I had just said hello to Vic Lebsock when the inevitable happened: A woman walked up and wanted to know the status of a greenway planned through her neighborhood, a greenway years from construction, she knew, but she just had to know the latest. Lebsock excused himself and dutifully walked the woman over to an aerial map of her Lake Johnson neighborhood for “the latest.”
Category Archives: Running
Running across the state for Parkinson’s
When I saw the flier tacked to the bulletin board at the neighborhood Starbucks, I had one question. So I jotted down the name and number of the local contact and gave her a call.
“This 545-mile, 16-day Murphy to Manteo run that the three of you are doing,” I asked Lisa Tew, who lives in Fuquay-Varina, “this is a relay, right?” The flier touted a bodacious event involving three women — Tew, who is 43, Shay Mendes, 39, and 32-year-old Kristy Tomicki — who planned to run from Murphy to Manteo, a distance of 545 miles, in just 16 days starting Sept. 6. Certainly it was a relay; otherwise, that would be 34 miles per person, per day. That’s like running a marathon and a third every day for 16 days straight.
Fall goals: Set ‘em now
I was noodling around the internet a couple nights back when I came upon the the Second Empire Grand-Prix 2010 Fall Series. I started checking the races in the eight-part series, then thought, “What am I doing? I need to focus on my summer goals (a half marathon, a mountain century bike ride) before I can even start thinking about the fall.
Coaches: A two-sided tale of why they help
“Let’s see,” Alan said thumbing through his small white book of eclectic statistics, “he’s got Beech Mountain rated as the sixth toughest climb in the Southeast. It’s three and a half miles with an average grade of 9.2 percent — and a maximum of 17 percent.”
Programed to succeed
I looked up the road to the next street sign. “That’s it, right?” I asked. “Smallwood Drive?”
“That’s it,” Gavin confirmed. “Now we just have a couple hundred meters to go.”
Not what I wanted to hear on this steamy (92 degrees, 85 percent humidity) evening training run. We’d already done three mile-long fast tempo miles; this was No. 4 and I just wanted it to be over — now, not 200 meters from now. But I was running with my coach and my training group, and so, despite the militant protests by my gasping lungs and cramping legs, I poured it on for another 200 meters.