“That first 200 was pretty good,” Tim said as he followed me on his bike, “but you need to pick it up for the last 400.”
Right, I gasped to myself. And you can pick up my lung when I cough it up.
It was my first “coached” running workout and a whirlwind of thoughts rushed through my oxygen-deprived brain as I did the third of my four prescribed 600-meter sprints (bookended by a pair of 1,000-meter dashes). Will I be seeing that tuna wrap I had for lunch again? was foremost. Why am I doing this? was a close second. By “this,” I meant hiring, at age 54, a coach to drive me, push me and to make my body feel like it hadn’t since I’d last crossed paths with a coach in high school some 35 years ago.read more
Planning ahead for your New Year’s Resolution to get fit? Here’s what will be in — and out — in 2011, according to a survey of 19,000 “fitness professions” by the American College of Sports Medicine.
Out: Balance training, stability balls and Pilates. “Pilates suffered the worst fall, disappearing after a ninth place ranking in 2010,” according to the ACSM. “It appears from this survey that Pilates may not have been a trend at all but may be considered a fad in the health and fitness industry,” says ACSM spokesman Walter R. Thompson.read more
“Usually,” Alan observed, “we wait until we’ve been hiking a while before we get lost.”
Indeed, getting lost before we could even find the trailhead was a record. It was also a tribute to the trail, five newly opened sections of the Falls Lake portion of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, which is expanding at breakneck pace through the Triangle. Likely by year’s end, and possibly at a Nov. 21 Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail workday, 60 miles of continuous trail will exist from the Falls Lake dam in Wake County to Pennys Bend on the Eno River in Durham County. That about 37 of those miles — from NC 50 northwest — have been blazed and cleared since 2007 is thanks entirely to FMST volunteers who show up once a month to rake, dig, hack and otherwise clear trail. That we were slightly challenged finding the trailhead for Section 20 wasn’t surprising considering how quickly this transportation project is evolving.read more
In my previous running life — in my 20s, in the ‘80s — I found myself on two occasions in New Orleans, covering conventions. On both visits it rained, and even though I’m a wimp when it comes to running in wet weather — soggy shoes, chaffing in especially sensitive places, I wear glasses, shall I go on? — I was able to put in my usual five miles thanks to a word of wisdom passed along by a hotel valet:read more
You know what that means — time is running short to explore the outdoors before the weather gets really cold. A few of your options this weekend:
Coast
Few things make you feel like a kid more than flying a kite. The thrill of getting your kite airborne after a dogged sprint, watching it climb higher and higher into the wild blue, chasing after it over fences and through the neighbors’ backyards after the string snaps. Good times — and a good workout, too.read more