Until I start getting my greenway information up (see yesterday’s post), you can find information on your local greenways at the following parks & rec sites.
Triangle
Apex: Apex Parks, Recreation & Cultural Resources — 7.7 miles of greenway.
One word: Greenways
On this morning’s ride at Umstead with Alan and Tim, the conversation ranged, as it will on a good ride, from “Avatar,” to dinosaur dung http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coprolite to, of course, biking. Alan and Tim are strong riders, and you might expect their end of the discussion to focus on training, technique, gear. And there was some of that. But what really got Tim going was a 25-mile Carolina Tarwheels group ride he’d done on Raleigh’s greenways.
Happy nuts, frozen nuts and other things I learned from “O”
The joke at our house (at least I think it’s funny) is that when the latest “O” arrives, I exclaim with mock surprise, “Oh, look! Oprah’s on the cover.”
This morning, the February 2010 issue showed up on the kitchen table. I was waiting for the coffee to finish, I didn’t feel like going out in the rain to fetch the Sunday paper, so I started thumbing through. Here’s what I learned:
30/30 deadline workouts
Thursday looked like it was going to be yet another day that I would shortchange myself on working out. I’d been in the latter stages of a book deadline crisis for the past three weeks, my every moment occupied with writing or fretting over why I wasn’t writing. My ability to get out for a ride, to take a long run, to go for a night hike or to hit the climbing wall had suffered. Driving back from a meeting in Durham I felt the pull of the deadline yanking me away from yet another workout. I was cranky.
Recommended reading: “Spark”
Another reason to exercise: It’s good for your brain. That’s hardly a revelation. Anyone who exercises knows, for instance, that even a short 30-minute workout can boost your mood for the rest of the day. But just how extensive the relationship is between exercise and your brain may come as a surprise. That relationship is the subject of “Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain,” by John J. Ratey and Eric Hagerman, $24.99, Little, Brown and Company. In addition to being a mood enhancer, the book explores how exercise can among other things, relieve stress, diffuse anxiety, help you focus, regulate hormones and grow brain cells. (The book isn’t new; it’s been out nearly two years. It’s just new to GGNC.) Haven’t gotten a copy yet; I will and will report periodically on what I learn. You can reviews in August 2008 issue of Psychiatric Services, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association, and at Blogcrtics.org.