We are in the cusp of a gorgeous weekend, at least here in the Piedmont of North Carolina. A cold front is moving through, dropping temperatures 20 degrees from the past several days. At least through Saturday, that means temperatures only in the low 60s under sunny skies.

So, as we are every Friday, we’re here to encourage you to GetOut! and enjoy. But, as we’ve had to do over the last few weeks, we’ve had to alter that message: Instead of encouraging you to get out and explore the world at large, we’ve had to rein in and encourage you to explore your more immediate world at large.

And not do it with 10 or more people.

And not get within 10 feet of one another.

On the surface, that may seem limiting. But it’s not. Odds are there’s a lot more adventure nearby than you realize. What do we mean by “nearby”? 

The Outdoor Alliance recommends traveling no more than 50 miles. That, they say, is about as far as most of us can go without having to stop for gas, for food, to go to the restroom. 

In fact, the closer to home you can keep your adventure, and more importantly, the farther you can stay away from other people, the better. 

Yesterday, we published a guide on the subject of exploring your nearby environs called, “Explore Your Neighborhood: A guide to discovering the world immediately around you in these shelter-in-place times.” You can learn more about “Explore Your Neighborhood” and buy a copy ($3.45) here. 

A few tips from the guide to help with your shelter-in-place weekend adventures:

• Google Map your neighborhood. Call up your neighborhood, use the Distance tool to determine how far out you’re comfortable walking, see what lies within that zone. 
• Look for streams and other waterways in your neighborhood. They may not have official trails, but they may well have unofficial trails forged by game and people fishing.
• Pick your time of day wisely. If you live in a more populated neighborhood, head out at a time when your neighbors are less likely to be out. Early morning, for instance. Or later in the evening. Or when it’s raining (really!).
• Take time to take in what you’re looking at. You’ve got loads of time, right? Don’t rush yourself.
• Don’t trespass. If an undeveloped tract of land is marked with “No trespassing” signs, or if a greenspace is closed due to the coronavirus, move on.
• Don’t take risks. The last thing you or anyone wants is for you to get injured and have to call in emergency personnel, who have their hands full already.

That said, get outside this weekend and enjoy. You need it.

Explore Your Neighborhood

For help on exploring your own backyard:

Morning Walk with Joe. Join us every weekday morning at 7:30 (and a little later on most weekend mornings) for Morning Walk with Joe on Facebook Live. It’s 10 minutes or so of Joe’s morning walk, no 10 minutes of which are the same. It’s another opportunity to pick up tips on how to make the most of your neighborhood adventures. Catch it here.

“Explore Your Neighborhood.” Again, our 44-page guide helps you make the most of your neighborhood adventures. Learn more and buy a copy ($3.45) here.

The post GetOut! Explore Your Neighborhood this weekend appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

When I was in my late 20s, I worked as a technical writer for a military contractor. I liked the work; trouble was, because it was a military contract, there were long stretches where there was no work to be done while we awaited approvals.

Oddly, it was one of the most stressful jobs I’ve had, the stress of having to look busy being much worse than actually being busy. To maintain my sanity, I would take advantage of my lunch hour (a true lunch hour, a corporate relic of the 20th century) and drive to a nearby park where I would read, walk, explore. I’m positive those hour-long escapes allowed me to survive a year of “not working.”

Three decades and I find myself again employing these hour-long escapes to save my sanity from quite the opposite situation. Year-end deadlines, planning for 2017, and dealing with the demands of the holidays all demand that I carve out an hour of mid-day outside time to keep my wits.

 A whole hour!? In the middle of the workday — at this time of year!?!?

It does seem counterintuitive. But think about how you’re often feeling around noon. Sluggish, like you need a nap. Instead, you go out for lunch, after which you feel even more in need of curling up under your desk. How much are you getting done if that’s the case?

Exercise, according to research cited by WebMD.com, is the perfect antidote to fatigue.

“More than 90% of the studies showed the same thing: Sedentary people who completed a regular exercise program reported improved fatigue compared to groups that did not exercise,” researcher Patrick O’Connor tells WebMD. “It’s a very consistent effect.”

Exercise in the outdoors carries with it an extra boost of energy: the positive effects of being outdoors are well documented, from improving your outlook (I’ll never get everything done” to “If I do this and this and this … I might just make it”) to improving focus (“Squirrel!”).

