1. How Crazy, Drunk Swedes are Stirring Up Endurance Competition: The dirt (and freezing water) behind Sweden’s premiere event, ÖTILLÖ

“Swimrunning” begins this article in Outside Online by Eric Beresini, “is quickly becoming Sweden’s hottest endurance phenomenon, thanks in no small part to an event called ÖTILLÖ (prounced ah ‘till ah), or “island to island,” in English.”

Intrigued by the concept, though I’m not sure a frigid fjord is where I’d give it a try. Basically, it’s a mix of swimming and running, from island to island, across island and island. A new twist in the adventure racing world.

Read about it here.

2. Life After Cancer: Rediscovering the Backcountry

Kate Dowden became an avid outdoors person in college. Then cancer sent her and her body back to square one. She fought back, emerging with an even greater lust for getting out. Think you don’t have time to get out over the holidays? Dowden will make you realize you must grab your opportunities when you can.

Read about it here.

3. 10 More Reasons the Pilgrims Came to America

“Everyone knows that the pilgrims left England in order to escape laws enforcing worship under the Church of England,” begins this Thanksgiving leftover. “But the truth is, that’s only one of the reasons they hoisted their tights, buckled their hats, and set sail across the Atlantic. Yes, they left as an act of dissent—but also as an act of descent. Here are the other important reasons the pilgrims came to America.”

Our favorite reason? No. 3: “No roads, just tons of singletrack.” Worthy of a quick laugh.

Read about it here.

4. The Pursuit of Happiness: Launch the new year with these simple, life-improving strategies

Striving for a happier 2014? Science — including some conducted this year at UNC Chapel Hill — says you can make it happen by following some simple recommendations. Fourteen, in fact, suggests this article by Mike Steere.

Read about it here.

5. Weekend Cabin

Weekend Cabin is a somewhat regular feature of the online Adventure Journal that appeals to those wistful moments when you dream of  a little place of your own way out in the woods. This week’s cabin at Lake O’Hara, Canada, is a pricey weekend escape, most are about more permanent diversions.

Read about it here.

The post No time to play? Then read about it appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

On a crisp afternoon in November 2009 I was hiking along Pretty Hollow Creek in the Great Smokies when I heard voices up ahead. I looked up to see three backpackers, two on the far side of the creek, a third, wearing a jester’s hat, tiptoeing her way over the creek atop a downed hemlock. The two who had successfully made the passage were offering their … encouragement to the one in transit. Then, one yelled about the last two words I was expecting to hear.

“Joe Miller!”
I squinted. It was fellow adventure guide writer Danny Bernstein.
Danny, it turned out, was just beginning her latest adventure: a section hike of the statewide Mountains-to-Sea Trail. She introduced me to her hiking mates, Carolyn Hoopes and Sharon “Smoky Scout” McCarthy, who was also attempting the entire MST. (Both would complete the trail in 2011, joining an elite group of hikers.)
We chatted for a few minutes, but they needed to get to camp four miles down the trail, I needed to get back to my car, another six miles down the line and we were rapidly losing Standard Time sunlight. We parted without my getting a chance to ask about her latest project.
She’s up to something, I was pretty sure.

What she was up to was “The Mountains-to-Sea Trail Across North Carolina: Walking a Thousand Miles through Wildness, Culture and History,” just released by Natural History Press.
Danny’s latest book is, as the subtitle suggests, a walk through the history, the culture and the wildness that you’ll find along the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, from it’s western end atop Clingman’s Dome on the Tennessee line to its sandy eastern conclusion at Jockey’s Ridge on the Atlantic. It’s an account of the 950-mile trail that is a little over half completed, and it makes a compelling case for why anyone might want to hike the part that isn’t, the part that follows a temporary route on mostly backroads, mostly in the eastern part of the state.
You have two options to learn more about Danny and her adventure. One, of course, is to buy the book. The other is to swing by Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh this Friday evening at 7:30, where she’ll be telling her story and selling her book.
Danny gives us a tease of what to expect, with this RQ5QI (Really Quick Five Question Interview). Read more in her author Q&A at Natural History Press.

* * *

Really Quick Five Question Interview

1. What section of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail would you recommend someone hike to give them a true sense of what the trail is about?

Danny Bernstein: I would recommend the Sauratown TraIL, the 20-miles between Pilot Mountain and Hanging Rock. It’s the only section of private land on the MST. I would have hoped that this would be an example for other sections of the MST, but so far no go.

2. In your Natural History Press author Q&A, you note that the trail isn’t complete — “And I hope it never will be.” Why do you say that? What’s the allure of the trail as it is?

DB: I loved walking the road. I loved meeting people, seeing how they live, seeing the cotton and tobacco fields. The  roadside cemeteries puzzled me. Why bury your family on private land?

3. Did you have the idea for this particular book — to tell the story of the MST from a historical and cultural perspective — from the outset, or did the notion occur to you along the way?

DB: When I started the MST, I knew that I would finish it. I’ve done many hiking challenges but this is the first hiking challenge where I knew before I started that I would complete. [On the others like the AT, I decided to complete it after doing many miles just for vacations.] I decided to blog about every day on the MST and those were my starting notes. Then I researched where I was going, especially once I got out of the mountains. Of course, there was a lot of serendipity, as well. I certainly couldn’t predict all that I saw.

