If there’s anything approaching a guarantee in the world of greenway construction — a world in which delays are the norm — Raleigh’s chief greenway planner comes close to offering it.
“We’re operating on a 4-year schedule,” Vic Lebsock says of the city’s most ambitious one-shot greenway program yet, the 28-mile Neuse River Greenway. Construction on the greenway began last week.
This is the second in an occasional series on seemingly small acts of physical activity that can, over time, have a surprising impact on your life. Last week GGNC looked at taking the stairs vs. the elevator. Today: Watching TV on an exo ball rather than hunkered down in a La-Z-Boy.
The good news: The long-awaited promise of being able to take a greenway from near downtown Raleigh to the heart of downtown Durham came a step closer to reality last week with the unofficial opening of the 4.6-mile Chatham County section of the American Tobacco Trail. It’s now possible to walk/run/bike/equestriate for 13.8 miles on the ATT south of I-40. The trail resumes on the north side of I-40, running from NC 54 north for 6.7 miles into downtown Durham. The only remaining stretch left on the ATT: about a mile and a half bridging the two sections, including a pedestrian bridge over I-40.
A pioneer of American fitness whose simple invention may have made more people healthy than any other device died Tuesday at his home in Utah. Walter Fredrick “Fred” Morrison, who was 90, invented the Frisbee.
Morrison first got the idea for a flying disc tossing tin cake pans on the beach with his wife, Lu. After serving in World War II as a pilot, he pursued his fascination with flying discs, selling a more aerodynamic version of the cake tin at county fairs and department stores. The public’s intrigue was piqued during the 1950s during the nation’s fascination with UFOs. Ever the entrepreneur, Morrison painted little portholes on his discs, creating a toy that not only was fun to throw and catch, but carried with it the prospect of little green men paying a visit. In 1957, Morrison sold the manufacturing and production rights to what he called the “Pluto Platter” to Wham-O Manufacturing.
Wondering what you can do as part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move program to stop the super-sizing of our kids? If you have preschoolers, you can do three things according to a study to be published in the March Pediatrics.
According to a survey of parents of 8,550 4-year-olds, kids who adhered to the above three practices were 40 percent less likely to be obese than their slacker counterparts who sucked down their mac & cheese in front of a dusk-to-dawn Dora marathon.