Hiking, biking and ziplining

Whether you like hiking, biking or zipping through the air praying you won't die, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area has an outdoor facility to fit your needs and often your budget.

This area caters to outdoor enthusiasts because of amenities at places such as the Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation's extensive facilities and the U.S. National Whitewater Center. Then there are natural attractions such as the surrounding mountains and lakes that provide ample reasons to go outside and play.

Andy Phin, co-founder of Charlotte Outdoor Association, helps outdoor enthusiasts and newbies take advantage of the outdoor opportunities. The group sponsors dozens of outdoor events each week from hiking to canoeing. He said the region's mild weather makes it easy to stay active outdoors all year.

"We have so many greenways and parks," said Andy Phin, co-founder of the Charlotte Outdoor Adventures (CHOA). "I love to do all of the kayaking."

CHOA sponsors kayaking trips, but the Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation also offers kayaking excursions.

The best resource for information about Park and Rec programs is on the comprehensive Web site www.parkandrec.com. With about 210 facilities and 30 area recreation centers, the county's park system offers the widest variety of outdoor activities for the region. Along with its diverse selection of activities and facilities, the best thing about Park and Rec programs is most are affordable or free.

One of the most popular park system attractions is the greenway system. A greenway is a 10-foot-wide paved trail that winds through vegetation and sometimes past creeks. The trails are popular among bikers, joggers and walkers. There are 33 miles of developed and 147 miles of undeveloped greenways in Mecklenburg County.

For the competitive outdoor person, Park and Rec's athletic facilities and recreation centers offer a variety of organized sports from basketball to flag football. The system also has five golf courses, and more than 100 tennis courts. Another system attraction is disc golf, which involves throwing discs at a target. The county has about a dozen courses in various parks. Most offer 18 playing holes.

Ginny Guedes, 29, and her friend Chris Lewis, 28, both of Cornelius, play nearly every day. Guedes likes playing at Hornets Nest Park because it's convenient and challenges her.

"Charlotte is really a mecca for disc golf," Guedes said. "People just don't realize how lucky we are."

If land isn't your thing, there are a variety of water sports available in the region. Water activities range from kid-filled water parks to neighborhood pools. Fresh water enthusiasts will enjoy kayaking or canoeing on area lakes such as Lake Wylie or Mountain Island Lake.

Those who enjoy the thrill of navigating rapids can test their skills at the U.S. National Whitewater Center. It's a non-profit outdoor recreation facility that has whitewater rafting, canoeing and kayaking. The man-made pond boasts Class II to IV rapids. Paddlers can bring their canoes and kayaks or rent equipment. The three-year-old center sits on 307 acres near the Catawba River off Interstate 85 South.

To challenge experienced paddlers, the center increases the water volume coming down the channels on Wednesday evenings, said executive director Jeff Wise. This makes the rapids even more powerful.

"We're always looking for new things that are exciting," he said.
Another adrenaline rush is the center's new ziplines. They're 32 feet above land. Riders zoom from the back of the top competition channel, over the bottom pond, up the wilderness channel and ends at the island.

Wise said the ziplines have been extremely popular.

"People are not as intimidated by the zipline," Wise said. "Zipline is more like a ride, get clipped in and you just go."

The center also features hiking and mountain biking trails, and extensive climbing walls. The walls cover about 5,500 square feet of varied surfaces. There are more than 40 roped climbs for climbers of all skill levels.

"The facility is really a lifestyle center," Wise said.

And, Charlotte is a lifestyle city where residents can work, live and play – indoors or outdoors. Mecklenburg County Park and Rec has about 210 facilities and 30 area recreation centers with everything from kayaking to tennis. In September, Park and Rec publishes its bi-annual activity guide Get Going, which is also available online. Park and Rec has a comprehensive Web site that allows users to search and register for events. www.parkandrec.com.

The U.S. National Whitewater Center provides a full day of fun for everyone from paddling rapids to biking the trails. The center offers lessons for various activities and hosts scheduled events and competitions. 704-391-3900. 5000 Whitewater Center Parkway www.usnwc.org. Inner Peaks Climbing Center boasts 8,000 square feet of climbing wall that reach 25 feet high. Advanced climbers use it as a training facility, but the facility also offers options for novices and kids. 704-844-6677. 9535 Monroe Road, Ste 170. www.innerpeaks.com.

