If you bookmark no other entry from this blog, bookmark this one. It contains links to five resources especially conducive to leading an active lifestyle.
GetGoingNC.com Guide to North Carolina Greenways. Looking to take a run, a walk, a ride on a greenway, either in your town or elsewhere in North Carolina? Our revamped site contains a guide to North Carolina that is the most comprehensive Tarheel greenway guide available — and is becoming more comprehensive by the week. Find maps, detailed trail descriptions, slideshows, trailhead information and general descriptions of the state’s longer greenways as well as info on where to find the smaller ones. You’ll find in in the navigation panel on the upper left of the GGNC home page.read more
It’s something of a conundrum: It’s the weekend, you want to get out, you ache to get out — yet it’s so debilitatingly hot out! (Lordy, I was heading out for a run this morning and it was already 85 by 9 a.m. I’m usually not one to hide in the air conditioning, but … .)read more
We stood in a circle, this group mostly in our 50s, 60s and 70s, but I couldn’t help feeling like I was 8 again, shuffling nervously in a schoolyard playground. Our team leaders were choosing work crews, but it had the unmistakable feel of picking teams for a pickup football game.read more
The next time you hear about an athlete “juicing,” he may be beetroot juicing.
A pair of recent studies have found that athletes who throw down some beetroot juice before an event tend to do better from an endurance standpoint. In November, a study appearing the Journal of Applied Physiology found that runners who beetroot juiced increased their endurance by 15 percent during high intensity running. And a study just published in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise finds that competitive cyclists are likewise affected. (Beetroot juice has also been found to lower blood pressure and cleanse the kidneys and gall bladder.)read more
Price Lake is one of those rare mountain trails accessible to a wide range of pedestrians. It’s 2.3-mile length may seem intimidating to the non-hiker: Rather than 2.3 miles, think of it as 25 100- to 200-yard walks interrupted by pauses to oooh and ahhh. read more