North Carolina bookends its Saturday with a 100K ride first thing Saturday morning in Raleigh and a pair of runs in the evening, a marathon at the coast and an 8K in the mountains.
Coast
If you just looked at your watch and thought, “Holy cow! Is there still time to qualify for the Boston Marathon!?” the answer is “yes.” Thanks to Saturday’s Last Chance for Beantown Marathon there is indeed one last chance (or one of several last chances, actually) to qualify for Boston 2014. Not only is this a flat marathon (it’s mostly through the Summerhouse community north of Wilmington) but it’s also in the cool of the night, starting at 7:30 p.m. (you must finish by 12:30 a.m.)read more
On the plus side, Charlotte has the all-in-one National Whitewater Center.
I wrote the following for the Charlotte Observer, where it appeared Aug. 20, 2013. It appears here with links. A report on Raleigh’s ranking ran in this spot on Tuesday, Aug. 20.
According to the American College of Sports Medicine, Charlotte wheezes in at No. 36 in the recent fittest ranking of the nation’s 50 largest metro areas. (Raleigh trotted in far better at No. 15.)
The American Fitness Index, introduced in 2007, ranks cities in 30 categories ranging from acres of parkland and number of farmers markets, to number of smokers and people with heart disease, to the percentage of residents with health insurance.
On the newest ranking, released in May, Charlotte was cited as lacking in 19 of the 30 categories. Compared to the nation as a whole, it’s got an excessive number of smokers and obese residents, a higher number of residents with diabetes and heart disease and not enough primary health care providers.
It’s also lacking in playgrounds, dog parks, ball fields, rec centers, swimming pools and tennis courts, according to the index.
On the plus side, it has more farmers markets and acres of parkland per capita and fewer people who die from diabetes. The area evaluated was the Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill Metropolitan Statistical Area.
The findings didn’t surprise Hall Rubin, who moved to the area three years ago. Rubin previously lived in the Triangle, where he founded and headed a 400-member Meetup group that hiked, biked and paddled three or four times a week.
“There are opportunities in Charlotte,” says the semi-retired Rubin, “but you really have to look for them.”
For instance, he says, “There are a few long, linear greenways in Charlotte, but they aren’t connected. You have to put your bike on the car and drive to them.”
Ken Tippette, the manager of the Bicycle Program for Charlotte’s Department of Transportation says it’s no surprise Charlotte took a hit in the ranking for having a low percentage of residents who bike or walk to work. Years of planning have conspired against residents making short commutes by bike or foot.
But Tippette says efforts are underway to change the situation.
The city is planning the Cross-Charlotte Trail, a nonmotorized passage that would run 26 miles, from Pineville on the south side of town to UNC Charlotte.
The $35 million project is expected to take 10 years to complete. He adds that the city has come a long way in a decade: In 2003, Charlotte had 1 mile of marked bike lane; today it has 75 miles and another 44 miles of greenways.
And the city’s new B-Cycle program that lets people rent and ride bicycles parked in uptown Charlotte and other sites just turned a year old. Nearly 500 annual memberships exceeded the program’s expectations by 40 percent, and the more than 11,000 one-day riders surpassed expectations by a whopping 1,600 percent, program officials said. The bikes have made 32,000 trips in a year.
And, there’s the Carolina Thread Trail, an effort to build a trail network in 15 counties linking 2.3 million people.
Charlotte’s presence in the heart of tobacco country also weighed against the region. Nearly 19 percent of residents smoke, about 6 percent above the national average.read more
I wrote the following for The News & Observer, where it appeared Monday, Aug. 19, 2013. It appears here with links. If you live in Charlotte and wonder where your town fared in the American Fitness Index ranking of the nation’s 50 largest metro areas, come back tomorrow for that report.read more
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 or slide show 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.read more
This weekend will feel like mid to late October throughout much of the state.
Consider: As of noon today, the temperature atop Mount Mitchell was 53 degrees, with winds out of the southeast at 14 miles per hour, gusting to 18. Overnight, the temperature dropped to 45, with a wind chill of 40 degrees. Saturday, the temperature is expected to top out at 61.
That’s fleece weather.
Granted, this is on top of the East Coast (though these readings are from a station at 6,200 feet, nearly 500 below the Mount Mitchell summit). But these types of temperatures can be expected throughout the high country this weekend.
Even in the Piedmont, cool temperatures will prevail. Forecast highs for Saturday are in the low 70s with overnight lows dipping into the mid 60s.
This translates to one thing: a fall-like window for hiking.
Be advised, you won’t be the only one to have this thought. The trails are likely to be jammed. Here’s a little advice on how to avoid the expected crowds. Go long. Probably the most popular trail at popular Umstead State Park in Raleigh is the Company Mill Trail — at least the first mile. That initial mile takes you over three small ridges down to Crabtree Creek. For many, especially those with small kids, Crabtree is a good opportunity to frolic for a few minutes, may have a snack, then head back. The traffic is probably halved by the time you cross Crabtree. And Jon Holliday, founder of the Raleigh Trail Hikers Meetup, says the numbers really dwindle once you hit the 3-mile mark and meet the Sycamore Trail in the center of the park. Avoid the popular spots. Well, duh. So how do you know what’s popular? A few ways to narrow the list. Is it a place you hear frequently mentioned? If so, don’t go. Does it have a spacious, paved parking lot (or worse yet, a visitor center)? Nix it. Avoid the popular spots, II. Last year, nearly 1.2 million people visited Umstead State Park in Raleigh. Proximity is part of the reason: about as many people live in Umstead’s MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area). It’s also a great park. But there are a lot of other great State Parks in North Carolina that don’t get near the love they deserve. A prime example: Medoc Mountain State Park, which barely got 100,000 visitors last year. Medoc Mountain is located near … well, that’s the problem, it’s not near or on the way to anywhere of note. But it’s just an hour and a half from the Triangle and well worth the drive. You can find a list of other underloved state parks here. Avoid the popular spots, III. Another way to find a State Park that may be under visited: Get a state road map that has state parks on it and seek out the more remote ones. Medoc Mountain, again, is one example. Other good one: South Mountains State Park which is just far enough off I-40 and from Morganton to require a little extra effort to get to. South Mountains has 18,000 acres and had only 194,000 visitors last year. Look for secondary entrances. Most parks have a main, advertised entrance, but they also have lesser-known secondary entrances. Get a map of your favorite place to hike and see where the boundaries brush up against roads. If there’s a trail near that point, you may well have a secondary entrance with roadside parking. Check out preserves, conservancies and land trusts. They often have smaller, but less popular, trail networks. And because the land is being preserved, you can bet there’s some thing extra special about it. (Find a land trust near you by checking out the Conservation Trust for North Carolina website.)read more