Crowders Mountain State Park is just across the border in Gaston County. It has more than 15 miles of trails for the casual and advanced hiker. The park also has primitive – extremely primitive – camping. For climbers, the park has 150 routes. Located off Interstate 85 South Exit 13, in Kings Mountain. www.crowdersmountain.com/v1/general.asp.

Bootcamps provide extra motivation

At Crown Point Elementary School, the three women looked at the steep hill warily. Jennah Hardy grinned malevolently. Participants in her Rock Hard Bootcamp had just finished running through ladder rungs and around cones for 30 minutes. After running they curled PVC tube filled with sand or pushed sand-filled tubes above their heads to work their shoulders.

Their muscles screamed.

And now, Hardy wanted them to climb the kind of hill you sled down, not run up. Actually, running up the hill would’ve been too easy. No, Hardy wanted them to lunge up the hill instead. Slowly, the women stepped one foot forward and dropped their opposite knee toward the ground.

Lunging up a hill. Who does that?

Jennah Hardy.

And it’s Hardy’s creativity – or insanity – that keeps Marti Stegall, 44, coming back to Hardy’s bootcamp each week. This is Stegall’s second time doing the three-week camp and she loves Hardy’s creativity.

"I don’t know if we’ve ever done the same exercise twice," Stegall says. She’s always got something new and different in the hopper."

Stegall, like many people, turned to bootcamps to get and stay in shape. Television shows such as "The Biggest Loser" and "Celebrity Fit" club have made getting in shape for the average person chic. Unlike fitness infomercials which show ripped bodies, reality shows depict everyday people and B-list celebrities struggling with their weight. The shows often use a bootcamp format of outdoor activities and group exercises to train contestants.

Tim Lenchzowski, director of marketing for Atlanta-based Operation Bootcamp, said reality shows motivate viewers. People see these contestants who are sometimes extremely overweight, but they’re spending hours in the gym. The contestants’ determination inspires other people to spend an hour a day working out, he said.

"They’re not as fearful, not as resistant to start their own program," he says.

In Charlotte, about a dozen bootcamps have sprouted up in the last few years as more people seek alternatives to personal trainers and gym memberships. The camps can be found in parks, schools and gyms from NoDa to Uptown to southern Mecklenburg County. Most are in the early mornings, but there are a few in the afternoons.

Participants range in age from their 20s to people over 50s and are typically women. Some are moms who want to get back in shape after having a baby. Others are professionals whose work schedules leave little time or energy for the gym. Bootcampers range from participants who work out at a gym to people who don’t know when was the last time they saw their gym card to some who loathe gyms.

"I hate the gym," says Angela Sparacino, 30. "I always felt like I didn’t know what I was doing. I was wandering around, staring at the machines and just feeling like I wasn’t getting the most out of the time I was spending there."

Sparacino is participating in Operation Bootcamp, which meets at Latta Park in Dilworth. The Charlotte camp, owned by Christen Lewis, is one of 56 franchises for the Atlanta-based company. While many people use bootcamps to kickoff a plan to get back in shape, Sparacino and other others use it as their main form of exercise. As a result, local bootcamp operators say they have numerous repeat customers. Retention is good, but it makes it tough to challenge participants.

During a July workout, the Operation Bootcamp instructor made the dozen or so participants crab walk down a basketball court at Latta Park. Then they had to lunge-walk along the sidewalks. Then do pushups with a pause on the way up and down. And that was only on the second day.

At Operation Bootcamp, instructors use a mix of strength training with resistance bands and bodyweight exercises as well as cardio blasts, such as sprints. The worst is sprinting while someone holds a resistance band around your waist. Talk about hard.

Christen Lewis, 30, started the Charlotte franchise of Operation Bootcamp in March. She and her husband Chris moved to Cornelius from Orange County, Calif. late last year. On the West Coast, Lewis worked as a personal trainer and also participated in bootcamps. When she and her husband Chris moved to Charlotte, she decided to open a bootcamp because she enjoyed the workouts and camaraderie.

Bootcamp is for the person who wants to get in shape, but doesn’t know what to do on their own and doesn’t want to pay an average of $50 a day for a personal trainer, Lewis said. With a personal trainer, a customer typically sees their trainer once a week and then workout on their own. Bootcamps meet several days a week. Operation Bootcamp is four days a week for four weeks. Lewis also holds occasional free weekend camps. Lewis says bootcamps aren't the best exercise option for all people, but it’s perfect people who need motivation.

