Memorial Day weekend: Three days to get out and explore, three options for doing just that.
Coast
Despite its name, George Washington once referred to the Dismal Swamp as a “glorious paradise.” If you’ve only driven past, the rationale behind President Washington’s praise may escape you. But plunge into its lush depths on a kayak and the father of our country’s reasoning will be perfectly clear.
Friday, I wrote about visiting the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte. Today, we’ll take a virtual, vicarious raft trip on the center’s concrete river via the first of GetGoingNC.com’s new video series of 90-Second Escapes.
Enjoy the trip.
The Triangle’s inaugural obstacle-infested 5K, the Gladiator, went off today at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary. Some 776 runners made the passage into Gladiatordom, battling through a gauntlet of tires, crawling under a camo tarp (barbed wire was deemed too dangerous; the Town of Cary also nixed running through a fire pit and that bane of grade school playgrounds everywhere, monkey bars), hoisting over a cargo net wall, walking a balance beam and squirming through a tarp-covered water pit, among other challenges.
I’m a big believer in the notion that if you find your fitness passion, you’ll have no problem staying in shape. Trouble is, it can take a while to find that passion, especially in the outdoor adventure arena. It can take a while, but it doesn’t have to.
There’s a bike ride in the east, a biathlon in the west, and a survivalist 5K in between this weekend in North Carolina.
Coast
The northeast corner of North Carolina may be the best-suited part of the state for cycling: two-lane country roads meandering past forest and cotton fields with little automotive traffic to compete with. Yet how often do you find yourself riding a bike there? Not very, I’m guessing. Usually in a case like this it’s because you simply haven’t had a good excuse to explore the area. An excuse such as this Saturday’s Country Roads Bike Tour. Starting and ending in Scotland Neck, the CRBT offers routes of 20k, 50k and 100k — basically a k for every style of riding, from not-much-at-all (20k) to long greenway rides on the weekend (50K) to the hardcore recreational rider who gets in 100 miles a week (100k).