A gorgeous fall training hike on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail.
Friday, I told you about an opportunity to make this fall truly epic by taking the Ultimate Hike.
Yes, it sounds like the title of a bad reality TV show (oxymoron?) about five people who go on a hike — and only one comes back. In reality — real reality — it’s an opportunity to test yourself and help a bunch of kids in the process. Ultimate Hike is a fundraiser run by CureSearch for Children’s Cancer. CureSearch promises to put you through a 12-week training program, at the end of which you’re able to hike 28.3 miles in one day. In return, you raise $2,500 to help the fight against childhood cancer. Pretty good deal.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
Two weeks from Saturday I will stand in front of about 50 people at Umstead State Park and tell them that their lives are about to change in ways they can’t imagine.
Those 50 folks will be about to take their first steps on an epic adventure called the Ultimate Hike. You could be one of them.read more
This weekend you can race early through the streets of Asheville or late through downtown Durham. Not a city person? Fret not: there’s a marsh paddle near Wilmington that goes nowhere near concrete or traffic lights.
Coast
There are lots of paddling options at the coast. My favorite: riverine and salt marsh habitats. That’s the destination Saturday of a trip sponsored by New Hanover County Parks & Gardens and Hook, Line & Paddle at Riverside Park in Castle Hayne. The 2.5-hour guided trip will explore the flora and fauna of this rich habitat.read more
Ludwik Zon (center, happy, waving) likely doesn't train on a whim. Photo courtesy North Carolina Outward Bound.
When I get lost on a hike, the first thing I like to do when I get home is dig out the appropriate USGS map and figure where I went wrong. I call the exercise a topopsy. Similarly, after a race I like to take a few minutes to figure out what went right and what didn’t. Thus, a few minutes looking back at Saturday’s River Bound 15K at the National Whitewater Center in Charlotte.read more