"It’s for the person who has that gym membership and can’t motivate themselves to go and needs that someone checking in with them everyday and will miss them if they’re not there," Lewis says.

Jessica Crowell, 24, is one oft those people. She worked out a "million" times a day in college, but her job as a bank analyst drained her. Her crazy work schedule makes it difficult to workout in the evenings, she said. Trying to make herself wake up at 5 a.m. to go to the gym wasn’t happening, so Crowell signed up for Operation Bootcamp with friends.

"It’s just really hard to motivate yourself when you have so many other things you have to do," she says.

Sgt. Roy Lewis uses a mix of exercise and inspiration to motivate his participants. He’s an Army drill sergeant and he uses military principles of honor and integrity to push his campers.

"Being a drill sergeant is more than getting in people’s face and screaming at them," he says. "You’ve got to be able to motivate them to find out what makes them click and get them to do what they never thought they would do."

He applies that philosophy to his bootcamp, which he started at the Dowd YMCA 10 years ago. Now, he operates the bootcamp independently and by contract for the YMCA. His camp is one week, it’s offered nearly once a month. His workouts typically include sprints, short-distance running, calisthenics, strength training and team-building exercises. One year, participants carried a log down Morehead Street.

Brenda Murray, 58, remembers the time Sgt. Roy made them climb 40 flights of stairs. She didn’t think she could make it, but he ran along side her. He encourage her to visualize her personal goal and see herself reaching it as she climbed each step.

"It really forces me to push my limits, to kind of break through my limits to try and reach a higher level of fitness," said Murray, who has attended the camps since he started 10 years ago. “It’s just a phenomenal experience."

In Mint Hill at her Rock Hard camp, Jennah Hardy uses everything from the hills that make participants cringe to PVC tubes to keep her workouts fresh.

"I use obscene things, like tires," she says. "We do crazy playground workouts. That kind of thing you’re not going to see in the gym."

Hardy started the bootcamp after teaching an athletic conditioning class at the Morrison YMCA for a couple of years. Many of her clients are members of the YMCA. Hardy has been a personal trainer for eight years and she started her monthly bootcamp three years ago. It grew out of her personal training work with seven women. Hardy watched the women form a friendship around the workouts.

"They were encouraging each other," she says. "They were motivating. It’s almost like it was more fun."

The workouts are fun, Marti Stegall says, especially when friends participate. Stegall started doing the bootcamps earlier this summer after she lost her job at the YMCA. Although, she worked at the Y, she rarely worked out. Her job and her family kept her from using the gym, she said.

"It does make you feel guilty when there’s 10,000 square feet of fitness space in a building and you don’t take advantage of it," she says.

Stegall says over the years, she’s worked out inconsistently. For example, she ran a half-marathon in February 2007, but then changes at work took her out of her groove.

"I’ve always been on that roller coaster ride," she says. "Sometimes I’m in a great place. Other times I’m not giving it much."

Hardy’s bootcamp has inspired her to stick with it, she says. She took her exercise ball and dumbbells on her recent vacation to Ocean Isles Beach. She walked, biked or ran nearly everyday.

"I just feel too good right now," she said.



Operation Bootcamp –
Owner: Christen Lewis owns the Charlotte franchise.
Where: Latta Park in Dilworth. Plans to open a south Charlotte location this fall.
Length: Four weeks. Four to five days a week.
Hours: 5:45 a.m. – 6:30 a.m.
Cost: $275 - $350.
Info: 888-7-FITNOW, www.operationbootcamp.com

Rock Hard Fitness
Owner: Jennah Hardy
Where: Crown Point Elementary School in Mint Hill and her nearby home studio.
Length: Three weeks. Three days a week.
Hours: 6 a.m. – 7 a.m.
Cost: $145.
Info: 704-839-6331. www.strive4life.com

Sgt. Roy’s Bootcamp
Owner: Roy Lewis
Where: Different locations uptown
Length: One week
Hours: 5:45 a.m. – 7 a.m.
Cost: $45.
Info: 980-225-4053. www.sgtroy.com/bootcamp.html