4. Did you have a favorite day on the trail, one of those days you say to yourself, “I can’t believe I’m doing this”?

DB: Not easy. But if I had to choose, I loved walking into Eno River State Park. After miles of road walking into Durham, I slip into the park and start seeing white circles again. I wondered how many people knew what the white circles were for.

5. Again, in your Natural History Press author’s Q&A you said you hiked the entire MST, save for two bridges which you thought were too dangerous. Which bridges were they? (I’ll guess on one: Oregon Inlet.)

DB: The bridge over the Neuse River as I came out of New Bern. Six-lane divided highway and cars were zipping at 70 MPH. And yes, the Bonner Bridge over Oregon Inlet. There, my hiking partner (Sharon) and I talked to the wildlife refuge guys and they really discouraged us.

* * *

Danny Bernstein
What: Reading from her latest book, “The Mountains-to-Sea Trail Across North Carolina: Walking a thousand Miles through Wilderness, Culture & History,” Natural History Press, 2013.
When: Friday, April 5, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Quail Ridge Books & Music, 3522 Wade Ave., Raleigh. 919.828.7912
Co-sponsored by Friends of the Mountain-to-Sea Trail and Great Outdoor Provision Co.

* * *
Like us on Facebook and get health, fitness and outdoors news throughout the day.

GetGoingNC.com

Promote Your Page Too

The post Mountains-to-Sea Trail comes to Quail Ridge Friday night appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Goulding and Zinczenko are the writers of the wildly popular “Eat This Not That” series of dietary guides that succinctly and graphically help consumers chose between a Jimmy Dean Sausage, Egg and Cheese Croissant (430 calories, 740 milligrams of sodium, 29 grams of fat and 3.5 grams of transfat) and Jimmy Dean D-Lights Muffin made with Whole Grain, Turkey Sausage, Egg White & Cheese (260 calories, 840 mg sodium, 7 g of fat, 0 g of transfat). Goulding was in town (he splits his time between the office in Manhattan and his retreat on a small lake near Sanford) to catch up with friends and family, and to promote his work educating Americans on what to eat and what not to eat. It’s a vocation he — or those who know him — didn’t see coming when he left Cary High in 1999.

“No one voted me Most Likely to be a Nutritionist,” says Goulding.

He was, however, interested in food. He got his introduction to the big food industry working part-time at Macaroni Grill while at Cary High, thought he might like to be a cook, wrote a cookbook for guys about how to use the kitchen to get girls (it wasn’t published), wound up working as food and nutrition editor for Men’s Health magazine. One day at Men’s Health, the phone rang. It was a senior editor with Rodale, publisher of Men’s Health.

“He said, ‘How would you like to write a book?’” Initially, the notion sounded appealing. But as the “Eat This Not That” concept was explained, he started having doubts. “I’m not so sure this is right for me,” he told friends, who wisely counseled him that you don’t say no to such an offer (he’d already committed the faux pas of asking for the weekend to think it over). He said yes.

Expectations for the first “Eat This, Not That” were modest. “Our first press run was 20,000,” says Goulding. Those went surprisingly fast, he recalls. “Our second was 500,000.” The franchise quickly expanded to include “Cook This Not That,” “Eat This Not That For Kids,” a restaurant version and a special weight-loss version. In May, a beverage version is scheduled to be in book stores. To date, more than 5 million books have been sold in the series, there’s an iPhone app and ETNT is on Twitter.

Goulding talked about the difficulties of getting accurate nutritional analyses (some companies fudge their numbers), about the not-always-complimentary mail he and Zinczenko get (many from people defending their inalienable right to eat a Bloomin’ Onion), about the companies that take offense to having their Bloomin’ Onions portrayed in unflattering terms. Nothing surprising there.

What was surprising, was that some of ETNT’s biggest enemies have come to embrace the concept. His former employer across the parking lot, for instance.

“One day we got a call from Brad Blum, the new CEO at Macaroni Grill,” Goulding began. Macaroni Grill at the time was judged by “Eat This Not That” to be among the unhealthiest restaurants in the nation. With a wry grin, Goulding added, “He wondered if we would like to go to lunch.” Big laugh.

Turned out that Blum wanted to revisit Macaroni Grill’s menu,  introducing healthier options more true to Italian-Mediterranean cuisine. They had lunch with Blum and wound up consulting with the restaurant on its new menu. The Eat This Not That team is currently consulting with another unlikely convert: Hardees/Carl Jr.’s. The fast-food provider has actively celebrated its Thickburger line (two-third-pound Double Thickburger: 1,230 calories, 2,090 milligrams of sodium, 90 grams of fat) through TV ads showing grease dribbling down the chins of rabid consumers.

Not everyone has seen the light. On the table next to him, Goulding had brought examples of five offending restaurant foods, including ETNT’s top artery clogger, Outback’s Aussie Cheese Fries. Dubbed by “Eat This Not That” as The Worst Food in America, the appetizer tops the nutritional charts at 2,900 calories, 182 grams of fat, 240 grams of carbs. (Confession: When he got off work at Macaroni Grill, Goulding says he and his fellow busboy buds would get together and have Aussie Fries and “fruit juice”.)

Most of Sunday’s crowd was familiar with Goulding’s work. Still, such revelations drew gasps from most of the 75 or so assembled. Most, not all.

In the audience was Nick Meglin, a longtime editor at Mad magazine who retired to Durham in 2004.

“When you’re done,” asked Meglin, “can we eat the Aussie Cheese Fries?”

The post An unlikely road for Eat This Not That’s Matt Goulding appeared first on GetGoing NC!.