Health + Fitness
05.28.10
As a runner living in New York City, you might think it's challenging for me to find decent places for nice run. But the truth of the matter is that there are a ton of hot spots, whether it's in/around one of the city's many parks, or along one of the many waterfront sidewalks.
For about a year, I was a slave to the treadmill, but when I signed up for the Brooklyn Half Marathon, I knew I had to start running on uneven, outdoor ground again. (P.S. - Once I started running outdoors again, I was reminded of how infinitely more enjoyable it is this way!)
The half marathon was last weekend—I ran with a few friends/colleagues from our sister mag, Food & Wine—but now I'm craving more. That being said, I want to share a few of my favorite running routes in the city. (And, since I'm an outer-borough guy, they are not all based in Manhattan!)
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05.20.10
Anyone who travels frequently can attest: finding medical assistance while traveling in a strange city—especially in a foreign country, where language barriers can easily work against you—can be quite the challenge. But thankfully we live in an age chock full of so much convenient technology, that obstacle is becoming less of an issue.
I recently learned about an iPhone app called mPassport. It's a handy piece of software that is a wealth of information for anyone needing medical attention while away, whether it's routine or emergency service. What exactly can you do with the program?
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03.05.10
Utah and its frontiers for skiing and snowboarding have long been on my list for exploration, and my recent trip there did not disappoint. In fact, I was amazed at how easy it was to get there (a non-stop from JFK to SLC on Delta plus 35 minutes in my Enterprise rental car from the airport to Park City—with no harrowing mountain pass requiring tire chains). And it was so much fun (9,026 acres of skiing; hundreds of hotels to choose from, sunny skies, and, since 2009, no more “membership” necessary to enter a bar and buy a drink). One local told me he always felt like Park City was the redheaded stepchild of the U.S. ski areas, but I think it is soon to be (if not already) one of the favorites.
Favorite Runs:
Apex and Spider Monkey, The Canyons (lift ticket $85 a day)—trails here are generally fairly narrow, which made me feel immersed in nature, much like when I hike. Apex varies intermediate and advanced tilt down a thrilling ridge, and Spider Monkey bops beneath a cathedral of tall pines.
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02.17.10
I am like a kid in a candy store when I surf around the pages of Tour d’Afrique’s website. The eight-year-old cycling tour company has four epic trips—Tour d’Afrique, Orient Express, Silk Route, and Vuelta Sudamericana—of which you can do all or part; 26 shorter tours; and a DreamTour program in which you create your ideal, no-limits, perfect journey, and if enough people join the “Count Me In” list for your tour, TdA will add it to their roster, work out the details, and let you go on it for free.
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02.05.10
Bloomberg News | Air passengers should be made aware of the health risks of airport body screenings and governments must explain any decision to expose the public to higher levels of cancer-causing radiation, an inter-agency report said.
Pregnant women and children should not be subject to scanning, even though the radiation dose from body scanners is “extremely small,” said the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety report, which is restricted to the agencies concerned and not meant for public circulation. The group includes the European Commission, International Atomic Energy Agency, Nuclear Energy Agency and the World Health Organization.
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12.23.09
With the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and the 2010 World Cup in South Africa just around the corner, U.S. media and fans will have a flare-up in interest in world sports. Our minds open to the fact that sports aren’t just strenuous things done around leather balls and across finish lines, but also with paddles, on blades, in water, and on trampolines. Our brains reset from caring about athletes with names like LeBron and Brett, and we start to root for people named Oksana and Usain.
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12.16.09
Growing up in Marietta, Georgia, I had only one option for ice-skating: a spiritless indoor rink, where everyone in the entire state seems to come at the same time. It was practically an ice box packed with jostling skaters, some visibly sick from too much ice cream cake (the only snack offered other than pizza), and the music director assumed we would truly enjoy top 40 jams like MC Hammer's Pray in constant rotation.
Fortunately families now have alternate options.
Recently the St. Regis Atlanta (opened April 2009) started a new tradition—transforming its outdoor Grand Terrace into a festive ice skating rink.
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11.18.09
Earlier this year, a friend stumbled upon a set of photos of the derelict Overlook Mountain House outside of Woodstock in New York's Catskill Mountains. When TravelandLeisure.com published the World's Eeriest Abandoned Places last month, I was reminded of my desire to explore these ruins. So on a recent weekend getaway to the nearby town of Saugerties, a short two-hour drive north of New York City, I insisted we find the abandoned hotel, which in its prime hosted such esteemed guests as President Ulysses S. Grant, as described in a New York Times article from 1873.
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09.15.09
We globetrotters (and footwear lovers) know one of the great packing challenges is trying to squeeze that last pair of shoes—the sneakers—into a full suitcase next to the three pairs of heels we swear we can’t leave behind.
Fairmont is stepping up to the challenge, having acquired more than 5,000 pairs of sneakers across all 56 hotels from Boston to Bermuda, as part of its increasingly popular "Fairmont Fit" program.
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05.20.09
I recently returned from a trip to Los Angeles where, truth be told, I wanted nothing more than to steer clear of the typical tourist hot spots while in town. But with my having, oh shall we say, a moderate-to-borderline-obsessive interest in all things celebrity, the one thing I simply couldn’t pass up was a photo op with the infamous Hollywood sign, perched atop Mount Lee. The approach I took, however, was decidedly non-touristy.
What many people don’t realize is that you can actually hike to the very top of Mount Lee. It’s such a guarded “secret” that even the official Hollywood Sign website will have you believe it’s illegal to hike anywhere near the sign. Not the case. There are several roads—devoid of vehicular traffic, save for the sporadic security car—that wind around the mountain, one which goes to the top. As long as you stay on one of these roads, you’ll be fine—just make sure you’re off the mountain by nightfall.
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