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.
MST Endurance Run: My taste of the ultra life
The entry in my workout log yesterday read, “Run for Diane, 7.4 miles @ Umstead, hot — and slow.”
Frankly, it was 7.4 miles I likely wouldn’t have run — in upper 80-degree heat — were it not for Diane Van Deren.
Diane Van Deren, ultra runner, elite The North Face athlete, and former women’s tennis pro will spend most of this month running across North Carolina. On Thursday, she’ll set off from atop Clingman’s Dome in hopes of running nearly 1,000 miles along the Mountains-to-Sea Trail in just 21 days in the MST Endurance Run. The current record — yes, it’s been done before — is 24 days (24 days, 3 hours and 50 minutes, to be exact, set last year by Matt Kirk.
This weekend: Celebrate the summerlike weather with a ride, a hike, a river festival
It’s what you’ve been waiting for since September: the first weekend of the year that will feel like summer. Celebrate with a 100-mile bike ride in the coastal plain, a hike under a full moon, or celebrating one of the mountains’ most popular and playful rivers, the French Broad.
MELT: A workout intended to get under your skin
Ashley Honneycutt was giving me a quick overview of the class we were headed to when one thing in particular caught my attention: “… and it’s all done on a roller.” Knowing that I’m a runner and sensing that I was about to wheel and make a break for my car, she grabbed my arm. “It’s not that kind of roller. Not the roller you use for running. It’s softer.” Softer than rock wasn’t that reassuring, but I followed her anyway.
90 Second Escape: Late Sunday afternoon
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.