We’ve got a celebration of the Scuppernong River by paddle craft, a Great Amazing Race for you and a member of your family near Charlotte and a duathlon (trail run/mountain bike) on private property (worry not, it’s legal) near Asheville.
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Statewide, and especially at the coast, there’s a good workout to be had as part of NC Big Sweep. Meanwhile, a new trail opens in the Piedmont and on Saturday you needn’t be a 737 to fly down the runway at Asheville Regional Airport.
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As we discovered this past weekend in the yard, there is perhaps no greater workout than trying to tidy up the outside world. Which is why if you’re looking for a heckuva workout this weekend, you need look no further than your local NC Big Sweep event. Yes, it’s that time, the first Saturday of October, when volunteers in all 100 North Carolina counties will gather to clean up their local waterways. While the events are held statewide, they seem to be especially popular along the coast. In Brunswick County alone, cleanups are scheduled in a dozen locations. To find out what’s going on near you, see Logistics, below.
Celebrate the last weekend of September with a kayak trip at Hammocks Beach, a celebration of and on Raleigh’s Walnut Creek Greenway, and a salute to birds at Chimney Rock
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Summer can be a little steamy out on the sounds in the marshes of the Carolina coast. But late September? Cooler air temps and cooling water temps (but still warm enough for a dip) make for perfect kayaking conditions. That’s the thinking behind Saturday’s kayak trip at Hammocks Beach State Park. Paddle about the intricate marshes around Hammocks Beach; kayak, paddles and lifejackets provided.
A 5K through an old plantation at the coast, a paddle on a Piedmont river, a waterfall hike through the Pisgah National Forest. A weekend doesn’t get much more North Carolina than that.
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Chances are you aren’t familiar with the Abbey Nature Preserve just north of Wilmington. Chances are you don’t know that in addition to the preserve, there’s the historic Poplar Grove Plantation and a museum documenting the Foy family’s nearly two centuries of farming on the land. And chances are you didn’t know that Saturday is a great day to explore the grounds as part of the Abbey Nature Preserve Autumn 5K. Run through Cedar forests, on trail beneath a leafy canopy, past a scenic pond and across a wooden footbridge.
I wrote the following for the Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer in Raleigh; it appeared in both papers on Tuesday, Sept. 17. It runs here with links. Check out my personal take on Chi Running, which I wrote about last week.
The best way to get the most out of running?