Today, I have a story in both the Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer about the new breed of obstacle 5Ks — 5K races that throw up everything from a gauntlet of tires to a mud pit to a wall of flames to curtains of live electrical wires between you and the finish. They’ve become enormously popular in the past three years, drawing upwards of 25,000 participants. You can check out the story in either paper today, or return to this space tomorrow for an expanded version with links.
Category Archives: Running
An afternoon on Charlotte’s longest greenway
The map told me to expect a long ride. And even though it was most recent version, it couldn’t keep up with the system’s expansion. Instead of seven miles to explore, I was getting a bonus mile and a half. At 8.5 miles, I was now getting to explore the Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation greenway system’s longest stretch of interconnected trail.
The Gladiator inducts 776
The Triangle’s inaugural obstacle-infested 5K, the Gladiator, went off today at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary. Some 776 runners made the passage into Gladiatordom, battling through a gauntlet of tires, crawling under a camo tarp (barbed wire was deemed too dangerous; the Town of Cary also nixed running through a fire pit and that bane of grade school playgrounds everywhere, monkey bars), hoisting over a cargo net wall, walking a balance beam and squirming through a tarp-covered water pit, among other challenges.
This weekend, earn your Gladiator stripes
There’s a bike ride in the east, a biathlon in the west, and a survivalist 5K in between this weekend in North Carolina.
Coast
The northeast corner of North Carolina may be the best-suited part of the state for cycling: two-lane country roads meandering past forest and cotton fields with little automotive traffic to compete with. Yet how often do you find yourself riding a bike there? Not very, I’m guessing. Usually in a case like this it’s because you simply haven’t had a good excuse to explore the area. An excuse such as this Saturday’s Country Roads Bike Tour. Starting and ending in Scotland Neck, the CRBT offers routes of 20k, 50k and 100k — basically a k for every style of riding, from not-much-at-all (20k) to long greenway rides on the weekend (50K) to the hardcore recreational rider who gets in 100 miles a week (100k).
Running from old age
This morning while in the car and listening to the BBC World Service I was reminded of why I like to run.
The story was about a study revolving around two questions: At what age do you you consider yourself to be old? At what age do you stop considering yourself to be young? The question was put to people in several countries and the results differed wildly depending upon local. The British, for instance, stopped seeing themselves as young at 35 and officially old at 59. The Greeks, on the other hand, thought themselves young until 51 and not teetering into geezerhood until 68. Speculation abounded among the experts interviewed about the discrepancy. (I’ll post a link to the story when it’s posted by the BBC.)