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.
Too hot? Don’t sweat it
I have various rules of thumb for when it’s too hot to do certain things. Over 80? Too hot to hike (sweat + overnight cobweb construction + lots of body hair makes me feel like a wad of cotton candy after a mile or so). I draw the line slightly higher, at 85, for running, mainly because of the skimpy apparel involved. I’ll paddle into the low 90s, but not on open, unshaded water. I can handle 90 degrees on a mountain bike; the calculation becomes more involved on a road bike. I’ll ride up to 95 on road, maybe higher if I don’t have to stop; few things are more demoralizing than coming to a stoplight after generating an 18-mile-per-hour breeze, then losing that breeze altogether. (Sweaty fact: 109 F is 42.777 C.)
This weekend: Get out and enjoy (?) the heat
The forecast calls for record heat, in the Piedmont at least, this weekend. So … stock up on that dry ice they’re selling now at the Teeter.
Coast
Is there a more appropriate way to celebrate our nation’s 236th birthday than by running 3.1 miles? Probably. But it’s certainly a good way to celebrate our independence, which is no doubt what the people of Southport thought when they decided to include the Freedom Run as part of their North Carolina 4th of July Festival. And deciding to hold it five days before the Fourth of July was no doubt inspired by the desire to be able to walk again come Independence Day.
Searching for a step up
I’m always on the lookout for a quick, effective workout. To share with you, my faithful readers, of course. But mainly for me. This morning, I may have struck gold.
Once or twice a week for the last decade, I’ve done an early morning mountain bike ride at Umstead State Park with my buddy Alan Nechemias. We ride the bridal trail network, sometimes throwing in some adjacent singletrack. We ride for an hour and a half to two hours, usually put in 20 to 25 miles. It’s a great workout.
Don’t think you can? Meet Elizabeth and Peggy
A couple weekends ago I set out to find two of the hardest group hikes around.
I struck gold.
On Saturday, I tapped into one of “wild & crazy” Steve G. Martin’s infamous off-trail hikes at Stone Mountain State Park. Since discovering Stone Mountain 5 years ago, Martin has been been trying to uncover every one of the 14,100-acre park’s many secrets, very few of which lie along the park’s 16.5 miles of blazed trail. Among other things, Martin has found 350 stills, “Area 15” (a fenced area that may or may not be the entrance to a secret underground military base) and numerous old homesteads previously unknown to park authorities. He has lead about 200 hikes, mostly through the Triad Hiking & Outdoors Group, mostly off-trail, most with multiple disclaimers such as “there’s a 50-50 chance we won’t make it back.”