For a while now, I’ve been mentioning that GetGoingNC.com will be growing, with an expanded presence focusing on North Carolina’s greenways. Specifically, our plan is to look at the state’s so-called “destination greenways.” “So-called” and the term itself in quotes because its definition is rather squishy.
This weekend: Run the coast, paddle the Piedmont, hike the mountains
Sing the following to the tune of the theme song for “Car 54 Where Are You?”
There’s a 5K at the coast,
Umstead’s got a paddle trip.
They’ll be hiking up at DuPont
Where the views are bright and crisp.
It’s the first week-end in April,
Spring is firmly underway …
Plan to get out and pla-ay
Start walking, today!
Sometimes all you need to get moving is a good excuse. Permission, say, to get up from your desk and take a 30-minute walk. Which is what you have today from the American Heart Association.
Today is National Start! Walking Day, deemed so by the American Heart Association. Today, over your lunch “hour,” the AHA wants you to get up from your desk and take a 30-minute walk — a 30-minute walk-a-day being the AHA’s prescription for better heart health (in addition to yielding a host of other benefits). And if the boss raises an eyebrow and says, “Whoa! Bumstead! Where do you think you’re going?”, the AHA has a succinct elevator speech for you to deliver:
Living young in the Triangle
If you live in the Triangle, you have discovered the fountain of youth.
A study of the 50 largest metro areas in the U.S. finds the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area is among the 10 “youngest” places in the country. The study, released today, looked at 52 factors and ranked the Triangle No. 8 nationally, just below No. 7 San Diego and just above No. 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul, in terms of how old we really are.
East Coast Greenway Alliance moves in to help N.C. move on
When the East Coast Greenway Alliance announced in February it was moving its headquarters from Rhode Island to the Triangle, the move was a good sign for the state — and a sign that we need help.
The Alliance is the driving force behind the East Coast Greenway, an in-the-works greenway that will one day run continuously from Key West, Fla., to Canada, a distance of nearly 3,000 miles. It bills itself as the urban alternative to the Appalachian Trail, offering a pedestrian-width ribbon of pavement instead natural surface and traveling through as many municipalities as possible, rather than avoiding them. More than 25 percent of the trail now exists. Problem is, the vast majority of the completed path lies well to the north.