads Transit bus at 5:44 yesterday morning, a sobering feeling came over me. Glancing around, my fellow runners all had bib numbers in the five digits. More competent looking runners than I bore numbers such as 11256, 18097, 20876. With 6645 plastered across my chest, I felt like a poseur. In many races, your bib number doesn’t mean much: Usually, it reflects how early you registered….

Salli Benedict thought she was over-the-hill in 1987. “I had just turned 40 and I thought, ‘I’m so old.’” Not a sentiment Benedict would tolerate today from her workout class, most of whom are twice that age. It was the same year Benedict, now 62, turned 40 that she took a “wellness retirement training” course through the Body Recall and started teaching an exercise class for seniors. Initially, the class…