The next time you hear about an athlete “juicing,” he may be beetroot juicing.
A pair of recent studies have found that athletes who throw down some beetroot juice before an event tend to do better from an endurance standpoint. In November, a study appearing the Journal of Applied Physiology found that runners who beetroot juiced increased their endurance by 15 percent during high intensity running. And a study just published in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise finds that competitive cyclists are likewise affected. (Beetroot juice has also been found to lower blood pressure and cleanse the kidneys and gall bladder.)read more
This weekend, there’s inspiration by the surf, less perspiration in an evening run, more inspiration (not to mention answers to vexing questions of the great outdoors).
Coast
Sometimes watching can be as inspiring as doing. Case in point: This weekend’s 7th Annual Reef/Sweetwater Pro-Am Surf Fest at Wrightsville Beach. Some of the best pro and amateur surfers in the world will descend on Wrightsville in one of the largest surfing competitions on the East Coast (OK, so the East Coast of the Atlantic ain’t exactly the North Shore). The action begins on Friday, runs through Sunday and includes an art and music festival at Wrightsville Beach Park on Saturday.read more
Monday — never an easy time for the outdoors enthusiast, especially come summer. After a weekend of adventure, returning to the humdrum work-a-day world can make one melancholy. To help ease this trying transition, we’re running a new feature every Monday, at least during the summer, called 90 Second Escape. Essentially, it’s a 90-second video of a place you’d probably rather be: a trail, a park, a greenway, a lake … anywhere as long as it’s in the sun. read more
Explore Wilmington — quickly — by foot; explore the Triad at 18 mph by bike; or take a mountain hike frequently interrupted by plunges into a cool mountain pools. Those are but three of your options for getting out and exploring North Carolina this weekend.read more
After Saturday’s BluePoints 5K at the Ballpark, I ran into Lew Borman milling about in the post-race/pre-awards-ceremony crowd. Borman hadn’t run — he was there supporting his son, Elliot — but he had the air of a man who had been exposed to race fever.read more