Here’s what I do. First, I called up Google Maps and searched for green spots near my Durham office. I was hoping to not have to drive more than 10 minutes (20 minutes roundtrip, or a third of my allotted hour); as luck would have it, I identified four escapes within 5 minutes of my Durham office: Hollow Rock Nature Park, Sandy Creek Park, Duke’s Al Buehler Cross-Country Trail, and a half dozen access points to Duke Forest off NC 751. Ten minutes of driving, leaving 50 to lose myself in these embedded urban escapes.

Each escape varies. At Al Buehler, I typically run (my 50-minute window allows the luxury of walking when the urge hits). Sandy Creek (located atop an old sewage treatment plant site) is better suited to meandering and getting lost in microscopic observations. Hollow Rock’s mile-and-a-half of trail is perfect for a non-hurried, 50-minute, stop-and-smell-the-whatever-that-is stroll. Duke Forest is yet-to-be-explored: the forest is closed to the public Monday through Friday for deer hunting through Dec. 16.

Not that I’m bound to the above regimens. One day last week I hiked perhaps a quarter of a mile to a large outcrop overlooking New Hope Creek. The sky was mostly blue, and while there was a chill in the air, the sun warmed the exposed the rock. I settled in for a thought-free half hour of watching the creek slowly meander by.

Maybe you can’t carve out an hour every day. If you can only do it once or twice a week, take advantage. Just knowing the life preserve is out there is sometimes enough.

The post Monday, Monday: An hour a day  appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Teased into resuming your outdoor workouts by our recent three-day run of temperatures in the 70s? Even though the temperature isn’t supposed to get much above 45 today, that doesn’t mean you have to revert to your troglodyte was of suffering through another session on your basement trainer, or sweating to the oldies with little Richard. You may have to keep your shorts and T-shirts in the closet, but observe a few easy rules of cold weather outdoor engagement and the outdoors can be your playground on all but the coldest of days. Which is a good place to start.

How cold is too cold? We put that question to Hope Choplin, a fitness specialist with WakeMed’s Healthworks program and her answer was encouraging, at least for folks living in balmy Zone 8 of the USDA’s gardening hardiness estimations.

“It is safe for most people to exercise outside if the air temperature, including the wind chill, is greater than -25 degrees,” says Choplin. Older folks and those with respiratory and heart issues should be more observant of cold temperatures, but even then, she says, they should be good down to -5 F.

Runners and other heavy breathers (when it comes to exercise) should be more cautious in the cold. But generally because of their increased lung capacity and better overall condition, they should be good.

Warm up to warming up. Warming up is even more important in the cold, says Choplin. “The warm-up is always a crucial part of the workout, but this is especially true in cold weather.”

“Your blood goes from your extremities to your heart and core, to keep your vital organs warm,” she explains. “Using your large muscle groups — your arms, your legs legs — gets your heart rate up and your blood out to muscles.”

Also, it’s best to warm up inside, in the warmth, before heading out.

What to wear, what to wear? “Avoid overdressing,” advises Choplin. “Our bodies produce heat during exercise and can overheat if too much is worn.” Which raises the question of which is better: Dress your core lightly but wear gloves and a hat, or wear tights and a long-sleeve fleece? Either works, she says: “We lose heat evenly throughout our body.” And, as expected, Choplin is an advocate of layering. “Wear two to three layers, including a thin inner layer that will wick the sweat away from your body, a lightweight second layer and, if you need it, a heavier outer layer. If it’s wet out, make sure that outer layer is waterproof or water repellant to keep you dry.”

There is no one-size-fits-all advise when it comes to layering, she says. “You just have to experiment and see what works for you.”

Shorten your workout (at least initially). Your body needs to adjust to the cold, so ease into your cold weather workouts. “Go our for a little less time than normal and plan to stay closer to home.”
Feel the caloric burrrrrrn. One advantage to a cold weather workout: Not only is your body burning calories to keep you moving, it’s burning calories to keep you warm. Thus, you might want to fuel up a little more than usual before a cold weather workout. “Eat a snack before heading out,” Choplin advises. “Maybe something with a little peanut butter.”

Slow down. A cold weather workout can be more stressful on your body. “Slow your pace,” advises, Choplin. “Exercise less intensely.”

