I wrote the following article for the Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer in Raleigh; it appeared in both papers on May 15. It appears here in expanded form, with links.
OK, time for your daily workout. Put on the sweats, lace up the sneakers and now to get limbered up with some long, deep stretches … .
Sunday, Day 4 of the MST Endurance Run, began on schedule for Diane Van Deren with a 3:45 a.m. wake up call. After getting off the trail the previous evening at 9:36 with Annette Bednosky, her trail guide for the weekend, she’d gotten her first good night’s sleep — 4 hours. She arrived where the Mountains-to-Sea Trail passes the Folk Arts Center in Asheville ready to rock a 43.8-mile day.
A large building loomed out of the dark woods to our right.
“Is that the Folk Arts Center?” Annette Bednosky asked slightly perplexed. It was — the very same Folk Arts Center we’d set off from 15 minutes earlier, at 5:01 this morning.
“Well,” said Diane Van Deren, “we just did a 14-minute warmup lap.”
To Van Deren, it was a “so-what” moment. When you’re spending up to 20 hours a day for 21 days hiking a thousand miles, what’s 15 minutes?
This morning was the start of Day 4 of Van Deren’s attempt to break the speed record for trekking the entire Mountains-to-Sea Trail, from Clingman’s Dome on the Tennessee border to Jockey’s Ridge on the coast. Her MST Endurance Run is sponsored by The North Face (Van Deren is one of the outdoor gear company’s elite athletes) and the Great Outdoor Provision Co. The goal: raise awareness — and $40,000 — for the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, a work-in-progress trail spanning North Carolina.
Since starting her quest before dawn on Thursday, Van Deren has covered about 145 miles. Read on …
A year ago today, I wrote about all the things I planned to do in my 55th year. 55 things, in fact, all tied to the number 55. My inspiration came in large part from a National Institutes of Health report noting that men generally start dropping weight and, the report added, start falling apart at 55. If that’s the case, I thought, then I need to start working extra hard.
Today, Thursday, May 10, marks the start of elite ultra runner Diane Van Deren’s effort to run across North Carolina, a roughly 1,000-mile journey that will take her along the work-in-progress Mountains-to-Sea Trail from Clingman’s Dome on the Tennessee border to Jockey’s Ridge at the lip of the Atlantic. Her objective: to finish in 21 days, beating the current speed record of 24 days, 3 hours and 50 minutes set last year by Matt Kirk.