Last year I was backpacking across Jane Bald on the Appalachian Trail when I came upon a 74-year-old gentleman from Atlanta. We talked for a few minutes, mostly about his extensive hiking experience in the region. “Of course,” he said after sharing his 10th favorite trail, “I wouldn’t be hiking any of them without these.” At that, he tapped the two hiking poles he’d been leaning against. “Wish I’d started hiking with ‘em seven years sooner,” he added. “Would have spared my knees some pain.”
Team Bandwidth.com’s 3,004-mile sprint
The following post on Team Bandwidth.com’s winning of this year’s Race Across America originally appeared in the Work & Money section of The News & Observer on Sunday, June 27. I’ve written more on the team’s experience here.
More on Team Bandwidth.com’s sprint across America
In today’s The News & Observer, I write about Team Bandwidth.com’s experience in Race Across America, the 3,004-mile bike race from Oceanside, Calif., to Annapolis, Md., that TB.com won (competing in the four-person team division), covering the distance in 6 days, 3 hours and 9 minutes. Here are more details on TB’s experience. (Probably makes more sense if you read the main story first, then come back here for more insights.)
Paddling, at last
For several months I’d been ruing the fact I hadn’t been in a kayak for, well, several months. I made up for my lapse over the weekend.
Saturday, Marcy and I went for a hike on the wild side of Lake Johnson. (That would be the nearly two miles of unpaved trail on the Raleigh lake’s west side.) As we crossed the footbridge toward the boathouse we took note of the $5-an-hour rental sit-on-top kayaks on the adjoining beach. A little hot right now — it was in the mid-90s at mid-afternoon — but an ideal way to spend the evening. Which we did, returning around 6:30 and taking out a tandem for an hour or so. We paddled west, checking out where we’d hiked earlier in the day. We paddled east down to the dam. We stopped occasionally, pulled our paddles and floated, watching the sky change from an oppressive haze-blue, to a muted yellow to blazing pink.
Breathing, falling, buzzing — the latest word
Two more reasons to exercise — and one to get off your buzzing butt.
Researchers at York University in Toronto have found that exercise may help people with asthma. At least those adults whose asthma isn’t fully controlled by meds.
In a study published online June 7 in the European Respiratory Journal, researchers took 36 sedentary adults with asthma symptoms that were only partially controlled. Half were put on three months of supervised exercise — jogging, walking on a treadmill, pedaling a stationary bike three times a week, strength training once a week — the other half went about their sedentary lives. At the end of the three months of supervised exercise, that half of the control group continued to workout on their own. At the end of both the three month and six month periods, the exercisers reported improvement in their overall quality of life, especially the parts of it that, during their more leisurely days, had been affected by their asthma.