Look at your cold weather workout as a bonus, she suggests. If you have to cut it short, if you have to scale it back it’s not a big deal. Injuring yourself as a result of the cold, on the other hand, can be.

“Listen to your body,” she adds. “If something doesn’t feel right, pay attention.”

The post Going for cold after being teased by warmth appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

I can’t remember where we were — the middle of Nebraska? the middle of Missouri? — but it was time to visit another rest stop. We’d been driving for a day and a half, a day and a half and twelve hundred miles of sitting with virtually no exercise. My body was starting to petrify, my mood was increasingly surly. Marcy hopped out, opened the rear hatch of the M5, rooted around for a moment, then emerged with the antidote.

A hula hoop.

Exercising on a road trip is an oft-discussed, little-acted-upon phenomenon. LizzyGMobile makes underappreciated videos (6 views as of yesterday) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R61g57MfgYw on the subject, and truckers’ forums touch on the topic from time to time. http://www.truckersforum.net/forum/f18/get-out-exercise-rest-stops-5506/ Yet a GetGoingNC/Google investigation revealed that no states appear to incorporate exercise into their rest areas, despite offering everything from snack bars to wifi, according to the Interstate Rest Area Guide. http://www.roundaboutpublications.com/ebooks/index.php?recid=1&maincat_id=1&page=1

Thus, it’s up to you to make your own RAW — rest area workout.

The trick is to get some movement going, to get the blood flowing, the muscles engaged, the back realigned — without conjuring a sweat that will stick with you to Topeka. That’s one reason we like hooping. A recent study by the American Council on Exercise found: “Hooping is an excellent form of exercise that compares pretty favorably with most other group classes” — boot-camp, step aerobics, cardio kickboxing — “in terms of heart rate and calorie burn.” (Read the entire study here.) Plus, while your gyrations may warrant a curious glance or two, unlike with a bout of rest stop cardio-kickboxing, you likely won’t get a visit from the rest stop SWAT team.

An even greater plus: the rhythmic nature of hula hooping is a great way to ease the stress of driving and dissipate a potential case of road rage. And there’s surprisingly little collateral sweat.

Hula hoop: Add it to your packing list this Labor Day weekend.

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“I have rheumatoid arthritis,” says the 59-year-old Raleigh resident.

She found a solution less than five minutes from her front door: at the Optimist Park Pool.

“I came over one day and asked to see the pool,” says Lackey. “They were real friendly.”  And she discovered that the walking she tried to do around her neighborhood was so much easier on her joints in three feet of water.

Today, Lackey walks in the pool for one hour, three times a week. She’s dropped a dress size, she’s more limber, her joint pain has diminished, she sleeps at night and she’s taken the next step in her water rehab: She’s learning to swim.

Lackey’s example is a reminder to the estimated 50 million U.S. adults who suffer from arthritis: exercise can help.

“People who have arthritis are often scared to exercise because they think they will hurt themselves, but the condition will only get worse if people don’t get moving,” Valerie Walkowiak, medical integration coordinator at the Loyola Center for Fitness in Maywood, Ill.

Walkowiak says all all arthritis sufferers can benefit from some form of exercise, be it osteoarthritis — the most common form, in which cartilage deteriorates, leaving joints with no cushion between bones — and rheumatoid arthritis, in which inflammation causes joints to lose shape and alignment.

Some quick tips:

• All types of arthritis can benefit from stretching, to increase range of movement.
• Lifting light weights is good for building muscle strength, which can take pressure off joints.
• Aerobic exercise, such as walking is good. Start slow, she advises, with 10 to 15 minutes of exercise a day. “As your body adapts to the new routine, gradually increase duration to 30 to 45 minutes.”
• Other good exercise options for the arthritic: water aerobics, stationary cycling, gardening, swimming, yoga and Tai-Chi.

Walkowiak says to consult your doctor before starting an exercise routine. To optimize your results, she advises working with a therapist or personal trainer.

Lackey is sold on her new exercise routine, a routine that keeps on giving. The lack of pain she experiences from her one-hour water walks lingers for a good day or two.

“Oh, I feel good,” she beams. “I feel wonderful.”

Photo: Pools are especially good workout venues for arthritis sufferers.

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