How running long miles can alter how you think
16.59 miles. This is officially my longest run to date. I've been following the Fleet Feet Carrboro/Durham full marathon training program, inching past the half marathon training distance with an additional mile each week on the long run. 14 miles was an iffy distance for a long distance PR - there has been the occasional half marathon race or training run that tracked a little long and flirted with fourteen. Fifteen miles was a definite distance PR but it didn't feel that substantial. But 16.59? When the watched screen popped up "New PR! Longest distance!" I grinned - indubitably, yes, that's my longest distance and I just crushed it.
My little leprechaun and a recap of February 2018 goals
I'm going to make a dangerously bold statement and say SPRING HAS SPRUNG! Everything around me is starting to pop out its emerald green, including Ryder! Hooray for March and new goals! Here's hoping this month is a lucky one.
27 acre woodland preserve in Carrboro offers natural trail hiking along Bolin Creek
I ran my longest distance ever this past weekend - 14 miles on Saturday morning - so on Sunday I needed a nice and easy warm-up hike with my dad before my trail run with Kelly at Carolina North. I was doing my usual scrounging around looking for green patches on Google Maps when I remembered that on the last long run in Carrboro we passed by a park sign on N Greensboro St and someone mentioned there were some trails back there. I pulled it up and sure enough: there was a little patch of green and a dotted line suggesting trails.
How running after something can make you feel alive
Sometimes when running with the training group I get this desire to sweep the pack. There's something about being at the back, chasing after everyone else ahead. Maybe I've always loved to chase things: to chase after butterflies, to chase the dogs as they sprinted through the woods like a pack of wolves, to chase a soccer ball up and down a grassy field, to chase after goals and dreams. There's something about the chase - of realizing there's something there ahead of you, to aspire to, to chase down and become. We all need that vision. We all need that something to chase.
A trail on campus at UNC-Chapel Hill offers lots of route options for hiking or trail running.
This past Sunday Kelly and I kicked off our trail running adventures (which I will affectionately call "runventures") with Battle Branch Trail. This particular trail starts at the Chapel Hill Community Center and connects to Battle Park, a 93 acre park on campus at UNC Chapel Hill. Battle Branch Trail connects Battle Park and the Chapel Hill Community Center, and you can loop various trails together in Battle Park for a range of mileage for a great hike! Great for running or hiking, it's a great addition to the Sunday Stroll series!
My (current) favorite books about running
If you love running and you love reading there's a good chance that eventually you'll end up reading books about running. There is so much to say about running - from the poetic to the scientific to the sometimes dry litany of training tips - and it's no surprise that running literature, while not a huge niche, at least has a deep bench. I started reading books about running by way of audiobooks. There's not much that will hype you up more about running on mile 8 of a long run than listening to all the benefits of running or all the love elite runners have for the sport. Check out my favorite running books I've read and the books I want to read!
Even though NC might not be a mecca for winter sports, here are some spots to try out those cool Winter Olympics moves
Growing up in a place where snow days are called whenever patches of ice form on the road it took me a long time to appreciate winter sports. What is this snow? What is this sled or skate or ski or board? If you've never been exposed to something - anything really, much less frigid temps and an insane urge to go outside and play in the ice - then it can be hard to relate to something. And yet winter sports seem so appealing. Is it the elegance of figure skaters, the frightening speed of luge, or seeing someone seem to fl in the ski jump? And yet the lack of winter weather can make winter sports seem so inaccessible.But not anymore! Check out these hot spots for cold sports in North Carolina!
Clingmans Dome to Jockey's Ridge: 680 miles of trail and over 500 miles of connecting roads
It's always a surprise when I stumble across the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. This summer I will have lived in North Carolina for twenty years and through this whole time the Mountains-to-Sea Trail has been like an old friend who keeps popping up again - someone I knew and liked throughout my life but never got to know intimately even though we share interests and keep rubbing elbows over the years.
