Get Outdoors #1: City of Raleigh Greenways

A great way to get active and burn calories is to integrate your "work-outs" into your recreation and leisure. One way to do this is to play sports, which are great, but most of the time take more than one person to be fun and sometimes it can be difficult to organize a group activity. Outdoor sports such as hiking, trail-running and mountain biking offer the flexibility of being fun individually or in groups.

I am about as much of a North Carolina native as one can be; at least part of my family arrived in the late 1700s and everyone has been from the state for a few generations. I bring this up because North Carolina lends itself particularly to outdoor pursuits, having a huge variety of different land formations and scenery to explore. I am partial to North Carolina, but you can find fun and interesting outdoor experiences anywhere and can even modify them to fit an urban setting.

City of Raleigh Greenway System
I have lived in and around Raleigh all of my life and have even worked for the City of Raleigh for a year and a half and have only discovered this greenway system in the last 2 months. Here is a link to the main greenway page on the city's webpage; about halfway down there is a map of current and planned greenways. You can run, walk, or bike almost anywhere in the city. I have ridden my bike from my house in northeast Raleigh past Crabtree Valley Mall on the northern section of east-west greenway. I have also parked at Pullen Park and ridden to and into Umstead Park (Umstead offers a lot of semi-wilderness to explore on it's on, if you haven't yet, check it out); all these trails essentially avoid roads as well if you are uncomfortable around vehicles. Many more miles of trail are currently under construction: there is planned route of the NC Museum of Art to downtown and a more northeastern trail that will invite faster moving.

If you live in Raleigh, I urge you to check out the greenways; they are very clean and well kept up and you'll see some different things.

Wherever you live, I urge you to check out your local outdoor opportunities and park systems. I have been all around the east coast to explore the outdoors and, in general, our tax dollars have lent themselves effectively to a great park system. The local, state and national parks each offer something to be enjoyed and something that you can burn calories while doing.